The Cult of Trumpism

In 2012, when President Barack Obama was running for his second term, I said to a friend who was working on his campaign: “The Democrats need to stop treating him like a monarch who can’t be criticized.”

It was the beginning of cancel culture, and if you dared to criticize any Obama policy you were treated as though you had said something racist, which is of course racist itself, but the left, which had already abandoned classical liberalism, couldn’t understand that. They also didn’t understand that in a democracy, it is our duty as citizens to hold all politicians accountable, whether we voted for them or not. 

A dozen years later we now have a Republican in the White House, and if you dare utter a word of criticism his most fervent fans will immediately call you a “moron,” “libtard” and, if you happen to be female, “emotionally hysterical.” The latter is part of the right’s neo-misogyny, echoing Andrew Tate’s movement to view all women as sex slaves.

As a classical liberal who has taken a decade of heat for daring to point out the multiple ways the left has become illiberal, I have to admit to, well, shock at the response of the right to the tiniest of criticism of President Trump. In my first post on Facebook about Trump’s misdeeds in Qatar, I was hit with what could only be called a gang attack from nasty, intellectually challenged Trump fanatics.

The right has now become a mirror image of the left, but in a very different way. The intense conformity on the left stems from a desire for ideological orthodoxy or “purity,” precisely the opposite of classical liberalism. On the right, Trump’s supporters worship him like a cult leader: no matter what he says or does, he can do no wrong. And if you dare offer the slightest bit of criticism, they are intent on beheading you, learning quickly from their new Islamist friends in Qatar.

This is taking our already hyperpolarized country to the next level. I suppose if I lived in a red state, I could be shot for daring to say that we shouldn’t be snuggling up to a state sponsor of terror (Qatar), let alone actual terrorists (Syria). The fact that Qatar has spent nearly $40 billion since 2012 trying to indoctrinate both our kids and Congress on the “beauty” of jihad and the “evil” of Israel suddenly doesn’t matter to those on the right who complain non-stop about our universities.

If Trump says it’s “spectacular,” then it must be spectacular! And if you can’t understand that, “you” are the problem.

One would think that this level of idolatry would be anathema for Jews. But Jews are some of Trump’s most rabid fans. Even when Trump does and says things that are potentially harmful to Israel. Just yesterday these Jews on the far right were mocking Jews on the far left for claiming authority “as a Jew.” Now Trump cultists are basically saying the same thing, defending Trump’s passionate hook-ups in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and even his deceptive claim that “a lot of people are starving” in Gaza.

Trump has become the golden calf who can do no wrong. Precisely as he predicted in 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” But not on Fifth Avenue. New Yorkers, Jewish and not, are furious with his sudden love for the jihadists who tried to destroy this city. 

Last week I saw the excellent new film “Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny.” Arendt is a controversial figure in the Jewish world, largely because of her phrase “the banality of evil.” The film provides some insight into why she would discount the glee of the Nazis — the same glee Qatari-funded Islamists are so proud of they actually film themselves raping, murdering, beheading.

The discussion afterward focused more on her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism” and its relevance today. I thought there were a few inappropriate comparisons to the 1930s, but one that can’t be discounted: mass conformity and incessant lies that are accepted without thinking.

We now have that on both sides. Are we heading toward a new form of totalitarianism, where the left seeks to control every facet of our private lives while the neo-reactionary right seeks control over our public lives? Perhaps. Or civil war. 

But nearly 100 years later we are able to recognize what’s happening, bravely call it out, and put an end to it — on both sides. As Jews who have lived through tyranny in one form or another, we have a moral obligation to stop this level of political, social, and cultural conformity before it’s too late. 

Mass worship of the golden calf — whether in the form of Instaporn or Trump — will always lead to a type of evil that is far from banal.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.