Among my guilty pleasures is the enjoyment of science fiction and fantasy literature. I have been an avid reader of such material at least since I was 12. At that age I was thrilled by the written depictions of imaginary planets and civilizations and the heroic actions taken by adventurers of the Buck Rogers ilk. I still admire such invention but I also enjoy finding subtexts that my adolescent self would probably have missed.
Recently in the midst of a story of the swashbuckling sort I was pleasantly surprised to find an excellent elucidation of cult behavior. I have no doubt it was inspired by the credulity of people who still against all reason believe Donald Trump to be an honest person and viable candidate for political office.
In the book's context the cultists are a race of people who believe themselves to be inherently superior to all others, hence the reference to a "superiority obsession." I've not edited the selection below lest I be criticized for twisting the author's intention to fit my own purpose. But replace the phrase "superiority obsession" with any name or political idea and you have a handy, virtually universal explication of how cults work:
Like any cult, the doctrine seemed transparently foolish from the outside, the ideology crumbling at the first sign of critical thought. Their superiority obsession was clearly nonsensical, falling apart when contrasted with almost any information not sourced from their own insular community. But to those born and raised in a cult, or who had found something in it that filled a deep need, the incongruities didn't matter. They had been primed from the beginning to ignore the lies of outsiders, however compelling they might seem. But when they were forced to confront those problems, they did not rationally accept what the outsiders saw as logical, self-evident conclusions. They got angry and they got violent.¹
In previous posts I have cited George Orwell's concept of doublethink in an attempt to make sense of how educated and/or high-placed individuals could be taken in by Trump's lies. I am beginning to think I might have been engaging in some unconscious apologia, trying to explain to myself how seemingly intelligent people could have been taken in.
If so, I was deluding myself. Deverell's flat comment, "the incongruities didn't matter," hits the nail far more precisely. His final words about cultists getting mad and violent when challenged are true to the Trumpian and Republican form.
The Trump disease disallows conversation in favor of bullying, badgering and intimidation, and debate in favor of deceit, inveigling and obfuscation. Trump is incapable of engaging in discourse; his language skills and behavior are stalled at a grade school level. When challenged he walks away or attacks. He calls his opponents names and uses foul language and obscene phrases to insult and belittle them.
It is beyond reason and belief that a sizeable body of Americans have come to find this behavior acceptable in a public figure. There is a word for it: brainwashing. Democrats and the media need to begin using it.
Brainwashing allows for no deviation--it is Trump's way or the highway, and no one who has drunk the Trump Kool-Aid is going to choose the highway.
As I was writing this, a three-judge federal appeals panel ruled that Trump has no immunity from prosecution for his insurrection-related actions of Jan. 6, 2021. This will almost certainly not be the final word from the courts as the case lurches forward, but each decision against Trump is a chink in his wall of perceived impregnability.
Today, 8 February, a date which may or may not be added to the infamous dates in the Supreme Court annals, the justices are hearing arguments in the so-called Fourteenth Amendment case. As I am sure you know, the states of Colorado and Maine have ruled that Donald Trump's name will not appear on their ballots in the November general election. The Colorado case is the one before the Court.
The case is being played up in the media by pundits and "experts" as excessively complicated. Having a simple mind, however, I have determined that the argument for the case can be reduced to a simple statement.
The writer of Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment went to some lengths to name the kinds of people who might be banned from elections due to participation in an insurrection. No list of anything is truly exhaustive, and the list of banned persons has to be understood for what it is: a set of examples of the types of people who could be banned from holding office; not a complete list of all such persons.
In fact, Section 3 can be reduced to a simple declarative sentence by removing the flowery language and lists of examples. Here is its core language:
No person shall . . . hold any office . . . under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath . . . to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.²
There it is: simple, straightforward and unambiguous.
If the justices of the Supreme Court can dredge up some of their misplaced honor and recall their sworn duty to the constitution and the American people, Colorado, and by extension the rest of us, will prevail.
--- Diogenes, 8 February 2024
¹ Deverell, Travis, aka Shirtaloon, He Who Fights with Monsters, Book 9, pp. 620-622. 2023, Aethon Books, www.aethonbooks.com.
² The full text of the Constitution and amendments is at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs.
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