This week I have been thinking about a commentary that suggests that lots of organizations "live" on a scale of "cultishness," ranging from full on drink-the-Cool-Aid to the sort of temporary cult behavior we see at a high school pep assembly.
The essay by Peter Sagal (who I know mostly as the host of NPR's "Wait, wait... don't tell me") argues that there is no reason to attempt to argue with a cult member and he treated the MAGA Trump fanatics as de facto cult members. That point helps explain why no matter what Trump, the cult leader, does, his popularity seems to endure. If you are not in the cult, your opinion may be hardened in the other direction, of course, but American politics are fouled up enough that the country remains in danger of becoming damaged by a minority cult.
Last night we watched the Arapahoe-Heritage volleyball match at Heritage and the loud and enthusiastic chanting and cheering and jeering from the two student sections was both funny and illuminating. After all, it's always fun to observe groups you are not part of being silly and a bit crazed. That's why high school students find it endlessly amusing when a teacher loses his or her cool due to behaviors or job pressures. It may also explain why any fight in the halls immediately draws a crowd of onlookers.
The truth of the matter is that the two schools are in the same district and only a few miles apart. The truth is that the two student bodies could be swapped overnight and an outside observer could not discern any differences. The truth is that many of those students are friends outside the gym or football stadium (and tonight is the AHS-HHS football game, where the crowds will be even larger and more deranged).
I often mentioned to students how odd it was that an accident of geographic location can produce such a strong us vs. them reaction among otherwise reasonable human beings. In a crowd of our peers, it is almost irresistible to join in with the prevailing hate or anger or love or joy. It's positively invigorating. It's fun. It makes us feel, even if just for a few minutes, that we are connected in mysterious and profound ways.
This Sunday we will attend the very opposite of a high school pep rally -- St. Luke's United Methodist Church -- and engage in behavior that can only be described as lying somewhere along the cultish behavior continuum. We will sing what appears on the screen. We will join in group prayers. We will sit politely during the sermon, though our minds may or may not wander. There are lots of things we won't talk about and lots of diction that we will avoid.
No one needs to be told not to smoke in church.
It helps me to think of the millions of Trump fanatics as a cult that is simply closer to the "batshit crazy" end of the cult continuum. It helps me even more to consider that the age group that is most likely to support Trump is over age 65. The cult's support is lowest among the youngest voters.
Sagal argues that those age differences mean the cult of Trump will eventually end... literally dying off. It may take years, but the change must come.
Of course, my fervent hope is that Trump has a stroke or simply keels over from a heart attack (see why I need to spend time in a church?). Cults break up much faster once the leader is gone. By definition, cults depend upon the entertaining/inspiring leader, and once that leader is removed from the scene, cult members begin to shed their former passionate beliefs and slowly return to normalcy, as if waking from a fever dream.
Or they simply die. Either way, the cult fades away.
Sagal shares that many cult experts who have studied "deprogramming" are skeptical that much can be done about the millions of rabid, red-hatted Americans who claim they are fine voting for a debased and indicted (and even convicted) leader.
But our neighbors who now live in the cult -- a cult that did not really exist prior to about eight years ago -- may even now be silently finding ways to embrace their love of football or nature or pinochle. No one eagerly fesses up to being a former cult member, to being fooled and taken advantage of by a charlatan.
But the vast majority of people prefer some sort of normal life.
I just hope I can live long enough to see the inevitable change happen.
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