- The GOP fostered a personality cult around Trump, similar to authoritarian regimes.
- The party is defined by the worship of Trump, rather than distancing himself from him after the Jan. 6 fatal riot.
- “‘Getting unpunished’ has always been at the center of Trump’s brand,” an expert told Insider.
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The 2021 GOP is increasingly defined by the worship of Donald Trump, as the party develops a cult of personality around a former president who left the White House in disgrace less than two months ago. Experts warn that this poses a continuing threat to democracy in the United States – as evidenced by the attack on the Capitol he fueled.
Trump became the supreme leader of the GOP five years ago. The GOP did not even bother to launch a new party platform in 2020, but instead promised to “enthusiastically” support Trump. But Trump’s cult of personality resisted his disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic that killed more than 400,000 during his tenure, the economic crisis and job losses that came with it, and his defeat in the 2020 elections.
“Whatever Trump decides to do personally about his political future, the fact that Republican lawmakers continue to carry out his acts of loyalty to him on television is not a good omen for the health of our democracy,” historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat and New York University expert on fascism, said the Insider.
Trump was accused of inciting the fatal uprising on January 6, but the Senate’s loyal Republicans ensured he was acquitted. This left the door open for Trump to run for president again in 2024.
Jason Stanley, a professor of philosophy at Yale University and author of “How Fascism Works”, recently told Insider that Trump’s acquittal has shown that authoritarianism remains a “potent force” in the United States.
In his post-presidency, Trump is still actively promoting “the big lie” that the election he lost by more than seven million votes was “stolen” – an allegation that has not stood up in the country’s courts. The GOP is not only on Trump’s side as he perpetuates a falsehood that fueled deadly violence in the nation’s capital and led tech companies to remove his social media megaphone, they continue to make him the star of the show.
Meanwhile, pro-Trump conspiracy theories like Q-Anon are running wild in the Republican Party, with some supporters of the former president still holding on to the hope that it will be reinstalled through a coup. Along these lines, QAnon supporters spread a bizarre theory that Trump would be reinstated on March 4, alerting law enforcement officials to the potential for more violence in Washington to date.
In short, Trump’s cult of personality reached toxic levels in 2021.
A gold statue of Trump
People take a photo with the statue of former President Donald Trump on display at the Conservative Political Action Conference held at the Hyatt Regency on February 27, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Started in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists and world leaders to discuss issues that are important to them.
Joe Raedle / Getty Images
At the Annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in late February, a gold statue of Trump was inaugurated.
Participants lined up to take pictures with the statue like a shopping Santa Claus. Based on the images from the event, you would hardly know that Trump incited a fatal uprising on the Capitol just a few weeks earlier.
The Republican Party is no longer Lincoln’s Party – a party that advocates a smaller government and few restrictions on free enterprise and civil liberties – now it’s Trump’s party. That is the general message of the main legislators of the Republican Party recently. Trump may have been a single-term president he lost to the Republican Party, the White House, the House and the Senate in just four years, but the party’s loudest voices still see him as their best hope.
“I know Trump may be a handful, but he is the most dominant figure in the Republican Party,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told Sean News of Fox News in mid-February. “Trump is the most important Republican in the party.”
Speaking directly to Trump, the Republican of South Carolina said: “You own the Republican Party, my friend.”
Republican Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, another close ally of Trump, in a February 24 tweet declared that Trump is “the leader of the Republican Party”.
Trump still commands loyalty among Republicans who attacks
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell overhears President Donald Trump’s conversations with reporters while hosting Republican congressional leaders and members of Trump’s cabinet in the Oval Office at the White House on July 20, 2020 in Washington, DC.
Doug Mills-Pool / Getty Images
It is not entirely surprising that figures like Graham and Jordan continue to support Trump, as they were among his main allies in Congress during his presidency. But even the Republican leaders that Trump violently attacked continued to support him.
Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell in late February said he would “absolutely” support Trump if he were the Republican Party’s presidential candidate for 2024. Approximately two weeks earlier, McConnell was criticizing Trump for inciting a violent Capitol insurrection, describing the actions of the former president as a “shameful abandonment of duty”.
Although McConnell criticized Trump in that speech, he also voted to absolve him. Trump, who never liked criticism, attacked McConnell because of his comments in a long statement. He called the Kentucky Republican “a severe, taciturn and serious political hack”.
Even so, Trump apparently has the support of McConnell in 2024.
Likewise, Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp, whom Trump relentlessly attacked, on Wednesday said he would “absolutely” support the former president if he were the nominee in 2024. Trump shared a tweet suggesting that the governor of Georgia would be arrested for failing to challenge his state’s election results, but Kemp has not yet abandoned him.
“As I said, again, I worked hard for the president. I think his ideas … will be part of our party for a long time to come,” Kemp told Neil Cavuto of Fox News.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Kemp, expressing regret for supporting him. But obedience to Trump is apparently the fundamental principle of the Republican Party at the moment – as Republican lawmakers prioritize fomenting cultural wars over topics like Potato Head and Dr. Seuss in the midst of an ongoing pandemic – and even figures like McConnell and Kemp are towing the party line while fighting for political survival.
Recent polls show that Trump continues to have a big influence on Republican voters, and he is the leading candidate for the Republican Party nomination in 2024. A USA Today and Suffolk University poll in February revealed that almost half of Trump’s supporters ( 46%) would abandon the Republican Party if the ex-president opened a new political party.
‘Idol worship is not conservative’
As the leading Republicans enable and amplify this cult of personality around Trump, who hides his legacy, he also reveals deep fractures in the party.
In a mid-February statement explaining why he was voting to condemn Trump over the Capitol riot at the former Senate impeachment trial, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska warned of the dangers of “tribalism”. Sasse was effectively calling on his Republican colleagues who were on Trump’s side, despite the indisputable and indisputable evidence against him, in addition to his relentless attacks on the foundations of America’s democracy.
“Tribalism sucks,” said Sasse. “If we allow tribalism to blind us repeatedly against the defense of our institutions, we will lose them.”
Reacting to the golden statue at CPAC, Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois tweeted, “Idol worship is not conservative. #RestoreOurGop.” Kinzinger was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Like Sasse, he is a minority in the Trump party.
—Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) February 26, 2021
“It doesn’t make sense because someone thinks that embracing a dishonored president and twice impeachment is the way to go for the party,” said former Republican MP Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania on March 1. on CNN. “The marginal elements of the party have a very big voice … it’s a cult of personality.”
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who joined Sasse in the vote to condemn last month, also thinks the cult of Trump’s personality is a losing formula.
“If we worship a person, we will lose,” Cassidy told CNN’s Dana Bash in late February. “And that has been clear since the last election.”
Although Trump lost in 2020, he still won more votes (74.2 million) than any presidential candidate in U.S. history except Joe Biden. He was a rude leader, but that was a big part of his appeal to many Americans out of touch with established politics – they liked that he was not a traditional politician.
That said, Trump’s blatant racism and xenophobia have also alienated many voters from him, while promoting controversial policies that have diminished America’s global reputation. In addition, his disastrous treatment of the pandemic revealed Trump as unable or unwilling to lead the country during the crisis. Trump deliberately downplayed the threat from COVID-19 – a virus he contracted and was hospitalized as president – and America became the epicenter of the pandemic under his supervision.
Trump’s cult of personality comes straight from the authoritative handbook
The cult of personality is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person to be admired and loved”.
The concept is often associated with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and Stalinism, as well as with leaders such as the Communist founder of China, Mao Zedong. Both were portrayed as gigantic figures with all the answers.
May 1947: Heavy artillery parades during a review of Moscow Garrison troops during the celebrations of May 1 at Red Square, passing posters of Lenin and Stalin.
N. Sitnikov / Getty Images
Nowadays, despots like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un continue this tradition, in which they essentially order the public to adore each of their movements. Russian President Vladimir Putin also sought to build a cult of personality during his nearly two decades in power, portraying himself as a macho figure on shirtless (and widely photographed) annual tours in Siberia.
Experts and historians like Ben-Ghiat have repeatedly pointed to striking parallels between these leaders and Trump while he was still in office, and now warn that the attack on the Capitol has helped to further elevate his cult of personality.
“Many Republicans embrace former President Trump because of, notwithstanding, his incitement to violence on January 6,” said Ben-Ghiat. ” Getting unpunished ‘has always been at the center of Trump’s brand, and he has spread a culture of illegality within and around the Republican Party that fueled Jan. 6 and raised his status as a cult figure afterwards. “