The Personality Cult of Donald Trump

Introduction

Now that we’re just past the halfway point of Donald Trump’s presidency, many within the Republican party are increasingly baffled as to the near-mystical hold Trump has over his incredibly loyal and supportive base — many of whom are made up of white, evangelical Christians. Going back to the 2016 election, statistics showed that 81% of those white evangelical Christians voted for him, and most of those still support him and his policies wholeheartedly.

Even now, generally among Republicans nationwide, according to Gallup polls, Trump’s popularity as of May 2019 sits at an incredible 87%. When compared to just 8% of Democrats who approve of him, this partisan split actually set a record for American presidents, and further demonstrates that Trump’s base remains remarkably stable in its support for him. All this, despite Trump’s countless scandals, nonstop stream of lies, and ongoing criminal investigations into multiple aspects of his political and business life.

That remarkable fact makes for an excellent segue into the topic at hand: why indeed are Trump’s base so blindly loyal to him? This question is especially perplexing in the case of Trump-supporting evangelical Christians, for example, who (in theory at least) purport to stand against virtually everything that Trump has clearly revealed himself to be: a racist, xenophobic, lying, adulterous, fraudulent businessman and proudly admitted sexual assaulter of women. All of these very public portrayals of Trump’s character, all of which have been known for years now, are one hundred percent against what evangelical Christianity claims to stand for, both biblically and morally.

And yet — despite the clear and damning evidence — they continue to support him, claiming that he is “God’s chosen man for such a time as this” and cast him as a “Cyrus” figure straight out of the Old Testament. This is beyond extraordinary. But like many a cult leader before him, what most people consider to be outrageous behavior, the cult leader gets away with; his followers merely turn a blind eye to what he does, or justify it in their minds somehow as acceptable “for achieving the greater good” —in this case, making America great again.

All of this begs the question: what exactly explains the hold that Donald Trump…