Has the Republican Party Turned Into a Cult?

Watching a Mitt Romney political rally today in one of the swing states, it really feels like a cult; packed full of inside jokes and cursory chuckles; hoots, whoops, hollers, and bent vissions of reality the likes of which only Scientology can parallel.

And I’m NOT talking about rank-and-file republicans; just the extreme right. We must be fair.

A long, long time ago I had the “opportunity” of being at a Scientology event in Boston as an outsider who was running sound for Pat Metheny (he was part of the stage show). It was a frightening thing. About 600 or so people, 3/4 of whom looked scared or lost, and the rest walked like they were kings of the world. There were perky name tags, and a bust of L. Ron Hubbard himself (in bronze) sitting atop a pedestal on the stage. They actually gave three cheers directed at said bronze bust at one point. Hipp, hipp, hurray! Hipp, hipp, hurray!

At this meeting / recruitment event the tone of the speakers on the stage was exactly the same as Mitt Romney and all the bobbing heads who show up to republican rallies.

Spite for the other.

They boo and hiss at a gathering more readily than they cheer (allotting a smidgen of that phenomenon due to the theatrical nature of politics in the 21st Century).

Lots of spiteful laughter from inside jokes, but no factual basis. They chuckled a lot at jokes that made no sense unless you’ve bought into buying all their books and seminars. They had a deeply mocking tone against “the other.” It was both mean and sad at the same time – reality and facts warped for a power-grabbing end, all run by salespeople who were there to get money from the scared masses in the room. They belittled anyone who doesn’t believe what they do, which in turn, makes the followers feel “more” and “bigger” and “part of the group” as a result – basically exploiting basic human psychology to get loyal followers.

Cults also warp, re-shape, and interpret religion and/or faith, then specifically use it as a tool to reach their non-religious goals. No one can deny the Republican Party does that. That’s one of the key aspects of culture-based cults: using some form of faith as a tool, not just as a pure religion or personal ideology.

Cults also have frenzied leaders who are not leaders so much as loudspeakers for the cause. The Republican Party has used the extreme right radio, television, and bloggers to carry the torch for them; much more so than then left has.

Whenever there’s a protestor at a republican rally, what happens? The crowd boos and shouts, then rallies into a “USA, USA” chant. Drown out opposition voice. That, days after an historic storm that has crippled the East Coast… when someone asks the man who wants to be president about climate change (…that he USED to believe, but now that he has to win the republican base, suddenly he doesn’t believe in it anymore… while even the star dissenter of climate change has changed his mind on climate change because of the proof that humans are a factor… ) But in the Republican Party in the time of Obama… the crowd shouts anyone who believes what they do not out of the building masked by chants of “USA! USA! USA!”. DAYS after people have died from a storm that flooded millions of people (and still infrastructure is barely functioning)… the republican party man won’t even answer a single question about climate change – because the cultish part of the republican party is in complete denial… ONLY because oil companies want less regulation on pollution and safety.

Cults also require a bit of paranoia to keep its followers in line. The extreme right has become a country of conspiracy theories. They create or deny facts at every turn in the 2012 election. It’s one thing to not believe a poll because you disagree with the sampling, but it’s another to constantly create elaborate conspiracies from birthers to evil communists taking over the Panama Canal. When a group of people have an ORGANIZED conspiracy theory-creating machine, then the cult threshold has been crossed. At least liberals just complain and whine without trying to recreate reality.

The extremes of both political parties are a bit crazy, but the Republican side has left reality behind… that’s more disconcerting than liberals who are extreme tree huggers or pull the race card too often. Normally when people “leave reality behind” we get them psychological help. When entire swaths of a population do it really strange things tend to happen, like Mitt Romney… Mitt Romney!… being a breath away from becoming President of the United States; and Paul Ryan two breaths away from the Presidency (I know I’m not the only one who finds that an astounding possibility.)

BTW: if a Scientologist ever offers you to “hold the cans” so you can be read… some of the people I worked with back then discovered that if you think about sex the needle floats in perfect position.