A cult, not a movement

Steve Deace writes at Conservative Review,

Here are five ways you can know for sure that Trump 2016 isn’t a movement but a full-on, ‘sell your soul and leave the rest to us’ cult:

Movements encourage critical thinking. In fact, they thrive on it and are the result of it. But cults abandon critical thinking for group think.

Movements leave room for contrarian thoughts and accountability, because they want to make sure they don’t lose sight of their mission or lose their integrity. But cults see contrarians as a disloyal threat to their existence once they start asking questions.

Movements determine membership by loyalty to principles and ideas. Cults determine membership by loyalty to the founder of the cause.

Movements elevate your principles and values. Cults water down, redefine, or dumb them down in order to ensure conformity to the hive mind (group think).

Movements leave room for the individual identities of members to be not only acknowledged, but their individual worth to be valued. But cults make individuality secondary at best, if they don’t abandon or annihilate it altogether.

Our constitutional republic is barely on life support after eight years of Obama Cult. So it's hard to see how it could endure another narcissistic scam artist. However, power is speeding ahead without truth. Cults are replacing character. And just as it has been all along, it’s up to the voters to sternly reject such nonsense and turn the tide.

Read more here.