Why are Donald Trump's die-hard followers so fanatically steadfast in their support for such a flawed man? Because they are just like him, and his presidency validates their own distorted values and myopic view of the world.
"Others" have been closing in on them. Foreigners are encroaching on their territory by way of physical space, race, religion, language and lifestyle. Fear is the common thread. But now, after years of feeling repressed and persecuted for their beliefs and attitudes, they have at last been set free to reveal what they really think about their "elitist" jailers.
Thus, Trump is their spokesman hero, a liberator who perfectly articulates everything they had to keep bottled up and hidden away. He alone has freed them from their social and political dungeon. They have, in effect, connected their psychic wellbeing and self-worth to one person, a savior they would follow to the gates of perdition.
Trump wasn't that far off the mark when saying he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and people would still love him. Why? Because without Trump they simply would not be.
And that makes them members of a cult.
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