Donald Trump’s supporters have been nothing if not loyal to their leader. For the past decade, MAGA has stood by their man through 34 felony convictions, endless hate-filled rhetoric, the killings of innocent Americans, and potential war crimes, all while blatantly disregarding the Constitution and constantly lying.
MAGA’s fanatical devotion to the president has prompted some experts to suggest that it constitutes a cult. Daniella Mestyanek Young, author of The Culting of America, is one of them. “We’re not being hyperbolic when we call [MAGA] a cult,” she says.
More specifically, MAGA is a cult of personality, says Steven Hassan, PhD, author of The Cult of Trump and founder of the Freedom of Mind Resource Center, a consulting and educational organization that helps people leave destructive cults and authoritarian groups and heal.
A cult of personality is the “godlike glorification” of a charismatic leader whose followers perceive as superhuman and infallible, like the Jim Jones-led Peoples Temple — which ended in the massacre of more than 900 people at Jonestown in 1978 — and the Children of God, a Christian apocalyptic cult founded by David Berg in 1968.
Political parties can also operate as cults of personality, Mestyanek Young tells Rolling Stone. “Beyond Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, there are clear examples of political movements, including Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong in China, and the hereditary leadership system in North Korea,” she says. In this case, it’s the MAGA arm of the Republican Party’s devotion to Trump — especially those who subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
