12-11-2020, 05:33 AM
(12-11-2020, 05:02 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(12-11-2020, 04:33 AM)Einzige Wrote: Every President has a personality cult
To some degree. As I said, in a democracy you have to build a bunch of voters that like you. If you define personality cult a bit off, the above statement could very well be true. I suspect Trump's followers are a bit different. Members of the press who strive to articulate that difference came up with personality cult.
I would add that revolutionary leaders form personality cults too. You have to to lead any major violent action. It is part of the job. Lenin, Mao, Castro... All in their own way had followers. Of course, in time the attraction became poorer among the workers, greater among the Communist elites who came to control the means of production. But, it is the same thing.
"Personality cult" is a derogatory term as most see it. It is obviously more difficult to put the label on someone like Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter... If we are talking about national leaders, do you really want to assign one to Barack Obama as you would to Benito Mussolini? If one can attach it to any leader, then the term becomes meaningless.
In a genuine democracy, one would not expect to see the image of the President attached everywhere. To be sure, the personality cult around Trump is still 100% voluntary... but I can only imagine that having no Trump paraphernalia might have become harmful to one's business opportunities or advancement on the job had Trump won. (He didn't, so I guess we can flush the Valium down the toilet and save the vodka for a suitable celebration -- like getting a vaccine for COVID-19).
George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Sir Winston Churchill, Mohandas Gandhi, or Charles de Gaulle get the recognition for legitimate deeds.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
