In an age of loneliness people need to belong. Belonging to a tribe meets that need. What tribe? The “populist” tribe of MAGA.
The insightful book “True Believer” by longshoreman philosopher, Eric Hoffer, laid it out in the 1951 as he explained what was underneath the horrors of German Nazis and Russian Soviets - what drove the minds of the fanatic?
He wrote that Hitler knew that the chief passions of the frustrated masses were fear and hatred. And that mass movements offer a substitute for the loss of individual hope. The True Believers essentially see themselves personally as insignificant “grains of sand”, but by joining the mass movement they are part of a grand and world changing “beach”. Their lives become enormously meaningful because their movement is world changing and enormously meaningful.
From Hoffer:
“Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the loss of faith in ourselves… he has been delivered from the meaningless burdens of an autonomous existence… as long as he feels himself part of that whole and nothing else, he is indestructible and immortal.”
Democrats are not part of a mass movement. They just defend the rule of law, defend democracy, and come up with programs to boost the middle-class and the poor, improve the economy, provide safety and opportunity , etc. We don’t worship Biden or Harris.
The Republican Party has been taken over by the MAGA mass movement. What does it stand for? It seems to me it mainly stands for hatred of liberals. It caricatures liberals as “woke“ and “politically correct” and “socialist “. Hitler knew. Vance knows. Trump is just overflowing with hatred, so he becomes the worshipped supreme leader by default.
Vote. For a politician, not for a “supreme leader” of a mass movement of hate. Please.
