The Democrat Party is a Cult

By D.L. Adams (September 2024)

 

Introduction

Recent events, particularly the self-rescue of RFK Jr from the Democrat party/utopian cult, make this article I wrote in 2017, in my view, once again pertinent. The editor of NER agreed and responded favorably to my request to re-run this piece but with timely introductory comments. The 2017 article is presented in its original form with no edits or changes except for the title. The 2017 title “The Cultification of the American Left” is now “The Democrat Party is a Cult.”

During a late August, 2024 interview with Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr clearly described the Democrat party as a cult and that blinkered leftists “subsumed” in Democrat “orthodoxy” needed to be “deprogrammed.”

 

 

This is an astonishing statement by a once stalwart Democrat from a famous family of Democrat politicians including Presidents, Senators, Attorneys General, party leaders, etc.

Dan Bongino, a noted political analyst and pundit wrote on X/Twitter, “When a lifelong Democrat, from an iconic Democrat family, who tried to run as a Democrat, and who’s (sic) running mate was a Democrat, warns you about the dangers of voting for the Democrats in this election, you should probably listen.”

Here is RFK Jr.’s statement in full:

 

And when somebody gets subsumed in our orthodoxy, it’s very, very difficult to unravel. And there are all kinds of psychiatric treatises about how do you deprogram somebody, you know, how do you—how do you talk somebody out of an orthodoxy? And, you know what, the little that I know about it is that if you challenge them directly, you challenge their beliefs, it puts concrete on it, and it makes them less able to move off. They get very defensive. And, you know—the way to approach them—there are ways to approach them. There’s deprogramming, protocols. And they usually include a lot of Socratic method of asking them questions about their belief. But it’s a one on one, it’s one on one project enterprise. And it’s not something that you can do [to] the whole Democratic Party overnight.

 

Ted Patrick, one of the earliest and most successful cult deprogrammers supports RFKs comments in his 1976 book, Let Our Children Go!, Patrick used Socratic Method and one-on-one interviews to break the brainwashing that, in his case, was done by cultists to college-age American young people.

The utopian cult is a forever cult because utopianism is a foundational flaw in humanity. That is, there are always people who believe that humanity can be perfected, that political systems can be perfected, that all the great challenges of life can be resolved favorably if only people follow whatever the particular utopian flavor-of-the-moment happens to be. The current modality of utopianism in America is the Democrat party. The truth that there is no utopia and that perfection is not possible is not accepted by utopians.

Much of the indoctrination happening now is via the corrupted media, which RFK Jr exposed and lambasted in his recent speech to the nation. The other element of brainwashing the youth is via false education. In one case, a student at Mount Holyoke college said that she had “wound up ‘totally indoctrinated’ into viewing the world as a toxic patriarchy and herself as an oppressed victim—and eventually had to be deprogrammed.”

This student was rescued from the utopian cult that she’d unwittingly joined because her mother had “hired a $300-a-day deprogrammer” to save her.

In his interview with Carlson, RFK Jr talked about censorship. He had himself been censored by the Democrat party and the corrupted media outlets that serve it. He said that in the view of the Democrat party, “the government has to, has to protect them (ed. Americans) from dangerous information, things that might put bad ideas into their heads. And it’s very patronizing, but it’s also very manipulative and conniving. And really, it’s exactly the opposite of democracy. And you will not find a single Democrat who will, who will criticize.”

Part of the foundations of the utopian cult is unity of thought and of belief. Controlling the media and the messaging and the compromised institutions of fake education are important in enforcing standards of thought. This is, as observed by Kennedy and others, contrary to American principles of freedom and democracy.

It is a fundamental element of the historian’s function to contextualize people and events. Such activities are necessarily characterized by speculation and conjecture supported by fact-driven research. When what was once conjecture, though vigorously supported, is validated by events this can verify and corroborate the earlier theorizing. Such, I think, is the case in this instance.

 

 

Original Article, 2017

The purpose of this inquiry is to explain and support the contention that the American political Left is now a Utopian political cult.

Because of its conversion into a cult, the Left viewpoint and its public and official organization, the Democratic party, are no longer politically viable. It will be shown that the cultification of the Democratic party, one of the two leading political parties in the United States, is one of the greatest disasters in American political and cultural history.

This inquiry will explain the extraordinary reaction of the Left to the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and the defeat of Mrs. Clinton—best understood in the context of the political Left-as-Utopian-cult.

Post-election anger and hysteria, over-the-top hyper-partisan criticism, false and misleading journalism, malignant and very public insults of the president, his family, and supporters by Leftist “entertainers,” “journalists,” biased “news organizations” and private citizens will be seen as fully understandable only in the cult context. That vicious, inappropriate, and legally questionable criticism and personal insults aimed at the new president almost universally result in follow-up attacks and claims of victimhood from the attackers but rarely any apology or retraction once lead to bafflement from non-cultists. That many of these attacks are threatening and grotesque and all too often far outside common standards of acceptable political and public discourse, suggests clearly that differences in political opinion are not the only, nor most important, motivator. These excessive attacks are now understandable when viewed in the context of the issues and conclusions discussed in this inquiry.

Our American politics is founded upon confrontation and debate between legitimate opposing political viewpoints in an open, pluralistic, and free society. The collapse of one of these political positions into a destructive, intolerant, internationalist Utopian cult can and will have significant and serious consequences for all Americans and others.

The Left, until recent years, was a viable political position represented by an active and powerful political party. Among the consequences of the cultification of the Left and of the Democratic party is that the Left (most particularly its more extreme element “progressivism”) is now a dangerously impractical, irrational, and non-viable viewpoint represented by an imploded and disastrously confused political party apparatus.

It is important for those outside of the cult to understand the nature of the reaction of the Left, and for those on the Left to recognize the fundamental alteration of the character of their once powerful political party and viewpoint. Only with such acknowledgment and understanding can the Left rescue itself from what it has become and reestablish its viability and legitimacy in American politics.

Only through recognition, by both sides of the political spectrum, that this extraordinary change has occurred in the American Left can the damage caused by the Utopian cult be stopped.

The existence of a viable Left and Right is the foundation of an American politics of openness, debate, and confrontational/oppositional discourse. Without at least two viable, rational, and opposing political positions participating in the political system the system itself is broken.

The fall of the political Left into cultism puts American democracy itself at risk.

 

Introduction

People who believe that they alone have the solutions to the problems and challenges of humanity, who are motivated to “save the world,” will do most anything to reach their objectives—even happily surrender their own and others’ independence and sovereignty.

Those who believe that their political ends are so important to everyone (i.e., goals are or ought to be universal)—for everyone on the planet, will eventually find a way to justify any means to satisfy their ends.

The constituency of the modern Utopian cultists of the Left is nothing less than humanity itself, their goals planetary in scope—any opposition to what they see as beneficial for humanity must therefore be, as seen by them, “evil”. A cult member might postulate it in this way: What could possibly motivate someone who opposes our laudable purposes to improve and save humanity if not to obstruct us and those things that benefit humanity? Can there be any higher good on our side, or a lower one on theirs?

 

Terminology

There is no word in the English language that describes the conversion of a political party into a cult. The term “cultification” is used for this purpose.

 

Historical Roots

The French Revolution is an instructive illustration of the fall of a political movement into Utopian cultism.

The Revolution in France having gone so wrong by 1792, guillotines were in the streets across Paris and carted around to other cities to eliminate those who did not support or actively opposed the revolution. Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, a young senior leader in the revolutionary Jacobin national government of France, said this in his speech before the National Convention, October, 1793:

“You no longer have any reason for restraint against enemies of the new order … You must punish not only traitors but the apathetic as well; you must punish whoever is passive in the Republic…”

The Jacobins of the French Revolution believed that they alone could save their country and, with their revolution, save the Europe and the world from monarchist tyranny. Such important plans can tolerate no opposition. The results were unsuccessful and horrific. There is little irony that Saint-Just was guillotined when the Jacobins were overthrown soon after his dramatic speech to the National Convention.

It is poignant and disturbing that so many on the Utopian Left, who definitively believe that they are doing right, that they are on the correct path of goodness and decency, are not fully aware that they have inadvertently fallen into a cult.

The great difficulty and challenge now facing the United States is the reestablishment of a functional political discourse. How can this be done when tens of millions of well-meaning people now angry, frustrated and embittered to be out of power and, much to their honest shock, to be in political opposition, are not aware that their closely and honestly held political views have been overtaken and perverted by a Utopian cult?

So long as the Left is a cult rather than a pragmatic, grounded, political viewpoint represented by a viable, legitimate political party, our national politics will be miserable, contentious, vicious and dysfunctional.

 

Moral Superiority

Democrats believe that they are nicer than those not in their circle; they are more caring, thoughtful, kind, humanitarian, and good than those who oppose them. This is a widely communicated trope of the Left and considered as a statement of fact by them. That this notion is a ridiculous falsehood not supported by any fact and challenged indeed by high rates of volunteerism and charity on the political Right is not relevant to them.

The fraudulent cliché that Leftist cultists are nicer, more caring and thoughtful than their political opponents is fundamental to the false foundations of the cult. “Niceness” always suggests decency and honorableness—pre-election revelations of corruption and fraud in the highest ranks of Democratic Party leadership have done little to shake this absurd shibboleth; nor have violent protests from Leftist groups across the country. That political violence is seen by most outside of the cult as not-so-nice is completely irrelevant. Only the greatest True Believer approach can accept the contradiction of political violence from “nice” people representing a political philosophy of uber-niceties. This logical failure appears irrelevant to members of this confused cult.

The propaganda of self-congratulatory “goodness” attracts new believers to the cult who have an honest desire to improve the lives of people in this country and around the world. It is a view that denies the decency, extraordinary charity and thoughtfulness of the majority of Americans, most of whom are not members of a self-referential thought group.

Tragically, many new members to the Left are entirely unaware that they have joined a cult. Most existing members will deny vehemently that their political party is now a cult—there is simply too much at stake for them, and for humanity, to admit the truth.

Rarely does a cult member suddenly realize the ugly truth, and deprogram him/herself. Even during the French Revolution, a suddenly self-aware Jacobin was an extreme rarity. There is such a case, and it provides painful reflections for our own dysfunctional politics.

 

Revolution / Counter-Revolution

The three top propagandists of the Jacobin party during the French Revolution were Marat, Hebert, and Camille Desmoulins. All of these fanatical republicans came to a bad end. Marat was famously assassinated in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday in July, 1793. Jacques Louis David’s famous painting immortalized this vicious and unpleasant agitator. Hebert found himself condemned by Robespierre and the Jacobin Reign of Terror court along with his followers. Desmoulins’ life ended in a similar fashion but with an important difference.

A mediocre attorney but a talented propagandist and revolutionary agitator, Desmoulins had been one of the loudest voices in the Convention for the execution of Louis XVI. With the fall of the monarchy and the victory of the Revolution in 1789, Desmoulins put his attentions to defending the revolution against whomever he perceived to be an internal enemy. In scathing and savage prose published by him in pamphlet/”newspaper” form, Desmoulins attacked his political opponents, now opposition members of the Revolutionary government within and without the National Convention. Fellow Jacobins were by no means immune. Focusing his great talent and endless bile on old friend but now political opponent Jacques Brissot, Desmoulins used his pamphlets to build a public case of condemnation against him. The purpose of these savage attacks was to undermine the reputation of his target and nullify him as a political actor.

That Brissot had been a witness at Desmoulins’ wedding was irrelevant. Unlike today’s Utopian cultists, it was never claimed that Jacobins were “nice.”

Finally, all the vicious rhetorical attacks, savage slanders, and insults found their mark. Brissot was brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal in the Convention and condemned just as Hebert had been (another target of Desmoulins). Desmoulins’ critical writings and cruel attacks were not the entire reason for Brissot’s fall, but the propagandist revolutionary did not see it that way.

Seated in the front row at his old friend’s trial in Paris in late October, 1793, Desmoulins did not appear to appreciate the gravity of it until the sentence of death was proclaimed. He should have known; a defendant at the Revolutionary Tribunal had two possible outcomes, acquittal or death. Upon hearing the sentence Desmoulins was almost prostrate and unable to stand. He said, “Oh, my God, my God! It is I who kill them! My ‘Brissot Unmasked!’ Oh, my God, this has destroyed them!”

One of the key early revolutionaries of France and a friend of Desmoulins, Danton, was similarly appalled by the execution of Brissot and his friends. Soon after the trial they determined to agitate for an end to the Reign of Terror and began actively campaigning for change—from Terror to clemency. Their transformational goal was to reverse the absolutism, intolerance, and brutality of their Utopian revolution. Robespierre, leader of the powerful Committee of Public Safety, did not concur—both Danton and Desmoulins were guillotined less than a year after Brissot and his supporters. That Robespierre had been a signatory witness at Desmoulins’ wedding was entirely irrelevant.

Desmoulins had agitated for the end of the monarchy; when it fell he shifted his attention to domestic opponents of the revolution and of Jacobin orthodoxy. Many today do and say extraordinarily excessive and unpleasant and damaging things to protect the modern-day Utopian revolution.

The vitriol directed against President Trump is the modern era’s version of Jacobin revolutionary agitators attempting to destroy their political opponents to ensure the survival of their revolution. What revolution are they protecting?

A long-term revolution has occurred in the United States (and elsewhere) through the growth of the Utopian Leftist cult in the culture and in government. This slow revolution appeared to be successful and expanding until the defeat of Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Obama’s internationalist presidency marked the high-water mark of this revolution. The victory of Trump with his nationalist, rationalist, Constitution-centric, and pragmatic real politick approach to policy, international relations, and governing, is the greatest disaster and challenge yet faced by the Utopian cult.

Now out of political power at the highest levels where once power came so easily, and delegitimized by scandals and revelations of misdeeds by Democratic party leaders the victory of the revolution of the Utopian left is no longer assured.

The Jacobins were also Utopians. They were not limited by any sense of restraint in what they did to safeguard the Revolution in France. Many Utopians in the United States (and in Europe) are of a similar bent.

Nominal humorist and entertainer Stephen Colbert’s recent disgusting insults and diatribes against the President can best be understood in this context. His grotesque and insulting words were not meant merely as humor for his fellow Leftists in the audience but as rhetorical weapons against the counter-revolution led by Donald Trump.

In what other context can the appalling display by so-called “comedienne and entertainer” Kathy Griffin be understood? Can there be any humor in displaying a realistic-looking severed head of the President of the United States? Where is the humor in aping the barbarism of fanatic murderer/terrorists and suggesting through her display that similar treatment should be meted out to the president? How can her disgusting and incendiary “photo op” be understood in any way other than as an excessive, inappropriate, and inflammatory weaponized political statement without taste and decency?

Desmoulins, Colbert, Griffin—they are all propagandists of the revolutionary Utopian Left. They use words and display to attack and undermine the opposition, defend their political positions, and destroy their political opponents/enemies. There is a difference, though.

To his everlasting credit, Desmoulins finally understood the damage that he had caused and the disastrous and ugly turn that the Jacobin revolution had taken. He will always be remembered for his return to the family of humanity and his realization of the painful truth of what he had done and what the revolution had become. Desmoulins took direct action, at the cost of his life, to prevent further crimes by the Utopian Revolution he had so long supported.

What was the reaction of Colbert and Griffin when their actions resulted in widespread disgust, even from some within the Utopian cult itself and among the sizable community of its fellow travelers? There was no evidence of shame, none of sorrow or regret—only renewed attacks to make political use of the spotlight once again. What can be the purpose of such vicious personal attacks on the president? By most non-partisan accounts of those who know him, President Trump is a decent and highly intelligent person, patriotic at his core. The purpose of these attacks is to destroy him and undermine his legitimacy, and finally to overturn the presidential election; all to protect the irrational Utopian cult revolution which is now at serious risk.

Who could have foreseen, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and subsequent wars of sacrifice fought to save ourselves and others from tyranny and hate; after over two hundred years of self-improvements, learning and growth as a country experimenting in democracy, that an American president could be reviled for saying that, in his view, his First Duty is to his people and to his country?

The cult’s endless unfounded criticism, false and hyper-partisan journalism, condemnation and delegitimization of any political view other than their own, has obvious consequences—words have power. The attempted assassination of Representative Steve Scalise and other Republican Congressmen and their staffs on June 14, 2017 is clarified by the arguments presented in this inquiry. The assassin, a disaffected Sanders supporter, is known to have engaged in vehement anti-Trump diatribes on social media platforms. One of his recent posts included this screed, “Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” This extreme rhetoric is not exceptional, it is illustrative of what is seen daily in social media and other channels. Violent, extreme rhetoric has a purpose. In addition to being a repellent form of public self-indulgence and lack of self-discipline in controlling one’s vitriol and anger, it is also a weapon of choice of the cult and many of its followers to mobilize the cult, sympathizers and fellow travelers. The obvious lesson of the tragedy of the Republican baseball game attack is that extreme rhetoric encourages extreme thinking and, sometimes, extreme and criminal actions. In his pamphlet, La France Libre, Desmoulins recommended that opponents of the Revolution be strung up on lantern posts. Desmoulins even referred to himself as “le procureur-general de la lantern.” How do the defenders of Mr. Colbert and most particularly Ms. Griffin and so many other extremist cultist “critics” answer this question: Is there any difference in intent between the agitators and extremists of Jacobin France and the extremist rhetorical warriors of the Leftist Utopian cult? Perhaps there is a difference in methodology and specificity of language, but the intent is the same—defense of a revolutionary cult and its goals by any means necessary. These are the essential definitions of the term “extremism.”

That those on the Left are almost entirely unable or unwilling to come to terms with what they, their political party, and ideology have become, shows two important things—one, that many members of the cult are unaware that they are in a cult and, two, that the cult’s extremist approach to politics, public and private discourse, and the demonization of the opposition must inevitably lead to extreme and illegal action.

The Utopian cult has worked tirelessly in recent decades to turn the world of rationality and a unified American national identity upside down. The defeat of Clinton and the presidency of Trump are the first direct and most serious challenges yet faced by the Utopian Left cult.

 

Global Horizon

The Left believes that its ideology will solve problems of the planet and of humanity, and help “the oppressed” in this country and across the world. It is convinced that it has the solutions to poverty, race conflicts, crime, wealth inequality, climate change, and war. Cult members believe that theirs is the only political belief system in this country that can accomplish these things. They are confident that they are “nicer” than the opposition. The foundations of the Utopian Left cult are built on a fictitious self-referential, moral superiority.

This global perspective sustained by moral superiority lends a great and serious importance to all that they do, thus increasing their hatred of those who oppose them.

It seems impossible for cultists to conceive that anyone could oppose all of these good and great goals. For cult members, there can be no explanation for this opposition other than to see it as simply “evil.” Intolerance of outsiders, critics, and of those with differing views is standard for any cult organization.

How could good and decent people be opposed to these extraordinarily humanitarian concepts and goals? The inevitable conclusion of the morally superior Utopian cultist is this: the opposition is neither good, nor decent—the opposition is both inferior and evil.

 

Intolerance to Opposition

The Utopian Left is a global movement and is extremely strong and entrenched in the United States. Because the horizon of the cult is global and the solutions to the problems of humanity are theirs alone, they therefore believe that those opposed to them have malignant motivations.

They do not conceive that other solutions are possible and could be superior, more pragmatic, and more thorough than theirs. It is a rigid, self-referential viewpoint that does not credit the opposition, nor any other viewpoint, as legitimate, positively motivated, or valid. Exclusion of opposing views, minimizing and delegitimizing them, is essential to sustaining the cult core idea of superiority, the sole possessor of the True Path.

 

Acceptance of Illogic

The assertions of the Utopian Left cult cannot be logically defended. The following statements are representative of their responses to the Trump candidacy and election victory; they are neither logically sound, nor politically viable.

 

• Trump is a racist.
  This view is widely believed in the Utopian cult regardless of the fact that Trump hired many minorities in his companies and placed some of them in high leadership positions in his organizations. That many leaders now in the Trump administration are members of a minority group is not relevant to them.
• Trump is an anti-Semite.
  Trump has proclaimed his love and support for Israel many times. Trump has Jewish children and grandchildren (all of whom he clearly loves, Jewish or not Jewish). This trope of Trump as anti-Semite is widely held in the cult despite the president’s widespread support in Israel and, most particularly, from the Jewish Prime Minister of that country.
• Trump is illegitimate because he was not elected by a majority.
  American presidents are not elected by popular vote and only win election via victory in the Electoral College. The Electoral College was an institution created by the US Constitution. Ours is not a direct democracy but a representative republic, this fact is either unknown or irrelevant to cult members.
• Trump is a fascist and so are his supporters.
  There is no basis for this slur other than the rejection by them of the internationalist, Utopian groupthink and program of the Left cult. Rejection of the groupthink of the Left can only be seen in the most negative of terms by them, because cult members consider no other position but their own to be legitimate.

 

Rejection of Criticism

Because the Utopian Leftist movement has the best of motivations, in their view, which is the rescue of humanity from itself—any criticism therefore of it or its program is an unstated declaration of opposition to the betterment of humanity. The cult rejection of criticism is built upon a widespread denialism which holds that any opponent must be wrong because the program of the Left is the only one truly beneficial to humanity.

Many cultists see the current political conflict between Left and Right in the United States in a pseudo-biblical fashion and characterize it as a conflict between good (Utopian, globalist, internationalist, Democrat cultists) and evil (conservatives and Republicans).

National politics is a very personal matter for cult members. Their reactions to criticism of the cult or its program, or of their own faulty reasoning are often hyper-emotional and bitter, and sometimes rhetorically or physically violent.

 

Groupthink

Consistency of argument across the population of the Left signifies both excellence of communication among members as well as unity of thought. Cults build a singular thought approach to the world, to challenges, and to opposition.

That the same failed arguments are trotted out on multiple platforms, and outlets, and by multitudinous individuals across the country in multiple fields and by supposedly objective “journalists” and “analysts” is no accident. The use of “talking points” that are widely accepted and used in the national debate is both symptomatic of groupthink and illustrative of a widespread inability of individuals on the Left to engage in effective debate on complex matters.

Groupthink as a function of a sort of voluntary brain-washing commonly seen in the cult is the opposite of critical and independent thought.

 

Irrelevance of Leadership Misdeeds

Normal standards of behavior and morality do not apply to the leader(s). Crimes and suspicions of crime(s) are forgiven and ignored so that the leader can continue to lead the cult. Rules of behavior in force outside the group do not apply to the leader and, in the main, to members themselves.

The upside-down logic of the supporters of Mrs. Clinton is this:

 

1. We lost the election because the opposition (with the aid/collusion/cooperation of “the Russians”) exposed the ethically, morally, and legally questionable conduct of our party candidate and leadership.
2. Had these things not been exposed we would have won the election.
3. Therefore, the election was stolen from us.

 

That ethical and perhaps criminal/national security crimes had occurred is not relevant to them. The only relevant thing is the continued existence and expansion of the cult itself. The cult’s ongoing existence is crucial for the saving of humanity and the planet itself. Such are the self-importance delusions so central to the Utopian cult’s identity.

For cult members, the future of the planet (most importantly the correction and reversal “global warming” or “climate change”) depends on their victory. The self-referential view of the cult is that, without them in power, the problems of humanity cannot and will not be solved and the earth consequently destroyed. For the cultist, the stakes could not be higher.

It should be no surprise that the bitter reaction of the Left cult to political defeat is almost unfathomable to non-cult members. Only when seen through the prism of the Utopian-Left-as-cult paradigm do the reactions of members of the Utopian Left cult make real sense.

 

Punishment of Those Not Toeing the Ideological Line

There are certain sectors of society and industry that are overwhelmingly populated by cult members and their fellow travelers. These include Education and Entertainment and many sectors of the government at the state and federal levels.

Opposition to the Left within these sectors often results in career destruction or exclusion from advancement. There has long been an unstated assumption of their colleagues by cult members that if one is employed in one of these overwhelmingly leftist fields that therefore—by statistical default—one is likely to be also a member of the cult.

This generally unspoken assumption has embedded within it certain unstated expectations around beliefs, statements, behaviors, and associations. In these unfortunate fields pressure on non-cult members and opponents to remain silent is sometimes overwhelming—opposition to expectations of the groupthink or non-compliance with the cult program is generally discouraged, or worse.

 

Identity Politics

In the Left worldview, there are groups and group identities. Every individual is identified and classified according to their membership in a socio-economic, national origin, place of birth, place of residence, gender, sexual orientation/preference, religious, or race group. Rejection of this idea is anathema as it is fundamental to the Left cult’s ideology.

It is intellectual shorthand so that identity can replace ideas and individuality itself. More importantly it is a method by which the essential E Pluribus Unum ideal upon which the United States was founded is undermined and deconstructed.

Only in this context can the post-election exchange on CNN be understood in which a black man was accused, by another black man, of being a “mediocre negro” for being among those black Americans working with President Trump to solve problems in the black community.

The unstated counter-factual assumption from the Left cult is this: Only Leftist black people are “legitimate” black people because the only viewpoint that is beneficial to the black community is that of the Left. This is essential to the denialism that drives any legitimization of opposing viewpoints. To the Left, all members of the “Black American/African American” identity group are expected to toe the Leftist line. The cult has worked for decades to position itself as the only political viewpoint that is concerned about, and representative of, issues of concern for Black Americans. When an exception occurs, cognitive dissonance erupts.

Consider the appalling cognitive dissonance recently seen at one of the finest universities in the country where some black graduates requested and received race-segregated graduation ceremonies. This lunacy of self-segregation and race identity politics completely overturns the goals of unity and a society built not on race or color but on the quality of an individual’s character that Martin Luther King talked about in his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. It also significantly undermines decades of efforts to improve race relations after World War Two and Vietnam.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character . . .

When we allow freedom to ring—when we let it ring from every city and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.’
(Rev. Martin Luther King, August 28, 1963, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC)

Without any irony, the New York Times described the blacks-only graduation ceremony at Harvard as a “celebration” of diversity. Prior to the cultification of the Utopian Left, diversity between the races was best seen in the context of efforts to increase understanding and unity, and recognition of differences within the body politic.

It was long accepted and understood prior to the rise of the Utopian cult that cultural, ethnic and other differences within our democracy strengthened us and our country. The key to making the democracy function, allowing innumerable national and cultural additions to the country, was for individuals to subsume their differences and assimilate as citizens, supporters of American democracy and the Constitution, “an American.” The Utopian Left cult confusion of identity politics undermines this concept as it actively encourages pride in differences rather than pride in being part of a greater national whole within which all individuals of whatever identity group are united by law and particular concepts of freedom and government, that is, “an American.”

The essential purpose of all of these efforts at understanding and tolerance was to fulfill the promise of the founders to “build a more perfect union.”

For the Left cult, deconstruction of the body politic into separate identity groups disempowers American society as it empowers their internationalist, globalist, Utopian worldview. The great flaw of the politics of identity are the disastrous logical outcomes-internecine battles for supremacy, attention, funding, and political influence between Identity Groups A, B, C, D, etc. in perpetuity.

Prior to the cultification of the Left, all identity groups were encourage by the Left and the Right to subsume themselves under the core and essential identity group-citizen of the United States. The logical and ethical fallacies at the heart of Identity Politics are now painfully clear.

 

 

The rise of a cult-driven, sub-set identity-centric approach to looking at and talking about domestic and international political issues will lead to the Balkanization of the American polity—one of the greatest fears of the founders.

Delegitimization of the E Pluribus Unum concept at the center of the American enterprise to legitimize and empower the disparate elements (identity groups) is fundamental dogma to the Utopian Left cult. Empowerment of the disparate elements results in a society and culture of ubiquitous and endless conflict, and the destabilization of essential concepts and institutions that foster unity and stability.

For the Utopian Leftist cult, moving backwards in societal development and overturning decades of effort is seen as beneficial. Moving backward is, for them, moving forward; groupthink is never known for its logical foundations.

Many cult members rushed to read Orwell’s 1984 after the defeat of Mrs. Clinton. Every member of the cult should read it. In the world of 2017, the modern Utopian Left cultist is not Winston Smith, the victim of the novel; instead he is a member of Big Brother’s organization.

Breaking the American body politic into component parts is worthy of no celebration—it is a disaster.

 

Political Religion

Many in the Utopian Left cult are atheist, agnostic, ambivalent toward or opposed to religion. The sole exception is tolerance and support for Islam which the Left in the United States views as one of many “oppressed identity groups.”

The ideologies and doctrine of Islam are unknown to most on the Left or ignored by them. Followers of Islam are seen as simply another member of the Left’s broad Utopian political coalition opposed to what the Left sees as the oppressive and heavy-handed morality and ethics of the Constitutionalists and rationalists of the traditional political middle and middle-right. That atrocities have been committed in this country and across the world by followers of Islam in the name of Islam who justify their crimes in an Islamic context, illustrating the same with references from their doctrinal texts, is irrelevant to cult members. That Islamic ideology is the essential driver of Islamic fanaticism and violence is difficult to contradict—only on the political Left is this essential and obvious truth denied.

Without a morality and ethical system from any religion, and believing that the Constitution is a flexible tool for Utopian deconstruction and change rather than an essential and wise national guideline for unity, justice, and national survival, there is then nothing remaining for members of the Utopian Left cult but their religion of Utopian politics.

 

Contradictions Falsely Resolved

The Utopian Left cult’s conceit of moral superiority and its false self-identification as the sole defender of the downtrodden create a confusion as to who the “downtrodden” are.

Cult members proclaim support for followers of Islam and are opposed to any government reduction of Muslim immigration as merely indicators of “right wing” prejudice, xenophobia and “Islamophobia.” The jihad against non-Muslims by Muslims, mass terror attacks by Muslims in the United States and across the world are denied, and the fundamental importance of Islamic ideology in every atrocity committed by followers of Islam is ignored.

It is also known that the legal system of Islam, sharia, for which many Muslims agitate, is inherently intolerant, misogynist, supremacist, and cruel. The template of the partnership of the Iranian intellectual secular Left with revolutionary Islamists, ignored or unknown by the Utopian Left cult, is the 1979 Iranian revolution. (Please see Children of Paradise, and Persepolis.) For the revolutionary Iranian Islamists, this was a successful arrangement. For the Iranian intellectual Left, it was not.

Prior to Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979 which prompted a successful and violent Islamic Revolution in that country, the Iranian Left and the Islamists had worked and marched in the streets together against the Shah. When the Islamist Revolution seized power, the first order of business for the Islamist revolutionaries was the destruction of their Leftist (non-Islamist) partners.

The doctrine of Islam is fundamentally opposed to the espoused core values of the Left (and of the Right). Islam and Islamic violence presents the Left with a fundamental contradiction about itself which cannot be resolved.

 

Utopianism

Members of the Left cult believe that the problems of humanity are solvable, and that they alone have the solutions.

This is a global initiative—to end war; to end the dominance of the nation/state concept in order to move toward a centralized super-state that will make international conflicts obsolete; to end poverty through organized wealth redistribution; to punish those with great wealth who do not support the Great Cause with their money and public statements (while encouraging and protecting those who do); to bring a global resolution to matters of trade, healthcare, warfare, national identity, political conflict, poverty, and changes in planetary climate.

That these problems can all be resolved and that the solutions are in their hands alone is de rigueur. That these solutions require the undermining of the Constitution, destabilization of the state, and the surrender of American sovereignty is not a matter of moment to them. The only thing relevant is to move forward forever to that beautiful bright day of planetary safety, human happiness, global cooperation, and universal peace—the essential definition of Utopianism.

The history of the world suggests that such a path is a foolish, impossible, and dangerous one. What recent advances in the evolution of humanity in light of the holocaust, Islamic fanaticism, hatred and violence, and ongoing conflicts—not to mention the ease with which the Utopian Left cult itself continues to exist—would suggest that these matters are within the reach of humanity to resolve?

The abandonment of reasoning based on history, cause-effect logic, critical thought and the demonization of all those not in agreement with them, must draw the reader inexorably to one conclusion: The Left is a Utopian political religion and a cult.

Cultification of the Academy

Prior to the overwhelming control now wielded by cult members in American academia, the purpose of educating American students was to teach them how to think critically. The core of critical thought is the ability to differentiate between legitimate/logical and illegitimate/illogical arguments, to readily spot bias and fraud, and to call out without hesitation logical and factual error. Sadly, this is no longer the case.

Critical thought is the enemy of the Utopian Left cult and is now widely disregarded in the general culture, and certainly in the majority of Ivy Towers across the land. Recently, the Wall Street Journal, a once-objective source of real journalism surprisingly noted this sorry state of affairs.

 

 

The goal now of American higher education is no longer to graduate critical thinkers but to mold the minds of the young so that they will accept the cult’s groupthink imprint, and be immunized against the horror, confusion, anger, and reasonable counter-arguments of those not in the cult.

For the cult leadership, critical thought among the membership is a fundamental negative to be avoided (though lip-service continues to paid to it).  After all, the cult educators would not have their professorships if the rationalist parents of their unfortunate students really knew what they were doing and stopped paying exorbitant tuition rates.

Allan Bloom, in his brilliant expose of the failure of American higher education, “Closing of the American Mind” (1987), was painfully insightful in describing and decrying the damage caused by lack of institutional standards, dearth of real intellectual investigation, obsession with entertainments and popular culture, resultant anti-intellectualism of many students and the consequent general decline of the American Academy. Things now are worse. Bloom asked this central question: Without standards, how can we as a society know when a person is considered to be “educated?” The question put today is more disturbing: How is it that our graduates do not seem to be “educated” in a way that can be understood as being someone who is scholarly, knowledgeable, thoughtful, and an insightful, critical thinker?

The American academic mind is not closed, it is Utopian and hardened.

In the study “Faculty Voter Registration in Economics, History, Journalism, Law, and Psychology,” published in 2016 in the journal “Econ Journal Watch,” the extraordinary disparity between liberal Democrat and conservative Republican professors in American universities was documented. Their findings are not encouraging.

“We investigate (sic) the voter registration of faculty at 40 leading U.S. universities in the fields of Economics, History, Journalism/Communications, Law, and Psychology. We looked up 7,243 professors and found 3,623 to be registered Democratic and 314 Republican, for an overall D:R ratio of 11.5:1. The D:R ratios for the five fields were: Economics 4.5:1, History 33.5:1, Journalism/Communications 20.0:1, Law 8.6:1, and Psychology 17.4:1.”

Utopian Left cult professors inculcating their Utopian cult views in students already prepped by years of cultural pressures to accept the Leftist worldview as inevitable, universal, incontrovertible, and righteous, puts all students at a disadvantage. The cult idea that all opponents are motivated by error and evil is widespread. Expressions of disagreement are met with disdain and sometimes violence in the academy.

Formal and informal discrimination against students and educators who do not agree with cult ideas is all too common. In an industry overrun by cult believers and acolytes, those who do not accept the Utopian thought imprint are considered outside the academic temple. That education is the essential industry of the American future, the cultification of the academy should alarm all those concerned about the future of the country.

The quality of a conservative student’s or professor’s existence within the halls of academia is widely understood to now be generally unpleasant. There are certainly exceptions, but the exceptions should be the mean or the majority, which they are clearly not. American higher education is profoundly dysfunctional because it is no longer a temple of learning and critical thought. It is now, with but few exceptions, an outpost of the Utopian Left cult.

Imagine the challenges faced by young American students striving to improve their character and intellect in these fallen temples of learning. Non-cult citizens may criticize the youth of today for whatever perceived failures they seem to exhibit but critics of American youth should consider the moral confusion, intellectual dishonesty, fraud and lies in the cultified culture and press, from Democratic party leaders and from the widespread Utopian cult that barrage them daily. Objective observers might better shudder in horror and compassion.

American universities were once seen as monuments to ideas, knowledge, learning, tolerance, and scholarly vigor. Colleges and universities were expected, until recently, to graduate informed, literate, aware, intellectual young Americans ready to take their places as participants in and appreciators of their country, as defenders of the Constitution, and good citizens. Sadly, this is no longer true—the Ivy Towers of the American Temple of Knowledge have fallen.

 

An Essential Alinsky Cult

A number of cult researchers, including Robert J. Lifton (a noted psychiatrist and author), and the Cult Education Institute, suggest that a cult generally has certain characteristics. Lifton defined three as essential.

These are not steadfast rules. A group does not require all of these characteristics to be recognized as a cult. Political cults have existed prior to the modern Utopian Left cult. The destructive and self-destructive Utopian cult type, motivated as it is by a perversion of love for humanity, is particularly dangerous.

Political cults have brought ruin to many over the millennia. Identifying them and insisting on their decultification is incumbent on those outside their groupthink and their insulated world. When the identification is made, it then is incumbent on members of the cult to rescue their political party and worldview from its dangerous path.

Three points of identification, based on Lifton’s, are pertinent.

 

1. There is no single charismatic leader.

• The leaders come and go.
• The unifier of the group is not a single “cult leader” but the Utopian Dream itself, the Great Idea which is much bigger than any one individual. Thus, the cult survives leadership changes, but the core concepts and dreams and groupthink that sustain it remain.

2. Thought reform (both direct and subtle) is carried out in the halls of education, in the popular entertainments, by fellow traveler fake “journalists” and “analysts,” by True Believers in the corridors of power in business and government, and by cult leaders and members themselves.

• The message of the cult is ubiquitous in the culture and difficult to avoid. It is so pervasive that for many it is the central message of the society (and supersedes the Constitution, Judeo-Christian standards and values, and the laws). In this way, tens of millions are misled and confused by it.

3. The extraordinary pressure put on the institutions of society and the average American (both in and out of the cult) by job losses, economic pressures, and waves of millions of legal and illegal immigrants is easily ignored by the Left cult leadership for three reasons:

• The leadership is generally untouched directly by the problems they have purposefully created as they are insulated in their walled-off mansions and in the corridors of power and money.
• The suffering of the membership and of the entire polity is required for the utopian scheme to move forward.
• Massive legal and illegal immigration destabilizes the state and the institutions.

 

In the cauldron at the ideological and strategic core of the Utopian Left cult is Saul Alinsky. An exceptionally talented political strategist and activist of the hard Left during the 60s and 70s, Alinsky’s influence is rarely acknowledged. A master of political motivation and a rabble-rousing iconoclast, Alinsky set a new standard in effectively mobilizing people on the political Left.

While the methods of Alinsky were and still are to a certain degree effective, his goals were more nebulous. The painful truth is that for him, though not likely for most of his true believers who had legitimate and often specific complaints, struggle itself was and is the purpose.

This absurd phantasm and destructive notion that struggle is essential in and of itself was his driver. Endless destabilization, agitation, conflict and instability were the keys to moving humanity into the next evolutionary phase of development, according to Alinsky. That is, according to Alinsky, societal stability is detrimental to human development.

“All life is warfare, and it’s the continuing fight against the status quo that revitalizes society, stimulates new values and gives man renewed hope of eventual progress. The struggle itself is the victory. History is like a relay race of revolutions; the torch of idealism is carried by one group of revolutionaries until it too becomes an establishment, and then the torch is snatched up and carried on the next leg of the race by a new generation of revolutionaries. The cycle goes on and on, and along the way the values of humanism and social justice the rebels champion take shape and change and are slowly implanted in the minds of all men even as their advocates falter and succumb to the materialistic decadence of the prevailing status quo.” Alinsky interview, Playboy magazine, 1972. (Full interview)

Ever the pragmatic agitator, tutored among the Chicago mob, Alinsky was no stranger to cynical realism and the benefits of effective, if not overly self-aggrandizing, decision-making.

“Integrity! What shit. It took me a while to realize that the only difference between being in a professional field and in business was the difference between a five-buck whore and a $100 call girl.” (Saul Alinsky, 1972 interview. Also here.)

This theme of self-aggrandizement in the pursuit of what appears to others to be humanitarian purposes remains an ongoing matter of controversy for members of the Utopian cult concerned about public perceptions of their actions and motivations. The cult’s defeat in the US 2016 presidential election occurred in large part due to this issue.

The purposeful destabilization of government and society, and the creation of uncertainty are fundamental to the methods of Leftist agitator/revolutionary Saul Alinsky. These ideas and methods were studied and mastered by Mr. Obama, and taught in community seminars by him. Mrs. Clinton was also an acolyte; she wrote her Wellesley College senior thesis about Alinsky and his methods. After her graduation from Wellesley College, Mrs. Clinton (then Ms. Rodham) was such a favored follower that Mr. Alinsky personally offered her a job in his organization (which she declined). Hillary Clinton considered Alinsky a mentor and personal friend. The Alinsky methods and beliefs are alive and well throughout the cult and at the highest levels of the Democratic party. The Alinsky goal of destabilization appears to be a central though unspoken tenet.

The modern Utopian Left cult in America and abroad has taken this concept of endless agitation and struggle, and applied it to a more specific and, in their view, attainable and laudable purpose—internationalism and Utopianism. This goal requires the surrender of American sovereignty. Nothing could be more horrifying for a cult member than to hear the new president who defeated their cult leader proclaim again and again “America First.”

Destabilization of the nation meets the needs of the Utopian Project without requiring too great a sacrifice from the leadership. For the membership, it results in suffering gladly endured as a necessary sacrifice for the Great Utopian Goal. For those members who are not fully aware of the Utopian program of the cult, societal destabilization and permanent sacrifice and struggle are all accepted as a burden that must be carried for the greater good of humanity, though they may not be aware as to why.

The destabilization by the Utopian Left cult of the economy, society and its institutions, and all the myriad associated overwhelming pressures their plans place on healthcare, law enforcement, education, housing, local governments, civil society, etc., are by no means seen as a detriment by them but rather a foundational step in the growth of the power of the state. Political control of the state by the cult is necessary so that only via the state can these purposefully created problems be resolved and the globalist, destabilizing agenda advanced.

Only in this way can the cult’s desire for political power and constant agitation to destabilize American politics at the same time be understood. That the purposes and goals of the Left cult are supported by some in the political opposition, even after winning elections as a non-cult candidate, demonstrates the pervasive and pernicious influence of the Utopian cult groupthink message.

That the followers of the Left cult gladly suffer these destabilizing policies, destruction of the unity of the nation, crimes of their leaders and fellow cultists, the flouting and undermining of national law and of the Constitution, while ignoring their non-cult countrymen’s confusion, anger and anguish on account of all these things, suggests strongly that this is not a viable, healthy or reasonable political “philosophy.”

It is something else entirely.

It is the planned destabilization of the nation with a purpose. All the suffering and strife are the prices that must be paid so that the beautiful Utopian Goal can be attained.

 

Political Consequences

It is crucially important that our politics remain open and rational, and that the Left eradicates its Utopian cultism and returns to practical, pragmatic politics with the premier focus on this country, its concerns, and its citizens.

Our American politics have always been confrontational. For a confrontational, yet open political discourse and culture, we must have at least two viable opposing parties—a situation that does not now exist.

So long as the Democratic party—now the core and face of the Utopian Left political cult—remains a cult, it is not a healthy, rational or viable political party.

 

Conclusion

The cultification of the Democratic party and the political Left in the United States is one of the greatest catastrophes in American history.

 

Addition, November 8, 2017

 

Table of Contents

 

DL Adams is an American historian.

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