From Pine View Farm

Purity 0

I have from time to time complained in these electrons of political “purists,” those who, if a candidate or nominee does not agree with their positions in their entirety, run whining off to throw their votes away on a Jill Stein or a Ralph Nader.

The other side of “purists,” I reckon, are the cultists, those who support their idol regardless of what he or she does, even if that includes, say, just to pick a fr’instance from thin airwaves, shooting someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue.

At Psychology Today Blogs, Adrian Picotic explores the latter. A snippet:

If anything can become a sacred value, it follows that a politician or dictator could come to occupy that cognitive place for a group of people. When this occurs, I’d say that person has their very own cult of personality. It surely seems so if their followers are: (1) willing to defend them unconditionally and (2) motivated by allegiance to the individual above party or policies. This understanding could replace (or supplement) traditional historical definitions of the phenomena that emphasize intentional campaigns to elevate the leader of (usually) a single party state, involving governmental apparatuses and media.

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