In the last few months, many people have written that Donald Trump is the leader of a cult and that Trumpism and his followers are members of the cult. They can find no other explanation for  him and the people they call his “base.”

I find that a dehumanizing term.

Others have suggested he is a fascist or a dictator.

Today, in the midst of all of this frantic, fast-moving, and sometimes frightening political and bureaucratic turmoil, I wanted to explore for myself whether these labels could be true.

The rhetoric all around – left-right, Republican, Democratic, media, and citizens – is out of control. We’ve moved into a digitally fueled kind of hyperspace – hysterical, incoherent, destructive.

And often wrong.

For me, it’s critical to find some perspective, away from the shouting and anger. How sad that our presidential nominating conventions have devolved into a boxing match without referees, a brawl, each side wanting nothing more than for the other side to fail and look awful in the process.

There is no sense of common ground between the two, only fear, ridicule and hatred.

Nothing is ennobling about what is our most sacred ritual.

When I came back from the hospital and tagged into the response to the Republican National Convention and the Democratic Convention before it, I was struck by the hysteria, overreaction, and hyperbole online and on or in almost every aspect of the political and media spectrum.

We seem to have become a mob, the civil and responsible people shouted down and pushed aside.

Each side and its followers are now accusing the other of the foulest crimes against the Republic, of mayhem, cruelty, treason, corruption, and inhumanity.

Trump is guilty of much of this, but no one can create a hatefest like this alone.

Specifically, I wanted to get a sense of whether it could be true that Donald Trump is a cult leader, or a fascist or a dictator. Could I possibly add anything to this degrading scrum?

Never one for caution, I’ll try.

Demagogues like Trump appear when the government fails; he is a symptom of chaos, not the cause. Many people in America have lost faith in our government’s ability to support or represent or protect them. That is when Trumps appear, promising to protect them and hear them, sharing their hatred and disappointment.

Instead of addressing these failures, the culture seems instead to have split up into warring camps, hiding between the Internet and the ever greedy media to insult and malign one another. To me, that is a much bigger problem than Donald Trump. Our system is broken, and until we understand that, we will all become shuttlecocks, whacked back and forth by one group of ideologues after another.

Donald Trump doesn’t cut it as a fascist, cult leader, or dictator. He seems to be a slice of each, but he doesn’t add up to any single one.

First, the cult leader.

As we define the terms and understand them, Trump is not the leader of a cult, and the people who support him are not members of a cult.

I don’t believe that Trumpism is a cult, or that all of the people who follow him are members of a cult.

A cult is most often described as a religious or quasi-religious organization or movement regarded as unorthodox or spurious. A cult usually involves a small group of people characterized by absolute devotion to a leader.

Trumpism, if you want to call it that, is much, much bigger and broader than that. It is a massive American political and cultural movement with very specific goals and ideas and prejudices.

Its core ideology seems to be grievance and resentment, sometimes with good cause.

Some months ago, the Atlantic Magazine listed seven traits that define a cult:

1. Opposing critical thinking. 2. Isolating members and penalizing them for leaving 3. Emphasizing special doctrines outside scripture. 4. Seeking inappropriate loyalty to their leaders. 5. Dishonoring the family unit 6. Crossing Biblical boundaries of behavior (versus sexual purity and personal ownership) 7.Separation from the Church

  A cult requires a charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group loses appeal. That means a living leader who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its power and source of authority.

Lifton’s seminal book Thought Reform and Psychology of Totalism explains this process in considerable detail.

Another characteristic of a cult is the economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling class. There are certainly echoes of a cult in the slavish and unconditional love many of Trump’s followers feel. Lying, cheating, stealing, infidelity, cruelty, even incompetence don’t matter. Many believe he was sent here by God to save them from the rest of us.

Not exactly what Jefferson had in mind when he thought of a Republic with common values.T

Trump is seen as fighting for his people, no matter what. This may be disturbing to people, but it isn’t the definition of a cult. Cult leaders are not elected; they don’t have vast, public, and diverse institutions to run or support.

The destructiveness of groups called cults varies by degree, from labor violations, child abuse, medical neglect to extreme and isolated situations, calls for violence, or mass suicide.

“Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric his demagoguery, and his populist appeals to citizens’ economic anxieties certainly borrow from the fascist playbook,” she wrote. ”

But, she adds: “Italy’s fascists capitalized on similar themes in a different era of global uncertainty; in their case, it was the unemployment, veterans’ resentments, unions’ strikes, and political violence that beset the country following World War I. But Trump is, fundamentally, a blustering political opportunist courting votes in a democratic system; he has not called for the violent overthrow of the system itself. And whereas it can be impossible to discern any logic or strategy in Trump’s campaign, the fascists who marched on Rome in 1922 were relentlessly, violently focused on a clear goal: to kill democracy and install a dictatorship.”

Scholars and historian say many of Trump’s ideas about power and accountability echo fascism, but are not, in fact, fascism:

“… I do ultimately agree…that Trump is not a full-fledged fascist,” wrote James Fallows, one of my favorite students of American life and politics,” even if he is moving us not a few goose-steps further down the primrose path. The traits he describes as Jacksonian (welfare chauvinism and expansionism driven by a petit-bourgeois base) fit nicely at the overlap in the Venn diagram of Trumpism and fascism, but fascism was openly revolutionary. What opposition Trump has shown to democratic ideals and institutions is opportunistic, incoherent, and sporadic rather than ideologically rooted. He does not himself call for national rebirth through the violent overthrow of a corrupt republican order (although some of his followers do).”

(Communism is sometimes applied to Democrats by extremists on the right, but never to Trump or Republicans, who consider any other form of government a heresy and great evil even when ours fails. Communism is a system based around a theory of economic equality and advocates for a classless society. Fascism is a nationalistic, t0p-down system with rigid class roles that is ruled an all-powerful dictator. Both gained popularity in the early to mid 20th century; both failed in their original forms.)

It seems to me that Trump has no single coherent ideology unless Expedience and Opportunism could be called one. He seizes every moment, no matter where it comes from or what it is rooted in, for personal or political gain.

His administration is almost pathologically devoted to halting legal and illegal immigration to America. Yet, during his nominating convention, he is unapologetically happy to swear in five people from countries he called “shitholes” and whose fellow citizens he bans from entering America under any circumstances.

He doesn’t mind how many people the pandemic kills, or how long it lasts, as long as he is not blamed for it. He insists that the November election will vindicate him, and he seems to believe it will be because he wants it to be. He cannot process anything but his own greatness.

A true  Fascist or Iron-Fisted ruler – Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao – would not need to be so opportunistic.

They would just kill or imprison people they dislike, for whatever reason they chose.  The Chinese are no longer debating a free Hong Kong. They are just eliminating it. They care nothing for legitimacy, precedent, popularity, or legal rationales. They don’t rail at critic; they get rid of them or poison them, a la Putin. Or Xi from China.

Trump is, in fact, is most obsessed with his own legitimacy. And his fondness for fascists and dictators is stunning. It tells us what he would like to be, but not what he is.

He is so desperate for the approval of many people that he routinely lies about the crowds he receives, the popularity he has, and the great work he has done.

He is so much more like a child desperate for parental approval than a despot. It is difficult for me to imagine Chairman Mao appearing to be so weak and slavishly in need of approval, or producing his own reality shows, Trump’s true love.

Trump does not fit into any simple, one-word philosophy or ideology, as much as that might make it easier and more urgent to oppose him.

He is a uniquely American, even New York City, phenomenon. He frightens people because of his disdain for laws, rules, or traditions and he is corrupt and immoral as most of us understand the meaning.

The system has never seen anything like him; the Founding Fathers never imagined him long enough to guard against him.

If you believe that our government has failed and betrayed the people, you have nothing to lose by supporting someone who also wants to take it apart and utterly disrupt it.

In that, he has kept his promise to his supporters.

When I was a reporter, I knew a score of people like him; they were all obsessed with reporters and their media coverage, they were often a lot of fun, few of them had any moral scruples or values.

They were, to a one, liars and hustlers, easy prey for any half-ambitious reporter. They inevitably step over too many lines and self-destruct.

They feed off of attention and are all, to a one, narcissists. There is no such thing as a shy or wallflower Hustler of Trump’s magnitude. TV made it possible for him to breakthrough, and the Internet has picked up where TV left off.

If he has any mastery, it is of media, not the government.

Trump is far too self-absorbed and cowardly to conquer a big country.

Any person of any persuasion or any opponent can win him over in a second by praising him. That is usually all he really asks for. For people to be nice to him.

He loves to surprise and rattle the people he calls the elites, who have often hated him, and who now, hate his followers. Thus their bond with one another.

No fascist leader or dictator was ever anything like him.

He is a person of staggering contradictions. He can be shockingly honest about what he feels and is addicted to lying at the same time. I love history, but can’t find anyone like him.

Most Great Hustlers get picked off or indicted early; Trump has no competitors when it comes to survival.

For a long time, reporters who have covered Trump say he used to be softer, funnier, more of a character, occasionally a menace, but not so mean, and always a hustler on the make.

From studying him, it seems his cruelty grew in direct proportion to the number of people who hated and dismissed or ridiculed him. That is the trigger he can’t control.

They say he turned to the dark side when Barack Obama ridiculed him as an ignorant boor at a Washington dinner.

Trump has always demanded obedience and adoration, and in the White House, there has also been criticism and ridicule from everywhere. It is obvious by now that he can’t really handle all of that, he is just not built for it.

He has created his own insular world where he hears little but praise and adoration and rages at everything else. There is no evidence that he really processes his unpopularity, although I am sure he loves frightening people who oppose him.

They always take the bait.

He deals with the hatred by pretending to thrive on it. But clearly, it hurts.

I think part of the problem chewing up Trump and the country is that no one like him has ever been President before. Mostly, I see him acting only on impulse and pure self-aggrandizement, not strategically.

He gives great TV and has long manipulated the pliant media, but he has no clue what to do about a pandemic or explosive racial tension. And he cannot bear the idea of rejection and defeat.

I don’t see a man who wishes to commit genocide or sets out to destroy democracy. I see an awful human being. I see an amoral and opportunistic man that is like a tiger who escaped from the zoo and is tearing through one neighborhood after another, tearing down fences, terrifying children,  eating the occasional dog or cat, and human.

The tiger destroys because he can.

I think Professor Riotta said something important when she said the more urgent threat to our democracy is the moral destruction of the Republican Party, which always teamed with Democrats if there was a genuine threat to the country or urgent crisis to resolve.

Republicans were central to forcing Richard Nixon to resign, and the allegations against Trump were more serious in many ways than Watergate. Republicans always worked across the aisle in a national emergency like the pandemic.

Trump could never have gotten away with ignoring a pandemic if the Republicans were still functioning as a legitimate political party.

Using the animal instincts he was taught to follow,  he chased free thinkers and critics out of the party. In the process, he eliminated any restraints on him, which I believe will be his undoing in November.

He is, as the Greeks predicted, the architect of his own destruction. No one else turned out to be strong enough or brave enough to do it.

I think it’s unfair and inaccurate to suggest that Trump’s followers must be bigoted, ignorant,  fascistic, or dangerous.

The Trump supporters I know don’t fit into those labels, any more than I fit into the labels people put on me.

Liberals had no complaints when the Supreme Court was stacked with progressive or liberal Justices, or when the government carried out progressive or liberal policies.

Tens of millions of Americans want conservative justices, they believe strongly in banning abortion, fighting restrictions on guns, protecting what they believe are their threatened religious rights.

Right or wrong, they believe in small governments and want the poor to lift themselves up.

They see immigration as a threat to their work and the resources of their communities. They mistrust outsiders and Western governments, who they believe are weak and unreliable parasites.

I disagree many or most of their positions obviously, but labeling all of them as supporters of fascism or dictatorship doesn’t really accomplish much.

Some of their complaints – the destruction of rural life, unchecked violence or rioting in the cities, years and years of unchecked and illegal immigration, endless wars that kill thousands of Americans without clear goals, an out-of-control China and it’s grossly unfair trade practices, the devastation of American towns and work by poorly thought out global trade agreements are all part of reasons Trump’s supporters are so devoted to him.

His followers are more devoted to President Trump than any large groups of  Democrats are to most Democratic politicians (with the exception of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who both party establishments shun, and who the Democrats hide.)

It sometimes feels like many Democrats are mostly passionate about getting rid of Trump, not electing their leaders. Perhaps that is changing.

Trump is scoring points at the moment with his complaints about liberal Democratic mayors looking the other way as rioting and looting erupt month after month in different parts of the country. This really upsets most Americans, as does talk of defunding police departments.

The Democrats should have seen this coming, they can’t have it both ways. Trump won’t let them.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would do well to start addressing this before it takes on its own life and urgency. Black Lives certainly matter, but most people do not want to live in fear of chaos.

Most of all, they expect the government to keep order.

When it doesn’t, demagogues thrive.

Trump doesn’t cut it as a cult leader, dictator or fascist.

The term that rings true for me is Grievance  Opportunist, now a movement all its own.

His father may have endowed him with the drive to invade and conquer, and bailed him out of trouble, but nobody bothered to teach him any manners.

Trump’s turn inward only to his base reflects his own cravings and needs, not the country’s future.

If anything, his base is his cult leader. He is a member of the cult, a follower, devoted to one ideology, one tribe he must always please, failing to understand that without a wider and more diverse group of followers, he is and always has been doomed.

His need to be fed and loved is eating him up. He has created a bubble that has taken him away from reality, and reality is the one thing any ambitious politician needs the most.

Three months ago, I wrote that he would be defeated in November. Numbers can be manipulated, but overall, they don’t lie. It will be ugly, it will be messy, it will be hateful, but it’s still true.