Trumpheads
by digby
The WSJ has a piece about Trump cultists who follow him around like a bunch of Deadheads:
“You go to the rallies, and he basically tells you that you don’t have to put up with ‘the swamp’ and those kinds of people,” said Saundra Kiczenski, a 40-year-old Walmart worker from Michigan who has been to 29 rallies. “Because of him I decided not to pay for Obamacare, not pay the fine. And what happened? Nothing. Before, the quiet me would have paid the fine. But Donald Trump told me that we have a voice, and now I stand up for myself.”
The Trump rally die-hards—a few dozen men and women who have been to more than 10 rallies—are almost exclusively white. Many are recently retired with time on their hands and little to keep them tied to home. A handful never had children. Others are estranged from their families…
All of them describe, in different ways, a euphoric flow of emotions between themselves and the president, a sort of adrenaline-fueled, psychic cleansing that follows 90 minutes of chanting and cheering with 15,000 other like-minded Trump junkies.
“Once you start going, it’s kind of like an addiction, honestly,” said April Owens, a 49-year-old financial manager in Kingsport, Tenn., who has been to 11 rallies. “I love the energy. I wouldn’t stand in line for 26 hours to see any rock band. He’s the only person I would do this for, and I’ll be here as many times as I can.”
[…]
Mr. Trump has hosted more than 550 ticketed campaign events since 2015, at least 70% of which include his trademark rallies, according to Republican officials. These rallies form the core of one of the most steadfast political movements in modern American political history, a dynamic that has reordered the Republican Party.
Mr. Trump’s perpetual tour attracts a coterie of political pilgrims who travel across the country and encamp outside arenas for days at a time for the chance to stand in the front row and, for 90 minutes, cheer the man they say has changed the U.S. and, in many cases, their own lives. Somewhere between 5% to 10% of attendees have been to multiple events, the officials said.
They love how he makes them feel and the way everyone around them thinks exactly like them. That’s not uncommon for cults of personality which come in different shapes and sizes. It’s also the way people feel when they follow musicians around the country, eager to hear all the hits and share the moment with their fellow fans. The difference here is that these people cheer for hatred and resentment, lies and bullshit for a demagogic con man. They don’t have to worry about anyone holding them to some sort of common decency or empathy for anyone but the group. They are part of something. Something ugly. And they love it.
We have seen this before.