It’s a Republican Thing.

Photo by rollingstone.com

My friend Dustin is a lifeguard with Los Angeles County. All county lifeguards are considered frontline emergency workers, so early in the vaccine rollout they were all offered early access to it. Dustin, being a thoughtful liberal who was also very worried about contracting Covid-19, jumped at the chance. But not all his colleagues were as eager. “Are you, like, going to get it first thing, dude?” Dustin asked a co-worker in his signature monotone, So-Cal drawl.

“Nah, I’m not gonna get the vax, bro.”

“Dude, why the f*ck not?” Dustin laughed.

“It’s a Republican thing.”

Dustin was dumbfounded. He told me that story and it has stuck with and haunted me since. We often hear talk of how the modern GOP, remade under the Trump banner, is a cult. Now, with so many MAGA faithful outright refusing life-saving vaccines, we often hear it described as a “death cult.” That’s a loaded term to throw around, linked as it is to Jim Jones or the Branch Davidians of decades past, so I wanted to explore it further.

Let’s assume for the moment that Trumpism and the modern GOP is indeed a cult, driven as they are by a single, near messianic figure, gathering in large rallies, and devouring a constant stream of verifiably untrue ideas. These include two doozies: 1) the Big Lie that the election was stolen, and 2) the Deadly Lie that the vaccines are worse than Covid. 

In one sense, the former seems more understandable than the latter. After all, the Big Lie is useful in keeping the base angry and unsupportive of the new administration, despite its many achievements, because it is by definition illegitimate. It brings in donation money with its many lawsuits, fake audits, and the victimization of the Dear Leader. And it justifies in the minds of the GOP the passage of voter suppression laws across Republican-controlled states like Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona.

But the Deadly Lie is harder to unpack. Telling your base to mistrust the vaccine seems an odd election strategy as millions of them will contract the disease and tens of thousands if not more will die from it. Many now go to their graves denying the very existence of Covid-19 (“It’s a hoax!”) but their families will be left behind to process what happened, and some percentage of them will figure out who led their loved ones down this path. As red states become hotbeds for disease (Florida accounted for one of every five new infections this week), a narrative could take hold that maybe GOP governance, which is to say no governance at all or dangerously-messaged governance, isn’t something voters should support in 2022 and beyond.

So why the Deadly Lie? One way to look at this is to assume, as the facts seem to support, that Trumpism is a dangerous cult. The most “successful” cults not only bind their adherents to common ritual and belief but also test their fealty through ever-increasing trials. At the height of the pandemic in 2020, one of the hallmarks of Republicanism was anti-maskerism, which was not just a middle finger to others but a show of solidarity to the movement, the equivalent of being willing to walk across hot coals while sneering that only the weak wouldn’t attempt it. Even Trump contracting the virus was seen by these adherents as a test of his strength; the fact that he survived only seemed to galvanize others to be like him and tough it out—never mind that he received healthcare and lifesaving treatments to which ordinary people had zero access, and never mind that he and the folks at Fox News also quietly received their own vaccinations.

That’s one reason why “It’s a Republican Thing” now includes a willingness to put your own life on the line in service of the cult, ignoring the facts and the evidence in favor of group cohesion and identity. Paradoxically, the stronger the scientific and even anecdotal evidence in favor of vaccination, the greater the test of loyalty to resist vaccination becomes. Similarly, the more outrageous the falsehood adopted by the cult (e.g. QAnon’s belief in a satanic cabal of Democratic child sex traffickers, the conspiracy around microchips and 5G towers), the more extreme the sacrifice demanded.

Death Cults usually don’t end well, and the GOP is heading toward a giant wall in this respect, but here’s the key thing: Death cults cannot ever be allowed to assume power. We have seen how quickly otherwise “normal” conservatives flipped and swore themselves to Trump once it was clear he was the One to lead them. In a death cult, meaning one that demands the ultimate sacrifice as proof of purity, the consequences of institutional adherence and support are incalculable. We have seen it happen before, whether in Communist Soviet Union or China or Fascist Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. We can’t ignore the fact that over 600,000 Americans have died, and yet the cult has doubled down and invited even more death. 

We should acknowledge that a culture in which such massive, tragic death not only fails to bring about change but instead strengthens the resolve of the core base of believers is one that teeters the nation on the brink of madness. It can all happen very quickly; already, somewhere around a third of the voters are willing to throw everything out just to continue to believe the lies. Naming and understanding the social disorder that underlies the Deadly Lie is a beginning, but as with other death cults, the only true answer is to rid ourselves of the danger before it grows further. 

That means this: Trumpism must be resoundingly defeated politically and driven out of our government, top to bottom. That is the calling of our time and the work we have before us. If we fail and they take power in the years ahead, right as we stand poised to defeat them, America as we know it may not survive. That is not some fantastical, alarmist position. It is one borne out by historical analogy and the inherent weakness of our human species. MAGA is now a death cult, and we have to deal with it as such.