I am stunned by the faulty logic, bad reasoning, cook-book "talking points," (But her e-mails!!!"), self-righteous deductions and sad conclusions of what I've read here from kdag and bakkagirl. For Chrissakes, this is a cult-debunking group. Have you no recognition of the number of serious authors, historians, journalists, and commentators who have likened the Trump phenomenon to a cult since the beginning of this idiot's campaign. Certainly there are things very, very wrong with our way of selecting candidates, forcing them to make themselves into "rock stars," pimping and pandering to the lowest of the lower human frailties, and the cynical and exploitative power-grabs by moneyed interests. It's a tragedy that our country has been turned over to TV personalities, cardboard cut-out celebrities, telegenic pitch-men, and other barely or sub-human poseurs fronting for secretive, big money players. But the situation now is that we are all held hostage by the very mechanisms that make a cult a cult with the Republican capitulation to the degradation of their party by Trump and his followers. The very good and honorable ideals of the Grand Old Party have been trashed and now appear no more than a cover-story for the hypocrites who have taken over. The truth is that Republicans could never win an election without tapping into cult tricks and tactics and corralling all of those susceptible to them. They've cynically used the same methods to rope in the voters that cult leaders, snake-oil salesmen, tent-revival preachers, faith healers, and various other human predators have honed over millennia. I am not hopeful we will survive with any sort of decency or integrity left. I imagine we will slink off into the background with our "American Exceptionalism" packed up worn and dirty into a raggedy old suitcase.
Ellen
Ellen