As Donald Trump dominates the GOP nomination race and some of his inflammatory comments find favor with the party faithful, CBS News measured how the public feels about his “poisoning the blood” language. A striking number of voters agree with this description of immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally, and among Republicans, associating the remarks with Trump himself makes them even likelier to agree.
I mean, hasn’t it grown way beyond the definition of a cult by being like…half of the US? It’s fucked up, sure - but aren’t cults by definition generally “small”?
This is millions of people. I’m not excusing it, it’s fucked. But I feel like “cult” only serves to place it in a light of “oh this is only a few crazy people”…nah…this is HALF of the USA. You should be gearing up to fight your neighbors if this shit lands. It’s not some silly little group like the word ‘cult’ implies.
I mean, one describes Mussolini as having a cult of personality, but that was still most of 1930s Italy following him. I think cult is still appropriate.
It’s not half of the US population. It’s around 30% of eligible voters (as of 2022). That’s still a huge number of people (74 million), but it’s a lot less than half…
Yeah, it’s only half of the people that actually vote, which turns out to be about 30% overall because 40% of us can’t be bothered to vote at all.
I don’t think anyone saying it’s a cult is implying it’s a small group. I’m not sure that’s a fundamental feature of a cult to begin with.
Oxford Dictionary lists the definition of “Cult” as
And that’s what I was taught it meant as well.
Really? This is the first result from the Oxford Dictionary:
https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=cult
Dictionaries differ.
I think that’s the most simple version of cult.
Anyone that worshops anything can be called a cult of that thing.
In common usage especially in American English I think the word connotes an unorthodox form of worshipping, and so by that definition it’s a small group, otherwise it would just be the orthodoxy.