In recent years, it has occurred to me that politics are a new “religion.” This notion has been voiced by many commentators. Daniel Greenfield does a solid job describing the phenomenon below.
I have these two main takeaways:
Politics are a fake religion, and no substitute for the real thing;
and the political cult that inevitably evolves when people try to make politics a religion, is completely un-American.
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“America’s immunity to political cults began with its founding. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were revolutionary documents, but their promise lay in liberty, not in political messianism. They were not offering a new age of power, but the freedom for Americans to live their own lives.”
“Americans were not looking to change the world or even themselves, but to be left alone within their own communities, their states, their churches and synagogues, their families and their homes.”
“The Revolution did not usher in a new cultural revolution or even a new political revolution. Rather it protected, expanded, and defended what had already been built using principles that aligned with the sentiments and values of most Americans.”
“Political cults turn politics into the end whereas Americans insisted that politics was the means.”
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2021/07/the-age-of-political-cults.html