NATION SUSCEPTIBLE TO MASS SUICIDE

Anyone who would have suggested the possibility, indeed the thought, of   an attempted coup d’état happening in the very heart of modern democracy, the US, would have been a candidate for mental examination on the basis of exhibiting symptoms synonymous with mental illness.

Yet January 6, 2021 has been etched in the annals of contemporary history as the day a sitting president of the US attempted to remain in power by all means possible by mobilising a crazed mob of supporters to storm and occupy the Capitol, the seat of America’s Congress and political power. The scenes of crazed supporters of President Donald Trump storming and scaling the hitherto believed to be impenetrable walls of the US Capitol could have come straight from a Hollywood movie. In that moment in time, the US resembled a politically unstable Third World country in Africa where coup d’état are a way of life. Although President Trump did not prevail in his efforts to stop Congress from certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s election win, paving the way to his inauguration on January 20, America’s credentials as the leader of the free world are in tatters.

As I see it, whether or not the US will regain its foothold as the leader of the free world and champion of democracy, the memory and the scars left by last Wednesday’s assault on Capitol Hill will not just simply evaporate, but will remain poignant reminders of what could have been. Perhaps the events of the day would serve to strengthen, not weaken America’s democratic foundation, but most importantly, would put into perspective personality cults within the body politic of any nation. And this has global resonance given the ascendancy of personality cults into leadership roles.

Cult

Inevitably, such cult figures often end up superseding and becoming more relevant than the State. This toxicity of a personality cult submerging the stature of the State has largely subliminally driven a captive group of people whose very lives would rather be expended worshipping such a figure as ably demonstrated by the intimate relationship Trump had cultivated through his litany of lies with his blind and blood thirsty supporters. Trump whipped up such frenzied following from this extreme band of ultra-racist supporters to the extent that they could no longer separate the man from the State or alternately they equated the man to the State and vice versa.

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