Serving notice on the cult of personality devotees

Celebrities and their adoring fans have a unique relationship.  Whatever appeal a celebrity exudes often attracts a following drawn to their characteristics and traits with which fans identify or a professional record or personal history that resonates or perhaps even defines the fan’s own.  Professional or financial success, be it actual or perceived, can be extremely hard for many seeking the same to dismiss.  There have been fans who have followed rock stars, actors, athletes and their teams, TV talking heads and politicians to incredibly far extremes, even when their performances may not have been at peak and their results are disappointing.  When the celebrity’s results of performance cease being relevant to the fans, their admiration and adulation elevates to the next level, i.e., cult status.  When a celebrity has the wherewithal to reinvent themselves via media, infotainment and propaganda a cult of personality can be easily created.  A cult of personality has a distinct allure and nothing about the personality’s history or anything emanating from the mouth of the worshipped is too far fetched or over the top for their devotees to swallow.  Nor are any of their actions or inactions too much to accept as part of the sacred package they fanatically cling to.  Indeed, such a  celebrity could shoot someone in the middle of the nation’s busiest street and not lose any followers.  When such a person is a private citizen they are much easier to ignore as there are numerous other options in a free market to choose from in a multiple channel cable or satellite TV service.  When they become the highest elected official in the land that changes the dynamic to the maximum extreme as all citizens are eventually effected by both their actions and inactions.

Readers who have followed this blog from its beginning may recall the thoroughly explained and legitimate personality issue with the now 45th *President and his voter base nearly three years ago in .  It is no surprise that he is conducting the affairs of his elected office in the manner that he is.  He is indeed living up to billing as he is showing everyone, supporters and critics alike, what most expected to see.  It is painfully clear that the problem is not this *President, as unacceptable as his actions have been.  It is with those elected members of Congress and appointed members of government agencies who fail to provide the necessary constitutional check on his power, even as sells out the nation at an ill-advised overseas summit meeting to a hostile foreign power.  Regardless of the opinion of any elected individual, the United States is still a constitutional republic.  All elected Senators and Representatives in the Congress still affirm the same oath which requires allegiance to a document, not a person.  If anyone has a problem with the oath they swore then we should thank them for their service and demand their resignation.  Forget about the doings of this *President.  What matters are those whose duty it is to be a check on wayward power.

Oath of Office

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God. 

If any political candidate has a problem with taking this oath, for whatever reason, they should choose another endeavor or seek other employment.  This goes for anyone seeking election to the Congress all the way down ballot to the State House and Senate and any state, county or municipal office as all are subordinate to the U.S. Constitution.  Going forward this will have to be the new litmus test for political candidates.  If anyone has a problem with being more loyal to a celebrity personality than they do the document that embodies the heart and soul of the nation then they do not need to be dictating or enforcing policy.

When the history of this era of the grand American experiment is eventually authored by doctorate level analysts and first person observers,  it likely will not be as critical of this *President as it will be those in government that enabled him to do the damage he has done and is doing.  On a personal level, I really don’t care about any candidate or incumbent’s ideology.  The one thing I do demand in the absolute however is obedience to the law.  Let the word go out far and wide that there is a choice before those candidates and incumbents alike who may be enamored by wealth, power, fame and celebrity.  Who and what are you going to serve?  Looking ahead, it will not matter who is elected President in 2020.  The mess left behind will be massive but a hard national lesson will have been learned.  Chaos government does not serve but a chosen few, American democracy is vulnerable to attack from without as well as within and that apparently will not change and awarding leadership to a cult of personality and its devotees has all but destroyed the reputation of a once admired leader among nations.  History tends to be cyclical.  May the American nation not repeat this cycle for a long time if ever.  In the meantime the devotees to the ruling cult of personality are hereby served fair notice that Election Day is coming.