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Raw Story: Trump's latest 'meltdown' has hints of 'last day of Waco' decline: analyst
Raw Story - Trump's latest 'meltdown' has hints of 'last day of Waco' decline: analyst
Tom Boggioni
April 10, 2025 8:17AM ET
While multiple critics of Donald Trump have characterized his decision to put his sweeping tariffs on pause for 90 days as "blinking" due to pressure from the billionaires who backed his 2024 presidential bid, a columnist for Salon suggested the turnabout goes deeper than that.
In a column published Thursday morning, longtime political observer Amanda Marcotte made the case that Trump's proclamation on Truth Social that he had a change of heart gave off a cult leader vibe that elicited a similar cultish response from his fans who praised it as a genius move.
As Marcotte wrote, "We're getting a compelling illustration on the national stage of how a cult leader can induce his followers to stick by him, even as he loses his mind and his behavior becomes too erratic and dangerous to defend. Almost every Republican on Capitol Hill knows that Donald Trump's tariff plan is political suicide, but few are willing to admit that Dear Leader fully intends to see this idiocy to the very end."
Calling Trump's move a "victory" among his true believers, she noted it will likely be "short-lived" because of his underlying problems.
"Trump has a messiah complex, which has only grown since that missed assassin's bullet from July was hyped by his followers into 'proof' that he's the Chosen One," she wrote before suggesting, "Even as he blinks momentarily on his tariff mania, his behavior is getting even more erratic in a way that's got 'last days of Waco' vibes from a president who has already unsubtly compared himself to David Koresh. His Truth Social meltdown when announcing the 'pause' indicates a decline in Trump's already-fragile mental state."
/snip
Tom Boggioni
April 10, 2025 8:17AM ET
While multiple critics of Donald Trump have characterized his decision to put his sweeping tariffs on pause for 90 days as "blinking" due to pressure from the billionaires who backed his 2024 presidential bid, a columnist for Salon suggested the turnabout goes deeper than that.
In a column published Thursday morning, longtime political observer Amanda Marcotte made the case that Trump's proclamation on Truth Social that he had a change of heart gave off a cult leader vibe that elicited a similar cultish response from his fans who praised it as a genius move.
As Marcotte wrote, "We're getting a compelling illustration on the national stage of how a cult leader can induce his followers to stick by him, even as he loses his mind and his behavior becomes too erratic and dangerous to defend. Almost every Republican on Capitol Hill knows that Donald Trump's tariff plan is political suicide, but few are willing to admit that Dear Leader fully intends to see this idiocy to the very end."
Calling Trump's move a "victory" among his true believers, she noted it will likely be "short-lived" because of his underlying problems.
"Trump has a messiah complex, which has only grown since that missed assassin's bullet from July was hyped by his followers into 'proof' that he's the Chosen One," she wrote before suggesting, "Even as he blinks momentarily on his tariff mania, his behavior is getting even more erratic in a way that's got 'last days of Waco' vibes from a president who has already unsubtly compared himself to David Koresh. His Truth Social meltdown when announcing the 'pause' indicates a decline in Trump's already-fragile mental state."
/snip