In a recent episode of The Bulwark podcast, the host and guest compare supporters of President Donald Trump and his administration’s leadership to a “cargo cult.” Historically, cargo cults were spiritual, political, and social movements that emerged among Indigenous Melanesian communities following contact with Western colonizers and Allied military forces in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Host Tim Miller asks The New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie about why he used the term to define them as such. Bouie used the term in a piece about Trump’s administration’s aggressive targeting of U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar following the federal raid on her home.
“It’s a useful metaphor when talking about the administration because they have an end in sight, which is a consolidated authoritarian regime, and they think they know how to get there. But often, in my view, what it seems like they’re doing is they’re kind of they are trying to summon the energy of that authoritarian consolidated state without actually doing the kind of concrete and practical things you would need to do to make that durable. And what that ends up looking like are these aggressive abuses of power that in the end tend to be a wash,” Bouie asserts.
Bouie says that many employed under the Trump administration are “illegal” and “comically ridiculous and absurd.” He continues, saying, “I use the cargo cult metaphor to kind of capture this thing where it’s not that you should not discount the goal that they have. That’s very serious…..it’s not that you should discount what they’re doing, the actual concrete actions, but that there’s a disconnect between one and the other. And that disconnect is both the place where, if you are an opponent or target, there’s a lot of place for pushing back,” he continues, “But also that disconnect is, I think, why after almost two years of this it’s like they don’t really have much to show for it other than this deeply unpopular administration which has done real damage and havoc to the American system but has not succeeded at its I think its actual primary goal, which is this consolidated authoritarian state.”
Miller agrees, saying on his show, he and his guests have explored how Trump is a comical figure who wants power. For him, it’s about trying to get his listeners to balance the two ideas of Trump and the administration’s antics being obnoxious and also dangerous.