Rick Wilson - The Cult of the Big Beautiful Bill

Cults demand much of their followers. They demand the surrender of agency, of independent thought, of morality. They demand loyalty unto ruin: financial, mental, personal, sometimes even sexual. They shatter bonds of decency and reality alike.

And Donald J. Trump, that orange messiah of American decline, has assembled a cult that would make L. Ron Hubbard blush. It’s not politics. It’s not ideology. It’s obedience, wrapped in a cheap red hat and steeped in the stagnant fumes of authoritarianism. And this week, with the passage of the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” we saw it for what it truly is: cultlike uniformity disguised as politics.

This should’ve felt tragic. But frankly, I’m thrilled.

As one of the original Never Trumpers — charter member, front-row seat — I’ve long since burned away the last flecks of hope that the GOP would find its way back from the wilderness. I used to believe in the things the party claimed to stand for: limited government, personal freedom, fiscal restraint. I used to believe, laughably, that there was a moral spine hiding somewhere between tax cuts and flag pins.

https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/the-cult-of-the-big-beautiful-bill