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Thursday, February 25, 2016

Fallen idol

There are different kinds of Trump supporters, but I'm struck by some parallels between Richard Dawkins and Donald Trump.

As a washed-up biologist who was never all that great even in his prime, Dawkins increasingly turned to atheism. This peaked with The God Delusion, in 2006. That was followed by an international book tour to fawning young audiences. In tandem was the discussion forum at his old website.

For a time, he was the icon of his own personality cult. But that all began to change when the discussion forum got out of hand:


Then Dawkins started to attack liberal sacred cows like Islam and feminism. It was striking to see how quickly his impassioned devotees turned furiously on their former idol. 

Like Dawkins, Trump is currently the icon of his own personality cult. And many of his fans evince the same personality traits as the atheist rabble who use to swarm all over the discussion forum at his old website. 


If Trump were actually to become president, it's predicable that splenetic disillusionment would shortly erupt as his actual performance in office disappointed the utopian expectations of his rabid devotees. 

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