The authoritarian cult
By Greg Sargent
October 26 at 10:39 AM
... the GOP civil war is really a battle over whether Republican lawmakers should — or should not — genuflect before President Trump. The battle is over whether they should — or should not — applaud his racism, his authoritarianism and his obvious pleasure in dispensing abuse and sowing racial division. It’s also over whether Republicans should submit to Trump’s ongoing insistence that his lack of major accomplishments is fully the fault of Republicans who failed his greatness.
... allies of .. McConnell .. have hit on a new strategy for countering .. Bannon’s insurgency. Bannon’s challengers are running on the idea that they constitute the true bearers of the Trumpist banner against a GOP establishment that has allegedly betrayed Trumpism. The strategy is to walk a careful line, avoiding attacking Trump while linking Bannon’s version of Trumpism "to white nationalism to discredit him and the candidates he will support" ...
... When Trump allies blast the GOP establishment as sellouts, they are saying two things — that GOP leaders are both insufficiently enthusiastic about his ongoing employment of white identity politics and that they are failing his agenda in some sense that never has to be defined ...
The GOP civil war is really over how Republicans should react to Trump’s bigotry and authoritarianism, and about how they should react when Trump demands that they admit that they are the losers when things go wrong. This is why Sens. Jeff Flake and Bob Corker focused their criticism on those particular excesses; why other Republicans were reluctant to endorse that criticism; and why Trump easily brushed them off by ridiculing them as losers ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/10/26/the-trump-authoritarian-cult/?utm_term=.4e7fd86c14c4
= new reply since forum marked as read
IMO, the lifeblood of the typical conservative personality is to have a strong authoritarian structure - both in their private and political lives. At this time, they have no single structure to rely on - in fact, there seems to be multiple structures pulling at them, despite their powerful need for unity and a system headed by a god figure, as Reagan was.
I also would question if average Republican voters understand the complexity of these divisions. Perhaps most don't care.
I feel no sympathy for anyone connected to this cult, and feel no remorse if they self-destruct. 
