The word “cult” is a term often abused by progressives, because it carries with it negative connotations. They like to use it to slander their enemies. The usual suspects convinced the world that Nazism was a cult, to make their case that anyone finding fascism appealing is not just mistaken, but crazy. Progressives picked up on this to brand their enemies. Even so, it is a useful concept, as the cult seems to be a feature of human behavior. Cults go back to the Bronze Age.

In the modern sense, we think of a cult as having certain features, like a charismatic leader and a sense of isolation. A cult always has a set of beliefs that are so convincing to the adherents, in terms of defining their existence and their relationship to the world, that they almost seem brainwashed. It is as if they are controlled by them. The identity of the cult and its purpose becomes the identity and purpose of the adherent. As a result, they operate like an ant farm or a beehive.

Neoconservatism has many of the features of a cult. The members are increasingly isolated from the rest of the world, both physically and emotionally. There is the sense of the embattled minority, ready to martyr themselves for the cause. The members seem to operate in an ideological fog, unable to recognize the massive disconnect between their beliefs and reality. To the neocons, their ideology is perfectly rational, but to outsiders it seems dangerously nutty.

The late great Eric Hoffer pointed out that all mass movements can get along without a god, but they always need a devil. You see that with the neocons. They do not have the charismatic leader, like we normally associate with cults, but perhaps to the adherents, Robert Kagan is charming. Despite his unpleasant demeanor and long list of failures, they venerate him. Still, what holds the cult together is their list of devils, which are all cast as a manifestation of the great authoritarian villain.

That comes through in this piece by Anne Applebaum in the Spectator. It is a good example of the paranoid fantasy. Mx. Applebaum is a neocon rage head, who specializes in scanning the eastern horizon for signs of Alexander III. The neocons  obsession with Russia borders on the pathological, which leads many to assume it is biological. As a result, resistance to cosmopolitan globalism in the east is cast by the neocons as the return of you know who.

A feature of neoconservatism that is shared by all Jews is they are haunted by the thought of exclusion. Being left out is their greatest fear. This manifests as an abhorrence to limits, borders, and clear definitions. This mania for formlessness has been picked up by other tribes of the left. Feminists, for example, rage against biology, because definitions of sex are by nature exclusionary. The BLM activists toppling over statues do so because it is not their history.

This is why neocons favor open borders and recoil in horror at efforts to restore some sense of national unity. When the neocon thinks of borders, he thinks of fences and then starts to think about you know who. You’ll note that the bad guys of the Visegrad are talked about by neocons as an implementation of the all-purpose bogeyman, the authoritarian Übermensch. The neocons have this imaginary, all-purpose bogeyman, they manifest in the real world, but exists in the world for forms.

Another cult-like aspect of the neocons is their internalization of fundamentally irrational and contradictory ideas. For example, after 9/11, the neocons advocated importing millions of Muslims into the US, while at the same time advocating the bombing of Muslim homes and villages.  People can be forgiven for thinking the creation of the “home grown” terrorist, the angry Muslim living in the West, radicalized by US foreign policy, is intentional. To neocons cult this all makes sense.

What argues against calling neoconservativism a cult is how well it fits in with the other two pillars of the ruling orthodoxy. The heirs of William Bradford, with their neo-covenant theology and sense of communal salvation, fit in neatly with Jews and their fear of exclusion and anti-majoritarian animosities. Together, they domestically form the progressive orthodoxy we see today. In a way, the neocons are a complimentary piece, that extends this mode of thought into the areas of foreign policy.

On the other hand, American progressives are showing all the signs of devolving into a cult, with their strange siege mentality and bizarre internal logic. The fact that their pantheon of heroes is referred to by three initials is not an affectation. It is part of the ritual of sacralizing their former leaders. Perhaps the inevitable move by the neocons back to the left, is the completion of some cosmic puzzle. Perhaps like a UFO cult, they see it as the final piece of the cosmic puzzle, signifying the end times.

There is a strong case that neoconservativism is a cult, one based on an obsession with public policy and haunted by nightmares of the authoritarian bogeyman. Their inability to adapt to present reality, becoming more extreme in the face of disconfirmation, is the sort of thing you expect from a cult. Perhaps it runs its course peacefully disappearing into the dustbin of history. Prudence suggests caution as end times cults tend to end with a bang, rather than a whimper.