The Opposite of A Cult February 13, 2020 But start with this: . . . That Catholic Charities has been replaced by Hookers for Jesus says much about Barr’s Justice Department. Friends of Trump are rewarded. Opponents of Trump are punished. And the nation’s law enforcement apparatus becomes Trump’s personal plaything. . . . Dana Milbank’s whole column is worth your time and dismay. And this: Challenging Trump for the GOP nomination taught me my party is a cult. Real conservatives think for themselves. Trump Republicans have been brainwashed. When I announced my primary challenge to President Trump last year, I knew running against him for the GOP nomination was the ultimate long shot. Even now, after impeachment, after three years of vulgarities, inanities, betrayals and racist screeds, he has a 94 percent approval rating among Republicans in the latest Gallup poll. . . . I hate to say it, but the GOP now resembles a cult. Joe Walsh’s whole column, also from the Washington Post, is likewise worth your time. The thing is: when you’re in a cult, you generally don’t know you’re in a cult. You reject anything — like Joe Walsh’s column or Mitt Romney’s principled vote or the fact that a million and a half more jobs were created in Obama’s final three years than in Trump’s first three — that conflicts with what you want believe. So you wind up believing Trump . . . . . . who believes Putin. (And if you can’t trust Vladimir Putin to have America’s best interests at heart, whom can you trust?) Watching all this, Putin must be giddy. Read the “post acquittal” view from Moscow: Russians Think Triumphant Trump Is More Their Man Than Ever. One more reason it’s imperative to wrest power from Trump and McConnell November 3 . . . which means funding the early-organizing snowball now, so it has plenty of time to accumulate volunteers as it rolls downhill. So (finally) what is the opposite of a cult? Denmark. Three inspirational minutes.