Sometime, in the very early 1970s, the Republican Party started to become a cult, a quasi-religious organization that worshipped first Richard Nixon, then Ronald Reagan, then Sarah Palin.
Nikita Khruschev called a similar phenomenon "The Cult of Personality" but in North Korea, it's called Juche. More below the fold....
PROFILE: JUCHE IDEA
The idea of Juche, also known "Kimilsungism" after Kim Ilsung, is the religious, political, social and economic ideology of North Korea ("The Juche Idea").
The Juche Idea was first introduce by Kim Ilsung in 1955 to distance North Korea from Soviet Union, which at the time was undoing many of the Stalinist policies that Kim Ilsung liked.
Over time, Juche evolved, borrowing from Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism and Confucianism whatever Kim Ilsung and Kim Jongil wanted, as well as their own ideas, and in 1972 replaced Marxism-Leninism in the North Korean constitution as the country's official ideology.
According to Juche, there is no god but Kim Ilsung, the country's "Eternal President", which makes North Korea the world's only country governed by an embalmed dead body. Juche attributes divine powers also to Kim Jongil, the sole author, editor and interpreter of Juche.
If read a number of books on Watergate, the Committee to Reelect The President, was run by whackos. People like Gordon Liddy and HR Haldemann, who thought that Nixon was a demigod, and all Democrats were traitors. That's why they acted like they did. The more time went on, the more that CREEP and the White House Staff began to resemble a cult—American Juche. Now as to actual domestic policy, the Nixon administration was actually a bit on the left, but that was neither here nor there. It was the idea that all Democrats were traitors that was the basic ideology, and if that was the case, which it was not, then going beyond the law here and there was okay. That was until a few lower operatives got caught bugging the Democrats in June of 1972.
The Juche ideology stumbled badly during the Ford administration, but Ronald Reagan took up the torch, nearly toppling Ford in 1976 and then getting elected President in 1980. When Reagan took office in 1981, the American Juche idea began to take hold. The Term "Liberal" became an epithet, and cultish Reagan worship, even with the detour of Iran/Contra, began to take hold over the Republican party.
While Reagan's jovial demenor disguised Juche for what it was, it was Vice-President George H. Bush and his sidekick Lee Atwater, who were its true high priest. The disdain for first, the other 1988 Republican candidates as not "pure" enough, then Democratic Nominee Michael Dukakis as an out in out traitor, that pushed the party over the edge. IT worked in the campaign, but Bush as President was more moderate, and the true believers turned on him. The two-party system cracked, and Ross Perot's movement nearly tore it asunder.
Atwater was dead, the Juche's main acolyte, Pat Buchanan, led a revolt for true faith. In 2000, Buchanan was next in line for the Republican nomination, but the Party wasn't completely in the movement's grip yet, and the seemingly innocuous George W. Bush was chosen in his place. Bush's people, led by Carl Rove, were pure Juche. Soon the White House became as much of a cult as it was under Nixon. Religious certainty led to mistakes, and as always, the Democrats didn't know how to respond. That's why Obama is President now instead of Kerry.
Juche has become the ideology of the Republicans. HCR and the GOP's reaction to it, plus the Birthers and the Tea Parties, have shown that the Republicans are as much a cult as the Scientoligists or the Moonies.
We need deprogrammers, and fast.