The Good Cult
by Allie Reid
So there was a controversy in November 2018 and it didn’t have anything to do with Donald Trump! I’m kidding, I mean he wasn’t directly involved but it was totally Trump adjacent. Some of you may have heard about this photograph that surfaced on Twitter of about 60 high school boys before their junior prom where 2 of them are doing fist bumps and 43 of them are doing what the New York Times described as “one arm raised, palms down and elbows locked straight, a gesture that looks identical to a Nazi salute.” In their defence, some of the students claimed to not know what the high sign meant and explained that the photographer had just instructed them to “do the sign.” And, you can’t get mad at someone for just following orders.
Unless you’re the police and the school officials who were like, “Whoa! You cannot do that! We gotta teach these kids a lesson.” Which makes sense — the optics there are rough. It sucks to be the school with the Nazis. It’s not fun to talk about at police reunions and school official reunions or wherever people in power go to get shamed. So, you can imagine how mad bummed they must’ve been when two weeks later they found out they actually can’t punish anyone in this situation because the photo wasn’t taken on school property. Bwa bwa.
Alternatively, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland responded to the photo by directing the school district to its online lesson plans, including resources on the consequences of normalizing symbols of hate. You know, the ol’ go for their hearts and minds approach. Which is so sweet. But…does anyone really buy that you can lure Nazi’s away from their delicious fascism with a lesson plan?
The fact is, neither retribution or education brought anyone into the alt-right — undeserved validation combined with the cultivation of a mindless following did, and that just may be the only way to bring them back out. Think about it — white nationalists love hearing that they’re special and their life is the hardest and that the world is amazed at how they really are gonna make it after all. And to be honest, I’m not sure it’s just them — I live along the marathon route and this year I unwittingly woke up on the morning of the marathon to the voice of a woman drifting into my window yelling “great job” at 5 second intervals for 3+ish hours. And I have never felt better about myself! Validation feels nice, even if you did absolutely nothing to deserve it. Even if you know in the front of your head that that person isn’t even talking to you, being rewarded for doing nothing feels fuckin’ nice.
And once you’ve validated someone, you can make them do anything. Just think about Trump at his rallies — if he says something, and it gets a big reaction — he’s gonna try to do that thing.
And people can get pissed about that or we can capitalize on it. Create an entire cult following using affirmations. If anyone questions it, just tell them they’re pretty.
Some people might argue that creating a mindless following doesn’t actually solve the problem. That the alt right represents a flawed ideology and that it’s the personal responsibility of every American to diligently navigate our current political climate by staying abreast of current events, parsing out which news sources are reliable, remaining constantly vigilant and taking action to manifest the world they want to live in for themselves and their countrymen. And any of the other writers tonight are welcome to campaign for what sounds to me like the equivalent of diet and exercise for political engagement. I’m here to sell you the shake weight.
Make something that’s fun to follow, like a real political party with candy and dancing and “way to go” stickers. Create the following and then if you want to add new messaging later you totally can. Think about it, do Scientologists lead with, “and eventually we’ll take all your money, and your family, and your sense of self and leave you with nothing?” I don’t know. But probably not, right? Later, you could add in some stuff about valuing universal human rights or advocating for a fair taxation system. Once you get some speed the sled will power itself no matter how much weight you pile on it.
You just have to think about the optics of it, like don’t put fascist stuff back into the happy cult or else we’re sort of back where we started. But, besides that, frankly, the bar is so low right now, like you could use the barometer of just “does this hurt anyone?” and if it doesn’t, it’s probably ok to do. “Does it isolate children from their parents, contradict American laws, exacerbate violence, intensify class stratification or compromise another person’s humanity?” No? Perfect [ok sign], right?
…right? I mean I think that sounds right but I really don’t know — I’m planning on letting James Spader make those kinds of decisions and I’ll just focus on receiving the compliments. Yea, that’s right! I’m nominating James Spader to lead the cult so any follow up questions about the logistics of all of this can be directed to him.
I’ve been on a bit of a J.S. kick recently, a late The Office situation that segued into The Blacklist that somehow sent me backward to Boston Legal. And I gotta say, I understand the appeal of being told exactly what is the right thing to do and that seems to be pretty much all of what he does. J. Spitty has that perfect mix of devil-may-care swagger along with — “but the shit I’m doing is mostly for the public good and is motivated by morality” sandwiched on the other side with double middle fingers cuz we gotta keep it sexy, ya’ll! Mostly I’ll do whatever James Spader tells me to do and I think I speak for the entire country on that one.
Having completed a close reading of the James Spader canon over the past 3 weeks, I should warn you that it can sometimes be tricky to determine how the things Spadey and his subsequent alter egos are doing is actually beneficial to mankind; and it is in these moments of doubt, when we’re really going to want to distract ourselves with the dancing and the candy and the etcetera etcetera. That or you could go do your own research, but again — that ship has sailed. Welcome to autopilot bay beeee.
Because, that is the one thing the alt-right got right — automation is awesome. Think of self driving cars — they basically mean we can be drunk when we should be driving. And automating our politics, well that means we can be drunk the rest of the time. Someone just has to make sure both our cars and our politics are driving where we want them to and not to our deaths like that episode of Monk. Season 2. Episode 3. Mr Monk Goes to the Ball Game. You know — a ruthless CEO and his wife are lured to their deaths by their own car’s GPS and Monk connects their murders to a star baseball player’s quest for the single season home run record. It’s not important. Monk is my backup choice for cult leader. Keep your eye on the shake weight.
Look, I spent Thanksgiving with a 2 year old boy and a 4 year old boy — I understand that not everyone is ready for independent thought. There’s no reason people should have to think or struggle in order to dilute themselves into thinking they’re winning politically or to be told that they’re a good boy. Now, go on and tell me I’m pretty and that I did a great job.
Allie Reid is an actor and performer in Chicago. Catch Allie tearing it up with The Manson Family Players performing improv and sketch comedy at various venues around Chicago or adventuring on the RPG podcast ShuffleQuest.
This piece was presented at The Skewer’s live show December 5th, 2018 at Cafe Mustache in Chicago. Listen to the rest of the show at https://soundcloud.com/theskewer/the-skewer-35-december-2018
