Around this time eight years ago, as then-Sen. Bob Corker neared the end of his congressional career, the Tennessee Republican voiced his frustrations about the direction of his party, telling reporters that the GOP had become almost “cultish” about Donald Trump.

The retiring senator added, “It’s not a good place for any party to end up with a cult-like situation as it relates to a president.”

Soon after, Donald Trump Jr. appeared on Fox News and took issue with Corker’s comment, but not in an unexpected way. Instead of rejecting the senator’s characterization, the president’s son said, “You know what, if it’s a cult, it’s because they like what my father is doing.”

In other words, Americans were supposed to believe that if the Republican Party was starting to resemble a cult, perhaps that deserved to be seen as a good thing.

All of this came to mind anew eight years later, during the second and final night of the Republicans’ utterly pointless midterm convention, when, in between speeches, attendees were treated to a rather unusual video.

“On June 14, 1946, God looked down on His planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,’ so God gave us Trump,” a narrator said over images of the president as a child. “God said, ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state,’ so God made Trump.”

As the narrator referred to heads of state, the video showed Trump literally pushing aside Montenegro’s prime minister, Dusko Markovic, at a 2017 NATO gathering in preparation for a group photo — in a display most people recognized as arrogant, cringeworthy and self-indulgent.

The video soon added that God also said, “I need somebody with arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild.” The video went on, “So God gave us Trump.”

Before anyone thinks I’m presenting an exaggerated or satirical take on the partisan gathering, it’s worth emphasizing that I’m not kidding.

Soon after, Trump himself took the stage for the second time in as many nights, and toward the end of his 25-minute appearance, the Republican did something he does not generally do.

“Please raise your right hand,” he said in all seriousness. Asking convention attendees to repeat after him, Trump said, “I pledge to the greatest president in history, that loves us so much he can’t even breathe, that I will go out with my family, my friends. I’ll do it anyway. I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell, like they do.”

As the president wrapped up this portion of his speech, he added, “You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell. You know that. OK? You go to hell.”

For what it’s worth, in this country, Americans tend to pledge allegiance to the United States and its Constitution, not to presidents.

All of which brings us back to the concerns Corker raised in 2018: “It’s not a good place for any party to end up with a cult-like situation as it relates to a president.”

The former senator was wrong about many things, but on this, he couldn’t have been more right.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post As the Republicans’ midterm convention closes, Trump’s message takes a cultish turn appeared first on MS NOW.

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