A Simple Explanation of A Cult of Personality

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One of the unspoken truths of authoritarian regimes is that they mostly do not depend on public support or even having that great of a leader in charge. Most of them depend on having a cult of personality that allows even the worst leaders to remain in power. But, what is a cult of personality? According to Merriam-Webster, the most simple definition of a cult of personality is a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired and loved.

The cult of personality goes all the way back to the divine right of kings: the idea that god or some other force in the universe gives the leader super-human qualities that make them best for controlling other people's lives. Authoritarian kings used this for power, but you can see this in twentieth-century dictatorships as well like Hitler in Nazi Germany or Stalin in the USSR. What makes cults like this so dangerous is that these cults allow leaders to be in charge and stay in power even if they are objectively bad rulers who only do the bare minimum to maintain society or if most people hate them for what awful things they do.

People need to also remember that a cult of personality can also apply to smaller cults where people are brainwashed into accepting a terrible leader and doing their actions because they are taught said readers can do no wrong and that their lives are meaningless without said controlling leader running everything. Think about the Narcosatanist cult I wrote about earlier where a serial killer working with the Gulf Cartel convinced his followers to commit human sacrifices for the cartel or the cult of Charles Manson.