Cult/Art

The American presidency of Donald J. Trump has been notorious in its disregard for established norms, while his radical reformation of the American project have led many to equate his presidency to a work of “performance art.” The worship of his followers and the devotion of his Republican base have led to Trump being hailed as a “flawed redeemer,” and all those who worship him as a new form of “religious cult.” News and media anchors regularly refer to the former American president as a cult leader, a performance artist, or both; yet neither signifiers are ever contextualized within the history of religion, or western art by those who invoke them. Both the performance artist and the cult leader are contemporary media constructions that activate the religious imagination through intrigue and horror. As an artist inventing a religion as art, and a scholar of new religious movements, I present this article as an excavation of these signifiers and speculate upon their unique conflation around the unprecedented American presidency of Donald J. Trump.