Manson and Trump Cults

As I watched the 2019 documentary “Manson: The Women” on Apple TV, I couldn’t help but sense some parallels between then and now. Reexamining the horrific Tate/LaBianca murderers in 1969 committed by the mainly female followers of ex-con turned twisted hippie guru Charles Manson evoked parallels with Donald Trump and today’s MAGA madness.

Both the Manson Family and tRumpism are cults. A big head-scratcher at the center of it all, at least from my POV, is how in the hell can two obviously misogynistic psychopaths so deeply win over women? Credit the ruthless charm in the psychopathic personality. And in the case of our pathetic current PresiDunce, the allure of money, power and fame (aphrodisiacs that leave me cold but obviously get many others tingling).

Sure, there’s a huge difference between the street hippie look of Charlie’s girls and the tacky faux-chic of the Mar-a-Largo women, with their spackled-on make-up, puffy botox lips and other distasteful enhancements. Yet both dress for the tenor of their times, twisted by their leaders.

Manson masterfully utilized the hippie ethos to charm and take hold of women’s souls. TRump has an animalistic cunning for spinning the mythos of this new Gilded Age into a vision that somehow charms women who should know better. They’ve followed him from the time of “greed is good” into one that asserts how greed is in fact great and hate is A-OK, just as Manson manipulated the ideals of the 1960s into a recipe for vicious murder.

As much as I have read and seen about Manson and his women since it happened at the time in my life when I was fully 1960s countercultural, the hour-and-about-a-half doc brought some new insights about his followers, plus carried some of its enigmatic horrors along into the current day. The film’s through line is interviews done with four Manson women, alongside some female commentators. It boggles the imagination that some of Charlie’s cult appeal still simmers within them.

That shows how strong the cult hold can be. Even with women by men who obviously regard them as lesser, and very much base sex objects to be used and abused. Manson and tRump may have come from very different circumstances, yet they are cut from the same damaged and twisted human cloth.

The sheer heartlessness of the Manson family murders was shocking in its time. Alas, it might have even prepared and even in a way inured to the sheer cruelty within the MAGA cult. And it’s notable how the greatest and most racist cruelty within it is ICE, headed by a woman, Kristi Noem.

To many, the Tate/LaBianca murders were one of the primary signs that the 1960s ethos was coming to an end. I’d like to think – though I remain worried to the depth of my soul about the current state of our nation and society – that the demented conservative infection that created  tRumpism is coming to an end, hoist on its own twisted petard, just as Manson was.

Yet as I hear the four Manson women speak 50 years later, their general lack of remorse or any genuine understanding of how far outside rationality and decency give me dismay. And instill fear at how persistent and unyielding cultish devotion can be.

Just like the Manson cult and their murders are still very much with us, and can still evoke disturbing realizations, alas, the MAGA cult will continue to course through our culture. We can only hope, as with Manson, that a majority holds tight against the deranged tinpot demigods among us.

Populist Pick

Book: “The Demon of Unrest” by Erik Larson – The likely finest historical author writing today parallels our current times in his latest book, centered on – but hardly limited to – Fort Sumter on the Charleston harbor as our national union sunders on the eve of the Civil War. Larson shines at everything from making people from the past come alive to finding the vital gist in the granular elements of history. And then tells it all with a spellbinding eloquence. Again, one can feel present day parallels even if the circumstances differ, which spotlights how well Larson channels the human condition.

Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.