The True Believer for Modern Times

By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter

Written in 2016 with small updates

In 1951, Eric Hoffer wrote a book called, “The True Believer.” The book is an analysis of the fanatic—the man (or woman) compelled to join any cause. It studied mass movements from early Christianity to nationalism and Communism.  Hoffer was an extraordinary person to write such a treatise.

He was born in The Bronx and became blind from a fall when he was 5 years old (His sight returned to him many years later). He took $300 in insurance money he received at the time of his father’s death to move to Los Angeles and live on Skid Row where he began to write while working odd jobs. He worked as a migrant worker in the fields of California and as a longshoreman.

 I bought my 60-cent copy of his book as a teen and as I stare at politics in the United States, there are many omens for an uncertain future that are foretold in, “The True Believer.”

“There is perhaps no more reliable indicator of a society’s ripeness for a mass movement than the prevalence of unrelieved boredom.” He writes that early stage mass movements usually find sympathizers among the bored, rather from the oppressed and exploited. He does not speak to the unique issues of race in his writings; he simply speaks of mass movements.

When I reread this, I immediately thought of the Millennials in our current environment who joined Occupy Wall Street or followed Senator Sanders around the country, campaigning for him. I thought of 8 years earlier that there were young professionals and recent college graduates who traveled around the United States to campaign for then Senator Obama. Many struggled with non-careers which left them feeling lacking.

Disenfranchised from the system, we now have the Trump voter who feels disowned by the urban political class who they believe has disregarded them and discarded them.

He notes that all mass movements need an enemy. It may start with efforts to discredit the prevailing order. Mistakes or bad policies may be part of the reason for discrediting the present, but eventually, they evolve. He notes that if the “men of words” (think media in today’s world) have “a duty to familiarize the masses with the idea of change and of creating a receptivity to a new faith. He alone is capable of imperceptibly inspiring change among the masses.”

Whether you believe it true or not, there is a large portion of the media (film, news, etc.) that seem to hold certain beliefs about how the United States should be run. At a time when conservatives ran politics in the United States, they stood in opposition, putting money, ideas, and effort into opposing causes.

Eventually, mass movements to survive, rely upon force. They are ruthless in their management. In the hands of fanatics, they give the appearance to spontaneity but are as fervent in their hatred as their hateful ancestors. The fanatical mind can stifle creative expression.

“The fanatic’s disdain for the present blinds him to the complexity and uniqueness of life. The things that stir the creative seem to him either trivial or corrupt,” Hoffer wrote in 1951. Do you see any similarities in the climate today?

Whether your politics are left or right, there is no “texture” to the discussion. “You are with us or against us,” is the mantra on both sides with total destruction a part of the game plan.

For example, do you remember the commercial run by the Obama campaign that claimed that Governor Romney killed a woman’s husband after acquiring his employer by canceling his insurance? Horrors! An exaggeration, to put it mildly.

How about the President mocking him for his belief that Russia was our biggest threat in the global landscape? “

“The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”

This retort was extremely popular at the time but has since been discredited by Russian actions since the 2012 election (Although you can debate whether Russia or China with its moves to build and claim territory in the South China Sea is more dangerous, clearly the mocking comment was wrong).

Our electorate is uninformed and as ignorant as that of “the banana republics,” Americans my age were raised to ridicule.

“It could never happen to us,” we thought, and yet has.

Ask Americans five things their favorite Presidential candidate will do if elected, most will not know more than a sound bites worth of information.

“Make America great,” is what one side will say with no specifics.

Before you Harris supporters feel too superior, most of you are no better. Your hatred for Donald Trump knows no bounds. Fueled by memes that they can post on Facebook mocking him and, before him, Romney, the American left has learned how to outsource their critical thinking to meme-meisters who have sloganeered into the American psyche like advertisers selling laundry detergent and other products.

I have never seen a person walk up to two bottles of laundry detergent, look at the list of ingredients, and say, “Hmm. The interrelationship and quantity of these chemicals will make my wash cleaner!”

No, they buy the product based upon price, a coupon, what a parent used . . . anything other the efficacy of the product. Yet Americans are being conditioned to vote for a candidate based upon their hatred for the opponent, rather than what the candidate will try to do if elected.

Candidates often claim that their websites talk about their policy beliefs.

I visited HillaryClinton.com website for the first time when writing this. I was greeted by a popup.

“We can’t risk a Donald Trump presidency,” it proclaimed.

I eventually found some of her economic policies.

From the interstate highway system to the Apollo program, our country has a strong tradition of bipartisan investments in our future. Hillary Clinton will break through the gridlock in Washington to make these investments possible again—with a plan she will work to pass in her first 100 days in office.

Hillary will make it a central priority to make sure every American can find a good-paying job, with rising incomes across the board. In order to create jobs today and help businesses create them in the future, she’ll make the largest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II.

Below, were a few examples of things that seemed “tested.”

Infrastructure investment.

Pre-K-K (school for 4-year-olds) in 10 years (assuming she was elected twice, it would be two years after leaving office)

Cut red tape. If it were so easy to find and cut that tape it would have been done already!

Provide tax relief.

And, for good measure, there is a jab at her opponent (We can’t let Donald J. Trump bankrupt America like one of his failed casinos.

Vice President Harris’ website was a copy and paste of President Biden’s website which could have been a copy and paste of Secretary Clinton’s

 

I have now gone to the DonaldJTrump.com site and found it is a little different. There is the big picture of Trump with Governor Pence and the ask for money, just like the Clinton site.

The policy stuff seems out  of the conservative play book.

1. Tax reform—

• Simplify taxes for everyone and streamline deductions. Biggest tax reform since Reagan.
• Lower taxes for everyone, making raising a family more affordable for working families.
• Reduce dramatically the income tax.
• We will simplify the income tax from 7 brackets to 3 brackets.
• Exclude childcare expenses from taxation.
• Limit taxation of business income to 15% for every business.
• Make our corporate tax globally competitive and the United States the most attractive place to invest in the world.
• End the death tax.

 

1. Regulatory reform—

• A temporary pause on new regulations and a review of previous regulations to see which need to be scrapped.
• Require each federal agency to prepare a list of all of the regulations they impose on American business, and rank them from most critical to health and safety to least critical. Least critical regulations will receive priority consideration for repeal.
• Remove bureaucrats who only know how to kill jobs; replace them with experts who know how to create jobs.

 

Do you think any of the Trump voters know any of the things under regulatory reform or has this been survey group tested?

How do you identify bureaucrats who only know how to kill jobs? I can’t figure that one out.

No matter, there is some good healthy criticism of President Obama and Secretary Clinton in this section but, in my opinion, nowhere near as effective as on the Clinton site.

Contrast with Hillary Clinton:

• Hillary Clinton accepts the CBO and Fed projections that the U.S. will grow only 2 percent per year. She doesn’t believe in a better future for America – only Venezuela-style redistribution of a stagnant economy.
• Hillary Clinton will raise taxes by $1.3 trillion, leading to 300,000 lost jobs and lower wages.
• Hillary Clinton will increase spending by a minimum of $3.5 trillion.
• Hillary Clinton wants to increase regulations.
• Hillary Clinton is a globalist, supporting almost every major job-killing trade deal.
• Hillary Clinton wants to shut down American energy production, a tax on the poor.

 

Accurate or inaccurate, there is nothing there quite as pointed as the attacks from the Clinton site.

Hoffer powerfully concludes, “. . . mass movements are often a factor in the awakening and renovation of stagnant societies . . . It is probably better for a country that when its government begins to show signs of chronic incompetence it should be overthrown by a mighty mass upheaval—even though such overthrow results a considerable waste of life and wealth—than it should be allowed to fall and crumble of itself.”

In the past few years, we have learned that government was turned against its citizens by using the threat of IRS audit. We have learned that a field office of the Department of Labor managed data to make new jobs created beneficial to the President. We learned this week that intelligence reports were altered to suggest greater success against ISIS. And, of course, the story of gold star families being told while standing in front of the coffins of their loved ones that their death was caused by a YouTube video while telling leaders of other governments that the episode was caused by terrorism.

Both sides have been guilty of this behavior.

As The Who wrote

“I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again.”

But, unfortunately, concluded:

 

Meet the new boss,

Same as the old boss.

 

Sigh.

 

© Jeff Altman, Inc. Asheville, NC  2016, 2025

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