In Politicians We Trust

On the rise of political worship in the US and around the world

Source: Illustration of religious worship by Albrecht Dürer, woodcut on paper (ca. 1509–1511) CC0

In 2008, when the news broke of Obama’s presidential win, I was overseas at a bar, in the company of a few Americans. Although I was young, I still vividly remember their visceral reaction to Obama’s win. There was a lot of screaming and crying and incoherent rambling — it could only be described as something akin to…