One of the more obvious signs that the Republican Party had devolved into a cult of personality came in 2020 when the party decided to abandon writing a platform in advance of the election. GOP officials said that whatever Donald Trump wanted to do was fine with them. I don't think that's ever happened before but in the MAGA-fied GOP that sort of thing certainly isn't unusual. This year, however, they're going back to the tradition of writing an actual platform— and it's causing some unexpected heartburn.
After all, just because party members want a platform doesn't mean Trump does. Yet he and his campaign have acquiesced within certain parameters. The New York Times reported that Trump's campaign managers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, sent a memo ordering the platform committee and demanding they pare down the document “to ensure our policy commitments to the American people are clear, concise and easily digestible" because "publishing an unnecessarily verbose treatise will provide more fuel for our opponent’s fire of misinformation and misrepresentation to voters." They made it clear that while it's probably ok for the minions to have their little ideological exercise, it's still Dear Leader's "principled and popular vision for America’s future.”
