Actually, it was indeed Zionist but it wasn’t Communist by any stretch of the imagination.

The underlying structures of political psychology are more or less the same across the board. Some societies lean toward secularity while others toward religiosity. Some are labeled ‘liberal democratic’ while others are deemed ‘autocratic’. Granted, it depends on the perspective as an order claiming to represent the will of the majority may be criticized as tyrannical by its opponents. Some may even argue that the will of the majority, though democratic in the crudest sense, could violate the rights of minorities, e.g. Hungary is ‘autocratic’ for favoring the Christian Hungarian majority over the migrant-invaders and their Sorosian-globalist enablers. Israel claims to be ‘the only democracy in the Middle East’ while its critics condemn it as a ‘fascist’ or ‘terrorist’ state; some call it an ‘apartheid state’, which goes to show democracy and race-centrism can co-exist side by side, as also demonstrated by the bulk of American History defined by both democratic elections and Euro(especially Anglo)centrism. The US has gone from favoring the white race over nonwhites to now favoring Jews over goyim, especially whites and Palestinians(who’ve been bombed back to the Stone Age by the Israeli war machine supplied by the US), and favoring blacks over non-blacks(as the official narrative endlessly reminds us of Emmett Till while ignoring the countless victims of black savagery).

In any given society, regardless of its prevailing ideology or credo, most matters remain within the domain of objectivity. Whether the ‘liberal democratic’ West, Islamic Iran, Stalinist Soviet Union, National Socialist Germany, communist East Germany, totalitarian North Korea, Ottoman Turkey, or Shinto-Militarist Japan, it’s highly unlikely that anyone would have gotten worked up over studies on a particular shellfish or a species of trees. It would have been regarded as a matter of scientific observation or personal hobby, inoffensive regardless of the findings or conclusions. Even in the most repressive societies, most topics can be approached empirically, rationally, and even critically. Most are deemed self-contained domains of knowledge independent of the values and principles of the prevailing order. Whether a society is capitalist or communist, the botanical facts about flowers are what they are, neither ‘Marxist’ nor ‘bourgeois’.

Scientific observation may face backlash if a certain discovery runs counter to the official cosmology, perhaps the most famous example being Galileo’s troubles with the Church over the issue of Heliocentrism. Back then, Geo-centrism wasn’t merely the reigning scientific theory in astronomy but a sacrosanct truth based on the Holy Book. Of course, some orders have gone much further and rejected the very notion of scientific endeavor as running counter to fundamentalist faith, i.e. the only truth worth knowing is by divine revelation(as recorded in sacred canonical texts). But such total suppression of knowledge has been rare among complex civilizations.

According to Ray Bradbury’s FAHRENHEIT 451, a junior-level rehashing of Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD and George Orwell’s NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR, or a kind of dystopian-satire-for-dummies, modernity is no guarantee for the free flow of knowledge and imagination as his fictional world is anti-intellectual, anti-creative, and ‘bibliophobic’ — people are functionally literate but anti-literary. Ironically, the system is the product of intellectual utopianism that believes humanity will be happier and healthier devoid of the neuroses resulting from excessive engagements with arts and letters, i.e. contradictory ideas and dangerous fantasies foster trouble minds that create troubled times.
Even as Bradbury’s novel is directed against anti-intellectualism, it is also an indictment of intellectualism, i.e. intellectual types are often less engaged with the real world than obsessed with their mental-lab model of the world. Only intellectualism could have conceived of the anti-intellectual utopia of the novel. The anti-intellectual worlds of BRAVE NEW WORLD and NINETY-EIGHTY FOUR were also constructed by intellectuals. While plenty of intellectuals appreciate and admire other intellectuals, even in disagreement, there have always been a category of intellectuals who, believing themselves to be so right, seek to devour all others. If monomaniacal intellectuals(Karl Marx or Ayn Rand) claim logic and facts as ‘scientific’ or ‘objective’ validation of their project, totalitarian spiritualists(usually of the monotheistic school, such as Moses and Muhammad) claim prophetic vision, i.e. the one and only true God revealed to them what was revealed to no other man.

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In our world, plenty of intellectuals(and second-rank intellectuals as commissars) are at the forefront of enforcing certain orthodoxies, effectively censoring certain views & ideas as ‘too dangerous’. Their views are picked up by the trained seals of journalism and academia who never had an original thought or independent idea in their life.
These intellectuals claim the ideas are simply wrong(and have been ‘debunked’), therefore ranging from utterly useless to downright dangerous. Granted, certain more honest intellectuals concede that the ideas/views may contain a measure of truth or even be essentially true BUT nevertheless must be suppressed because they’re too undermining of the consensus that holds the order together. Every order is maintained by authority justified in power and prestige by a set of ideas, icons, and narratives, which, if threatened, could undo the authority, whereby the order itself can come undone. In the end, the Catholic Church was less appalled than anxious in regards to Galileo as Heliocentrism threatened the foundational authority of the Church as the final arbiter of truth.
Likewise, plenty of Jews must know that the official Holocaust Narrative is incomplete, distorted, and/or exaggerated. Yet, what they fear most is not so much the truth per se but its impact on Jewish power/influence that, since the end of World War II, owed a good deal to its ability to silence or destroy critics and rivals on the basis of Holocaust-Guilt-and-Redemption. While Jews, given their high IQ and drive, would have made great gains even without the Holocaust Cult, there would have been greater pushback and check on their influence and agenda. Intoxicated with megalomaniacal hegemony, Jews sense that mounting criticism may threaten their world order; and therefore, the Holocaust Card is still their best bet for suppressing their critics and enemies.

Things get more complicated when, intentionally or not, certain shibboleths come to be threatened in unexpected ways. It can be a veritable minefield for the unwitting scholar who believed himself to be only doing his job as an objective observer or researcher. Just like it’s easier to detect the odors of others than of oneself, such hazards are more detectable of other societies/cultures than of one’s own.

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There are celebrity news stories and then there are CELEBRITY NEWS STORIES. Many people can’t get enough gossip on movie stars, pop stars, athletes, and of course the British Royal Family. Celebrity culture even spawned an entire genre of celebrities who are famous for being famous, like the now faded Paris Hilton and the indefatigable Kardashians(or Kartrashians), in a way America’s counterpart to the Royal Family.
And, politicians like Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and especially Donald Trump owed their success to celebrity appeal(and even notoriety, not necessarily a bad thing in our time).
And many opinion-makers over the years attained bigger-than-life, folksy or glitzy, celebrity personalities. Think of Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken(who went from comedy to politics), Ann Coulter, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and others. And the most popular ‘influencers’, the product of the internet, rely more on personality than insight.

While many people, especially females and homosexual men, must have their daily fix of celebrity gossip, others(perhaps the great majority) don’t care what Taylor Swift or Vin Diesel is up to these days(and have no interest in the much diminished Royal Family). Most celebrity gossip has to be sought after in tabloids(and their counterparts or extensions on the internet), but once in a while a story blows up big time and enters the 24 hr news cycle, sparing no one of its usually sordid details.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKmtl0JGih4

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Surely, one of the biggest was over the accusations of child molestation against Michael Jackson(which had a sequel of sorts). Another big one, equally funny and pathetic, was the Woody Allen vs Mia Farrow saga involving Soon-Yi and Dylan Farrow(which resurfaced in the #MeToo era).
Generally, the biggest stories involve crime, which can be deemed as news-worthy. Think of the O.J. Simpson trial. And the Harvey Weinstein case that went from allegations of sexual improprieties to even rape. The Weinstein controversy gained in traction thanks to the (largely manufactured) #MeToo movement, probably engineered by Jewish elites against ‘sexist’ Trump and ‘white males’(as indeed the likes of Bob Packwood were targeted in years past, though by the very people who circled the wagons around Bill Clinton), only to blow back on the Portnoic Jews. Jews urged on the women in media and entertainment to expose all those ‘rapey’ White Males, only to realize to their horror that the fingers were pointed at them. (Likewise, even though the mad hounds of BLM were unleashed on MAGA-world, they mostly mauled the ‘blue’ urban areas, making it a living hell for many ‘liberals’ and Jews.)

Having zero interest in celebrity-dom, only the biggest scandals appear on my radar. I hardly know most pop stars or bands since the early 90s. Most movie actors and actresses of the past 20 yrs are a blur.
I haven’t seen a single PIRATES OF CARIBBEAN movie and avoided most spandex action-hero movies(though a few, like ANT-MAN, were good). I haven’t seen an Oscar show since Clint Eastwood won for UNFORGIVEN and even then only a snippet.

So, when a celebrity news story enters the 24/7 news cycle, I usually have no idea who’s who and what’s what. There was the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard fiasco not long ago. I knew Depp but not Heard, though I recognized her face as she was in John Carpenter’s box office flop THE WARD, which I rather liked.

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The buzz surrounding the Justin Baldoni vs Blake Lively feud is now much bigger than the Depp-Heard clown show ever was. Also, it’s more interesting in having pushed certain hot topic buttons and ensnared other big names in showbiz. If the Depp-Heard show was essentially a he-said-she-said case of mud-slinging(and bed-pooping), an ugly side of private lives of celebrities exposed, the Baldoni-Lively case involves a rather complicated power play and intersects with various issues and themes that define current culture and politics.

By coincidence a few weeks back, I checked out a film called IT ENDS WITH US from the library thinking it might be interesting. The opening scene presented a most appalling character, a woman who arrives at her father’s funeral and then blithely walks out during the ceremony. Just appalling, but then the world is full of appalling people, and art should reflect reality, right? Besides, perhaps her behavior could be understood within the larger context of her family experience. So, I kept watching with an open mind. Second scene had her perched over the railing of a high-rise rooftop, soon to be joined by some doctor with whom she engages in the most insipid conversation imaginable. It was utterly shallow but presented as true-to-life and complicated. That was enough. No way I was going to waste two hours watching these two, a man-child and a woman-child. If art wants to dwell on mankind’s imperfections & failures and examine why, that’s one thing, but when vapid idiots are presented as characters worthy of our time and attention, forget it.

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Nothing about the film registered(except as an annoyance and headache), and I would have forgotten about it but for the explosive scandal with Lively the actress hurling accusations at the actor-director Baldoni who, depressed and panic-stricken, decided to hurl them back. Reportedly, the film, based on a popular novel, has a serious message — it’s about DOMESTIC ABUSE — , and its actor-director Baldoni, a kind of male feminist, threw his heart and soul into the project. It seems Lively did as well, leading to a tussle over the rights over the novel. If Baldoni was likely fueled by the vanity of moral rectitude — “Look ma, I’m a male feminist exposing violence against women” — , Lively’s actions seem purely career-driven, i.e. she saw the film as her entry into serious acting and coveted complete ownership of the project by any means necessary.

It’s probably not a good idea to have such a thoroughly unsympathetic character at the center of a message about domestic abuse. More often than not, viewers may come away with the feeling that the stupid bitch got what she deserved, not that the abuser is necessarily any better — based on the rooftop scene, the guy seems like a jerk. (There’s a saying, “physiognomy is real”, to which we might add, “personagnomy is real” as the mere personality of Lively, on-screen and off, is a tell-tale sign of what a conniving wench she is.)
The issue of domestic-abuse is far more complicated than feminist types would have us believe. Given that the male is stronger than the female, the man can obviously do more harm; therefore, the man must be more mindful of his violent urges. That much, most people can agree with. But the man being stronger doesn’t make him innately worse than the woman. It’s like a wolf can kill a coyote that can kill a fox, but that doesn’t make the coyote any less of a predator and killer. If a man and a woman are equally vile & nasty and get violent, the man will likely hurt the woman more, but she too was responsible. Indeed, if a good-hearted man is provoked into violence by a vicious woman, the former will beat the latter, but can you blame him who didn’t want things to spiral out of control?
Perhaps, IT END US WITH US isn’t so simpleminded and places blame on the woman as well, but the first two scenes left me with zero sympathy for the cretinous woman(or for that matter the cretinous man). If a meteor hit those two and blew them to smithereens, who’d care?

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Has anyone witnessed anything like the recent collapse of Syria? Not just the regime but the entire social fabric of the country. It appears everyone was overtaken by events, some with joy, some with sadness. No one, not even Assad’s most ardent enemies, thought it would happen so suddenly, so fast.
It appears Erdogan of Turkey initially targeted only the northern parts of Syria; it was meant more as a power play than a grand design to take down the Syrian regime. But, once the first domino fell, the rest followed in a manner at once spectacular and pathetic.
Granted, it was arguably the final chapter of a prolonged process of regime change. The Syrian Civil War(which soon became a global war, with the Jewish-run West, Turkey, and the Gulf Sunni states all ganging up on Syria by lending support to Jihadis, the worst dreck of humanity) had raged on from 2011; Syria was ravaged by war for over a decade, on top of which the West applied crippling sanctions while also occupying key economic zones. In more ways than one, the collapse was a case of the final straw that finally broke the camel’s back.

Still, the endgame seemed downright surreal, not least because many observers in the West and Non-West were resigned to the Syrian regime, with the crucial support of Russian-Iran-Hezbollah, having gotten the better of their enemies and stabilized the situation to their advantage. Also, Turkey appeared to have come to terms with Syria via Russian diplomatic intervention. And Syria was back in the Arab League.
If Syria collapsed as it did in the middle of a hellish war that it was badly losing, it would be understandable. But the general consensus was that the Syrian regime had weathered the worst of the storm, more or less defeated the Jihadis who’d been pushed to the margins.
So, just how did this happen? Analysts have pointed to the steady decay of politics and economy following the uneasy ceasefire agreements. And the demoralization of the underpaid military. Still, has anyone seen anything like this?

The Byzantine Empire diminished over centuries and, by the time the Turks finally conquered Constantinople, was a mere husk of itself. Still, there was a great final battle between the invaders and the defenders of the city. South Vietnam was doomed when the US left, but it fought on for two more years, and despite all the problems, the North Vietnamese military had to fight its way to Saigon. Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, most Western analysts said the secular Marxist regime would fall within weeks. But it actually held on for a couple more years, a real challenge for the rebels.

True, Poles got crushed by the Germans in 1939, but they still put up a stiff resistance despite the hopeless situation(and there were pockets of Polish resistance throughout the occupation). When the Germans steamrolled into the Soviet Union, countless Soviet troops surrendered, and it seemed all over for Russia. But that didn’t mean the Soviets in Leningrad and Moscow lost heart and just gave up. One might draw parallels between the Syrian situation and the Russian defeat in World War I, but even as the Bolsheviks conceded huge chunks of territory to Germany, most of them were non-Russian lands that had been absorbed into the Russian Empire. It wasn’t as if the Bolsheviks were willing to surrender all of Russia to Germany. Also, even in 1917, Germany had a formidable force, which wouldn’t have been defeated if not for American entry into the war.

As it turns out, about 15,000 to 20,000 Jihadis made their move on Aleppo, Syria’s second biggest city and key economic hub. Even if the Syrian Army was something of an inflated paper military, surely the government could have mustered enough men to fend off a bunch of ragtag Jihadis who, despite their shiny toys supplied by Turkey and the West, had little chance of taking over a big city, let alone the entire country. Besides, Russia was more than willing to provide air support and did, blowing Jihadi columns to smithereens. But there was no resistance among Syrian authorities and armies. It wasn’t so much a collapse as a total no-show to the event. Incredibly, within a week, the entire country was taken, about the time it took for the Jihadis to trek from the north to the south on foot. It was like a building collapsing in free fall speed with zero resistance.

Some have blamed Russia and Iran for not having done enough, and there’s some truth to that. Russia aided Syria in destroying Jihadis but not against naked Israeli aggression. So, Israel kept on bombing Syria while Russia did nothing, e.g. forbidding Syria to use Russian air defenses against the Israeli air force. Of course, Israel wasn’t just a stand-alone enemy of Syria but part of Global Zion with a grand plan to destroy Syria(and Iran and Russia as well).
Russia, by pretending it could maintain good relations with the Jewish State while resisting the agenda of World Jewry, was fooling itself. Indeed, the reason why the so-called ‘Collective West’ was so invested in destroying Syria was because Israel wanted it that way. While Israel alone couldn’t do it(and assured Putin that it wouldn’t attack Russian assets in Syria), it was pulling every string in the US and EU to make sure that Syria would be destroyed.
Putin, like so many foolish conservative figures in the West, seems to believe that Israel can be used as a kind of insurance policy against World Jewry, i.e. if Jewish Power wants to destroy you, get some reprieve by making nice with Israel(as mediator between you and World Jewry). But this has proven to be a fantasy time and time again.

After all, White American Conservatives have been sucking Netanyahu’s dong forever, and Jews have still been unrelenting in their anti-white, anti-Christian, and anti-conservative mania. Russia’s chummy(and often servile) ties with Israel didn’t reduce the likelihood of the Ukraine War(more accurately the Judeo-Russian War) or the endless vilification of Putin and the Russian people/culture in general in the Jewish-dominated West. Or the ongoing efforts to encircle and isolate Russia, to agitate neighboring states against it.

It’s often been said, during and in the aftermath of the Iraq War, that it was the single greatest foreign policy failure/fiasco in US history. Was it?
Of course, given the passions surrounding the event then spiraling out of control, many agreed with the assessment(especially given the incompetence of George W. Bush), but in retrospect, the Iraq War pales in comparison with, say, the Vietnam War and its impact on American society. It’s unlikely that future historians and social critics will obsess over Bush’s misadventure as people have done so about the role of the Vietnam War in American politics and culture. Indeed, prior to the raging controversy over the Iraq War, many had pointed to ‘Vietnam’ as the biggest foreign policy mistake in US history.

But, even that assessment may have been overblown, partly because of the trauma of America’s first ‘defeat’. Arguably, the victories in previous wars obscured their longer-term dire effects. The US was on the winning side in World War I and World War II, but its key role in the defeat of Germany in the First World War led to disastrous results, paving the way for World War II.
To be sure, World War II, like any great historical event, wasn’t an inevitability, but the preconditions created by the peace forced on Germany by the US and its partners escalated tensions in Central Europe that made another war more likely. Such considerations have been obfuscated by the official narratives that conveniently placed all the blame on Hitler and Germany.
There’s also the view that Hitler was SO EVIL that it was indeed a moral imperative for the UK and US to have goaded him into war so as to bring down his villainy, i.e. even if Hitler was provoked, it was justified in order to bring him down by whatever means necessary.
There’s also the uniquely American view that the war was a welcome boost that finally ended the Great Depression. Besides, the Good Guys won the Good War against the Most Evil Regime in History. And the Americanists regarded the post-war order as one in which the freedom-loving US defended liberty and spread prosperity around the world, especially against the communist threat.

But, such a narrative is rather too convenient for Americans whose domain was untouched by direct conflict, notwithstanding the attack on Pearl Harbor. If American policies had made the war more likely, they were partly responsible for the tens of millions of deaths across Europe.
Also, had the war been avoided, most Eastern Europe nations would have allied with Germany against the Soviet Union, thereby limiting the extent of communist influence. The so-called Cold War could have been avoided with Germany and its partners as bulwark against communist Russia.

Also, had the war been avoided, there would have been no Holocaust, which means no paralyzing narrative to guilt-bait-and-burden the entire West as either genocidal mass killers, collaborators, or do-nothings in regard to the ‘greatest crime of all time’. Thus, abuses of Jewish Power could have been countered and checked more effectively, preventing the rise of the conditions that currently infest the West with the pathology of Jew Worship. What kind of civilized and sane order would hand the keys to the kingdom the likes of Victoria Nuland and her ilk?

Also, without the complete collapse of Europe as a viable power center, the tragic consequence of World War II, the second half of the 20th century would have been more balanced and multipolar in its power equation. The US and USSR as great powers would have had to contend with the great power(s) of Continental Europe and of course the British.
World War II effectively divided Europe into two camps, vassals of the US and the vassals of the USSR. Minus an autonomous Europe with the will and power to fend off both American and Russian hegemonism, world history turned into a cartoon of ‘democracy vs totalitarianism’, ‘imperialism vs revolution’, ‘free world vs tyranny’, ‘capitalism vs communism’, ‘individualism vs collectivism’, and etc. as if the ONLY historical/ideological choices were Americanism and Sovietism. There was, to be sure, the Non-Aligned Movement, but its anxious existence implied that the two towering giants were the US and USSR, with most the world compelled to be on the side of one or the other.

The American role in the creation of Israel should be recognized as another contender for the biggest foreign policy disaster. Given the lack of direct US military involvement, its dramatic success as nation-building(as Palestinians were quickly neutralized), and the Jewish grip on academia/media, it’s no surprise that few people dare to name the American role in Zionism as a foreign policy disaster, let alone the biggest ever.
Yet, so much of what has gone wrong in American foreign policy(and domestic affairs as well) could be traced to that event. Increasingly, the ‘Arabists’ were purged from the US government, leading to an imbalance in America’s formulation and application of policy throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Even though the US support for Zionism initially concerned only the lands of Palestine, as Jews grew in power and ambition it went from a national project to an imperial overreach, getting the US into one hell of a mess in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran. America’s increasingly one-sided support for Israel has embittered and inflamed much of the Arab/Muslim world. And now with the ‘Gaza Genocide’, America’s reputation around the world is in the toilet.
Furthermore, the tragicomic spectacle of all those brown-nosing white goy politicians and pundits shilling for Jewish Supremacism has done irreparable harm to the global perception of white folks. No longer seen as members of a proud, confident, and free race, they’re seen as servile, craven, and venal. White Republican idea of success is winning Jews over by indulging the Tribe’s absolute worst instincts. “If we support them in genocide, maybe just maybe they’ll kick us less and toss us more shekels.” How morally bankrupt is American Conservatism?

Now, it’s possible that white goyim would have turned into cuck-maggots of Jewish Power regardless of Israel’s existence. Even without the fruition of the Zionist project, Jews would likely have amassed great power and influence in the US with their talent, drive, cunning, and networking. One could argue that the Holocaust Narrative, more than Zionism, became the main albatross(or gooney bird) around the white goy’s neck.
To a degree, Zionism has tainted the Jews with accusations of ‘racism’, imperialism, colonization, supremacism, and ‘Nazi-like’ behavior, especially with Netanyahu’s Israel gone full armageddon on the ‘Amalek’. Even without Israel’s creation, one could argue that the Shoah Business alone would have been sufficient to morally check the white race into cuckdom.

There are two ways to promote or authorize prejudice, the negative and the positive. The negative way is brutally simple. Pick any group and tar them, defame them, or dehumanize them. It could be a racial group, ethnic entity, religious community, or ideological camp. For example, consider all those Hollywood movies where Arabs/Muslims were rarely little more than Jihadis or terrorists. Present them as a bunch of ‘ragheads’, barely human ‘muzzies’ to mow down when necessary, like in William Friedkin’s adaptation of Jim Webb’s RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. (Webb, who opposed George W. Bush’s Iraq War, should have known better than to produce such a pernicious work, especially because it feigns balance before finally concluding ALL Arabs to be a bunch of towel-head scum deserving to be mowed down from old man to young girl.)
Negative prejudice is, of course, common during war-time, even though current conventions decry overt caricaturing of the enemy, as happened in World War I and World War II: The evil ‘Huns’ depicted as rapacious gorillas or the vicious ‘Japs’ as rabid rodents. Granted, there’s still a lot of fulminating about barbaric Iranians and cruel Russians, but it’s hardly up to the levels of wars of yesteryear(except when depicting ‘white supremacists’).

However, there is another(and more insidious) way to normalize and enforce official prejudice: The excessive positive elevation of a certain group to the point of quasi-idolatry. Why would this be? A mindless promotion of A doesn’t necessarily demean B, C, or D. Just because A is made more popular or special doesn’t mean others are robbed of their basic dignity and rights of humanity.
But this is true only insofar as A has no hostile agendas against B, C, D, E, F, and/or etc. If indeed A does mean harm to, say, B and C, our obsessive devotion to A inevitably blinds us to the interests, rationales, and worthiness of B and C, because all we’d ever want to care about is A-ALL-THE-WAY.

That is why idolizing certain groups is dangerous, indeed far more than certain individuals. We know from celebrity culture that idolatry turns certain figures into ‘stars’, ‘heroes’, and ‘icons’. The fans, who could number in the millions or even hundreds of millions, are so taken with their idols that they often turn a blind eye to the dark side of their demigods or, worse, even justify it as ‘cool’ or ‘badass’.
The dark side of populism was admitted when Donald Trump said that his most devoted followers will vote for him even if he murdered someone in cold blood. So many movie stars, rockers, rappers, and athletes have gotten away with murder(figuratively speaking but literally in some cases) simply because of widespread adoration. Oftentimes, bad behavior, rotten values, and stupid attitudes were normalized simply because many people tend to imitate their ‘heroes’. The weaponization of Taylor Swift was on the assumption that the Swifties will do as their goddess-princess decrees.

Idolization goes way beyond favoring something. Rather, it favors something at the expense of others, even oneself. If Bob, Bill, Peter, Jim, and Nicolas each favor the self, that’d be the most natural thing. Each individual understandably prioritizes what is essential and necessary for himself. There is fairness and balance in each of the men favoring his own interest, of course within the rule of law and principles of fair play.
The problem of idolatry arises when one of the guys, say Jim, is accorded special status and fawned over by the others to the extent that his interests, feelings, and well-being take precedence even over the self among the others. So, Bob, Bill, Peter, and Nicolas will happily sacrifice their own self-interest in order to favor Jim. But it can even get worse if Jim harbors hostility toward, say, Nicolas. Suppose Jim wants Nicholas’ house and car. Bob, Bill, and Peter’s devotion to Jim would be such that they will berate Nicholas for protesting Jim’s hostile moves against him.
Idolizing Jim didn’t necessarily dehumanize the others, but if Jim were to turn hostile against anyone, idolatry translates into a bigotry toward the target of his ire on the logic that, Jim being so awesome, he must always be right, and whatever or whomever he hates must be in the wrong, therefore even worthy of destruction. Thus, idolatry could easily be the flipside of bigotry.

If we expand the example of individuals to ethnic and racial groups in the US, there’s nothing untoward about various groups favoring their own interests. It’s hardly surprising that the Armenian-American community would be more fixated on what goes on in Armenia and its diaspora. Same goes for Greek-Americans, Italian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Polish-Americans, Burmese-Americans, and etc. Each group favoring its own kind isn’t idolatry but merely natural self-interest. After all, if Irish-Americans don’t prioritize Irishness and their culture and people, who will?

There is a kind of equality and mutuality of respect when each group emphasizes what is most important to its people and culture. Your people respect the other people’s priorities, and vice versa. Your people don’t claim that their interests are first and foremost for the entire country and neither do the peoples of other ethnic groups. The varying interests may be unrelated — it’s doubtful if anything meaning to a Pakistani-American community has any bearing on the Cuban-American community and vice versa — , divergent, or in conflict, but even if tensions arise, there is no danger of idolatry if both contentious groups acknowledge that the entirety of the country doesn’t exist to prioritize one ethnic interests or agendas uber alles. For example, the Turkish-American community and the Greek-American community may not see eye-to-eye on the issue of Cyprus, but both are sensible enough to know that the US doesn’t exist to place Greek or Turkish gripes on the front burner. Thus, both groups lobby for their own ethnic or national interests, as do all the other groups.