The Lunacy of Laura Loomer
"True Believer" Trump Acolyte Shows Us How Cults Work (Vol. 5; Issue 36)
Laura Loomer, a paid advisor to Trump without a job title or official role, made headlines a few months ago when she insisted he fire several “disloyal” national security officials. She delivered her advice during a half-hour meeting with Trump in the Oval Office. After that meeting, and following Loomer’s specific instructions, Trump fired the senior director for intelligence, the senior director for international organizations, and the senior director for legislative affairs (Swan, Haberman, and Bensinger, 2025)
The reasons for the terminations?
Insufficient loyalty to Trump.
Loomer made headlines again last week for similar reasons. Senator Mark Warner’s routine oversight of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in Virginia was cancelled following Loomer’s online attack of him. When she learned of the proposed visit, she created social media posts describing Warner as a:
rabid ANTI-TRUMP DEMOCRAT SENATOR” [who] weaponized our intelligence agencies to push the debunked Russia Collusion Hoax.
She told The New York Times that he [Warner] should “be removed from office and tried for treason.” Warner, vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is responsible for overseeing and supporting the intelligence community.
Responding to the cancellation of the visit, Warner wrote:
I can’t overstate how unprecedented and dangerous this is… This administration is taking its marching orders from Laura Loomer – a wackjob with a long history of outlandish fringe views, including 9/11 denialism, anti-Muslim harassment campaigns, and associations with white supremacists.
Loomer’s behavior and her placement within Trump’s inner circle perfectly illustrate the concept of the cult of personality. Loomer is the consummate cult follower. She cares naught about ideology, competency, or qualifications. A self-described “loyalty enforcer,” Loomer cares only about fealty to Trump. She has coined the phrase, “Loomered,” to describe the purges she initiates. She is responsible for the terminations of top officials from nearly every branch of government.
Loomer’s qualifications?
A person ready to die for the cause of defending Trump.
Born in 1993, Loomer has publicly described herself as a “pro-white nationalist” and a “proud Islamaphobe.” Social media posts along these lines have gotten her banned from platforms including FB, Instagram and Twitter. Her “credentials” include obtaining a degree in broadcast journalism in 2015 from Barry University in Miami Shores, Florida. She has not held any steady jobs. Unsurprisingly, Loomer has had her press credentials revoked, on multiple occasions, for harassment and causing disturbances.
In sum, Loomer is a fanatic.
Or, in other words, a lunatic.
On a more compassionate note, she seems like a lost soul.
Having a cult of personality operate a government is hardly new. The phrase was historically applied to deified ancient rulers, such as Pharaohs and Emperors. It took its modern form in the 20th century, when it became associated with totalitarian regimes, such as those of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin.
Russia has a long history of leaders having both cultish followers and unqualified advisors. Grigori Rasputin, a 19th-century Russian faith healer, gained immense influence over Tsar Nicolas II because of his alleged capability to heal the hemophilia of the Tsar’s son, Alexei. In our era, Aleksandr Dugin, a far-right political philosopher who hopes for the return of the Russian Empire, is a close advisor to Vladimir Putin. Unlike Loomer or Rasputin, Dugin is highly educated. Putin displays the same cult of personality as Trump.
A cult of personality involves the deliberate promotion of an idealized, heroic, and worshipful public image of a political leader. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is another excellent example of a leader featuring a cult of personality. These “leaders” are typically promoted through state-controlled propaganda and mass media. In our case, those would include outlets like Fox News and Truth Social. Trump’s chilling effect on other media negatively portraying him increases their power.
These personality cults need hardcore followers. Here is where a kind of nobody, a “journalist” who hardly understands journalism, fits in. She needs a cause to define herself, one in which she can even lose herself. And, Trump himself goads her on. He recently told reporters after meeting with her in the White House:
Laura Loomer is a great patriot. She’s a very strong person.
The American philosopher Eric Hoffer (1951/1989) offers additional insight into these cults. Hoffer coined the phrase “true believer” to describe personalities like Loomer as well as the cadre of other die-hard adherents to the MAGA movement. These individuals often feel that their lives are empty. Hoffer thought many of them were “irremediably spoiled.” The new identity they obtain through these movements offers an escape from their own vacuity.
In truth, finding one’s authentic identity is anything but easy. The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida (2001), coined the term bricolage to refer to the process of identity formation. We borrow incomplete bits and pieces—some DNA here, some early childhood experiences there, and some influences from culture, history, and everywhere, to form identities. Bricolage refers to a combination of sources. You rarely choose what ultimately comprises the narrative you call self. Some, like educational achievement, occupational standing, or geographical location, involve personal agency. Other forces sculpt you as life progresses. Some enrich; others traumatize. Identities dynamically evolve.
Identities borrowed from mass movements represent a perversion of Jacques Lacan’s (1960) famous recommendation to never cede your desire (ne pas ceder sur son désir). Instead of discovering one’s heart’s desire, these identities assume the desire of the “other.” (Lacan’s ethics ignore virtues like caring for others, but for most of us, our authentic desire includes such consideration.) Echoing the concept of “substitute judgment”* from the law, some persons evade the lonely pursuit of identity by sacrificing their individuality to whatever cause moves them.
Loomer perfectly illustrates that concept. A blind devotion to Trump eclipses her authentic identity. A hypothetical psychoanalysis of Loomer goes like this: An empty, lost young woman, 32 years old, gets the attention of Donald Trump. His desires become hers. She discovers her “self” in the “self” of Trump. Loomer evades self-discovery through, in essence, a kind of self-replacement, as seen in statements like, “I shall devote my life to Trump and purge his government of any person not equally loyal to him.” How ironic that Loomer is Jewish: Her behavior mimics that of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propagandist devoted to Hitler like Loomer to Trump.
Meanwhile, Loomer’s own identity, painfully ambiguous, vanishes. Trump glorifies her devotion to him, which, in turn, feeds her new (false) identity. The two reinforce each other via a positive feedback loop. Ironically, or perhaps tragically, Loomer remains just as empty as before.
Last week’s essay explored why so many Americans deny Trump’s stature as a dictator, and it proposed four primary reasons: Denial, avoidance (a subset of denial), a paralyzing and impotent horror, and true-believing MAGA members who, like Loomer, show an astonishing lack of critical thinking. The title of Ezra Klein’s (2025) opinion piece last Sunday says it all:
Stop Acting Like This Is Normal.
Cults of personality are not only abnormal, they are terribly dangerous. Jong Un and Putin control the minds of their country’s citizens by dominating all forms of media, including the internet. They frequently purge officials from their governments. These end in executions rather than in cancellations. Now that Trump oversaw the extrajudicial killing of 11 Venezuelans allegedly smuggling drugs into the US, sends the military into American cities, ignores the climate crisis, and cancels vaccine policies, what might be next?
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*Substitute judgment is the legal phrase applied to situations like the placement of a conservator to oversee the affairs of a cognitively impaired person. The conservator serves as a “substitute” for the judgment of the conservatee. In like manner, true believers substitute whatever cause “possesses” them for their own personhood.
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References
Derrida, J. (2001), Structure, sign, and play in the discourse of the human sciences. Writing and Difference. Trans. Alan Bass. London: Routledge, pp. 278-294.
Hoffer, E. (1951/1989). The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. New York: Harper and Row.
Klein, E. (September 7, 2025). Stop Acting Like This is Normal. New York Times.
Lacan, J. (1960). The seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book IV: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Trans. D. Porter. New York, NY: Norton.
Swan, J; Haberman, M; Bensinger, K. (April 4, 2025). Loomer’s Role in Firings Shows Rising Sway of Fringe Figures on Trump. New York Times. Retrieved April 4, 2025.