I have been calling it that for a while now,, this went way past politics at least a decade ago.
It is a cult, an evil cult. It ticks off all the boxes of a cult and in trump it found it's dear leader. Who, like so many before him, is suffering from a mental illness.
It actually started around 1996, when the internet gained steam and propaganda networks like Fox News came on the air along with MSNBC (until around 2005 was primarily conservative until Keith Olbermann changed that network around) which employed Ann Colter, Mike Weiner, John Gibson, Laura Ingrate as well as several concern trolls pretending to be Democrats (Chris Matthwes was such for a long time) most went to Faux News later...