Researcher ORCID Identifier
0009-0006-8747-2634
Graduation Year
2025
Date of Submission
4-2025
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Award
Best Senior Thesis in Government
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Government
Reader 1
Jon A. Shields
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2025 Ellie L Lerner
Abstract
Cults are typically associated with fringe religious or spiritual movements rather than political causes. Yet as American politics increasingly supplants religion as a central source of identity and belonging, our political culture has taken on more cult-like characteristics. This thesis develops a framework for identifying political cults by synthesizing scholarly work on ideological totalism, psychological manipulation, and group dynamics. It then applies this framework to assess the rise of anti-Israel protests on U.S. college campuses in the wake of the October 7th terrorist attack. While this thesis finds that this movement should not be classified as a political cult outright, it exhibits several cult-like tendencies—including binary worldviews, ideological totalism, and social isolation—that raise concerns about its trajectory. This analysis suggests that these groups, if left unchecked, have the potential to evolve more into a full-fledged political cult. Overall, this paper contends that political cults on college campuses pose a serious threat to democratic values, free inquiry, and individual autonomy, revealing how easily idealistic impulses can be co-opted into totalist frameworks that discourage dissent, rational debate, and independent thought.
Recommended Citation
Lerner, Ellie, "Political Cults on College Campuses: How Universities Designed to Challenge Totalitarian Thinking May Now Enable It" (2025). CMC Senior Theses. 4000.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/4000
Included in
American Politics Commons, Other Political Science Commons, Political Theory Commons, Politics and Social Change Commons, Social Justice Commons
