Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/15/waiting-for-the-american-khrushchev-who-will-deliver-the-cult-of-personality-speech-to-americans.html
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Waiting for the American Khrushchev: Who will deliver the “Cult of Personality” speech to Americans?
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I’m 100% certain this is who we need right now in our dire time of need:
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This, instead:
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Ivanka surely.
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Well she certainly is a cult of no personality. Which is some kind of weird start.
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Yes. I’m aware that his UN speech with the shoe pounding was not what the post meant. I am a Cold War historian, after all… 
I at least know what the “cult of personality speech” is…
Also
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Oh, I wasn’t calling you out. I was simply saying I’d prefer to see a speech delivered at the end of a “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” inquiry.
To us Early Modern historians, anything 20th century is pretty much “current events.”
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Ah… gotcha. Agreed on that. Though this speech was important and he did make substantial moves towards reform in the SU before he got sidelined.
Ancient historians say the same about Early Modern historians! 
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Sure, but they all work from the same 5 sources. What do they know? 
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Also half of them are archeologists, so not even proper historians!
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I was thinking Rush Limbaugh; or maybe Tucker Carlson, but he’s probably tainted by association with his left-wing network.
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But Khrushchev could, at some level, make his denouncement stick. I mean, you didn’t have to listen to Stalin anymore or worship him, but you didn’t have many choices about whether or not to follow Khrushchev.
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Such a speech would have to come from inside the party (or at least movement conservatism), from someone who conservatives felt they had to listen to (because Khrushchev was making that speech from a position of power, tenuous though it was), and from someone willing to risk his position to tell hard truths (as Khrushchev ended up doing).
Schwarzenegger, due to his celebrity status, came close but not close enough. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of one member of that pack of opportunists and cowards known as the GOP who’d be willing, let alone able, to pull this off.
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I agree, it has to be one of the Tumpy Stalwarts.
If money actually gets tight, I could see McConnell doing it, if just to turn the money spigot back on. But I can’t think of anyone who could or would actually lead actual reforms of the party.
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Mitt Romney, maybe?
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Oh, he’d absolutely give the speech, but I don’t think he’s a Khrushchev-like insider who’d be taken seriously by those still in the thrall of the personality cult. He’s more the standard bearer to the never-Trumpers, ready to sweep into the power vacuum.
I’ll leave it to @anon61221983 to tell us who Romney best resembles in the Soviet political structure of the time.
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Sorry, I just realized you meant lead the reforms! Yes, I could see Romney doing that, once the spell is broken.
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I thought this was a very weird self nomination until I scrolled back up to the top.
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