Republicanism is a cult, and as such, people tend to believe contradictions. The cult-like atmosphere is what led actual cults to flourish in the party. It’ll be hard for anon to get out, and it’s dangerous to interact with people in the Republican cult, but when they do they’ll look back on it and wonder what they believed in.
I find it difficult to characterize Republicans as a cult per se, as there’s a wide range of disparate views among members. There’s everything from actual nazis to garden variety misogynists and so on. However, because for the most part all of these variety of beliefs share a common thread, they seem to find it easy to unite on single fronts like banning abortion or suchlike, which can make them appear uniform.
I’m content to lump them together with exclusionists and fascists and such because in the present no one can be part of that and remain unaware of those kinds of open goals, but the composition is too heterogeneus to be a cult, I feel.