No different from the cult-like devotion that put the 47-year-old vampire into the White House in 2008.
The Cult of Personality in politics, and the Cult of Celebrity in popular culture . . . . .
Didn't middleaged women also faun all over their movie star idols from Hollywood in the 1930s? Wasn't that the SAME type of fanfare as here?
I think it's distasteful and representative of a vapid insipid immature population, but I'm not sure that this is anything remotely 'new.' And I think that it correlates with the huge segment of adults who are addicted to televised serial soap operas, but I might be mistaken.