@hightor,
Nothing wrong with that analogy.
It seems to me that adherents to a cult or cult-like membership become disaffected and leave only after some accumulation of disappointments - at claims made and believed that don't get realized or which come to seem false. Or at the treatment of the cult members by other members.
It is going to be difficult, perhaps impossible, to shake America out of this particular insanity but it is helpful to have someone like Trump as the figurehead of the "cult", if for no other reason than how he is or will be perceived by swing voters and independents. But for now, the base is a lost cause.