Kubla Kraus and the Cult of Cold Power What a 1979 Animated Villain Can Teach Us About Donald Trump , MAGA & The GOP

Kubla Kraus and the Cult of Cold Power

What a 1979 Animated Villain Can Teach Us About Donald Trump

By Paula Josephine Sadler

Introduction: Why a Children’s Film Still Warns Us

In 1979—long before social media algorithms, MAGA hats, or outrage-as-entertainment—an animated television film quietly aired with a message that now feels unsettlingly prophetic. Jack Frost was marketed as a children’s story, but at its core it functions as a political, psychological, and moral allegory about how power is seized, normalized, and maintained through fear, spectacle, and emotional manipulation.

Children’s stories have always carried adult warnings. Fables, myths, and fairy tales survive because they encode truths that societies struggle to face directly. Jack Frost does exactly that. Beneath its whimsical animation lies a cautionary tale about authoritarianism—how it seduces, how it spreads, and how it freezes communities from the inside out.

At the center of this allegory stands Kubla Kraus, a villain who does not rule through wisdom, compassion, or truth, but through intimidation, deception, and manufactured chaos.

Sound familiar?

Who Is Kubla Kraus?

Kubla Kraus is not a chaotic madman. He is deliberate, strategic, and opportunistic—traits that define successful authoritarian figures throughout history.

He:

• Seizes power during instability

• Exploits fear as a governing tool

• Punishes dissent rather than debate it

• Elevates spectacle over substance

• Rewards enforcers who profit from cruelty

Kraus does not create—he freezes. He halts growth, curiosity, empathy, and cooperation. Communities under his influence become rigid, suspicious, and obedient, mistaking control for safety.

This is not accidental villain design. Kraus is a distilled authoritarian archetype, simplified for a children’s audience but no less accurate for that reason.

Trump as a Real-World Kubla Kraus

Donald Trump does not need to be identical to Kubla Kraus for the comparison to hold. Allegory works through pattern recognition, not literal duplication.

Authoritarianism wears different costumes in different eras, but its psychological structure remains remarkably consistent.

Shared Traits

Kubla Kraus	Donald Trump
Rules by fear	Governs through grievance
Blames outsiders	Targets immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, journalists
Rewards loyalty over competence	Elevates sycophants
Punishes dissent	Retaliates against critics
Thrives in chaos	Creates constant crisis

Both figures understand a core truth of mass psychology:

Fear is easier to mobilize than hope.

Hope requires patience, cooperation, and complexity. Fear offers immediacy, simplicity, and permission to abandon empathy.

The Psychology of Authoritarian Appeal

Decades of psychological research help explain why figures like Kubla Kraus—and Trump—gain traction.

Fear and the Authoritarian Personality

Research on authoritarianism, beginning with Theodor Adorno and later expanded by political psychologists, shows that authoritarian movements thrive when populations feel:

• Economically insecure

• Culturally threatened

• Socially disoriented

Fear narrows cognitive processing. Under threat, people are more likely to accept strongman leadership, simplify moral frameworks, and defer responsibility to authority figures.

Kubla Kraus offers certainty through domination. Trump offers certainty through grievance.

Both relieve followers of the burden of critical thinking.

Historical Echoes: Authoritarian Patterns Across Time

Kubla Kraus is not unique. He is a composite—an echo of leaders who have appeared whenever fear outweighed moral courage.

20th-Century Parallels

• Adolf Hitler exploited national humiliation and economic despair

• Benito Mussolini glorified spectacle, masculinity, and loyalty

• Joseph Stalin weaponized fear, surveillance, and denunciation

Each promised restoration. Each delivered repression.

What unites them is not ideology alone, but psychological strategy: identify an enemy, dehumanize them, and present cruelty as necessity.

Kubla Kraus’s ice is simply a child-friendly metaphor for the same process.

The Weaponization of Coldness

Kraus’s power is ice—symbolically, emotional and moral coldness.

Trump’s equivalent manifests as:

• Dehumanization of marginalized groups

• Cruelty reframed as “telling it like it is”

• Policies designed to hurt “the right people”

• Mockery of suffering as political entertainment

Psychologists describe this as empathy suppression. When empathy is framed as weakness, cruelty becomes virtue.

This is psychological winter—a freezing of moral imagination.

The Crowd as an Instrument

Kubla Kraus does not rule alone. He depends on:

• Enforcers who gain status

• Silent bystanders who fear consequences

• Beneficiaries who profit from looking away

Trump’s rallies function in strikingly similar ways:

• Chants replace analysis

• Loyalty replaces ethics

• Identity replaces policy

This is not deliberative democracy. This is cult psychology.

Political psychologists note that cult dynamics rely on:

• In-group vs. out-group framing

• Emotional arousal over reason

• Personal loyalty to a leader over shared values

Once this shift occurs, facts become negotiable and morality becomes tribal.

Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Cold Power

Political theorist Hannah Arendt warned that the greatest danger of authoritarianism is not monstrous evil, but ordinary people choosing obedience over conscience.

Kubla Kraus is not sustained by brilliance. He is sustained by compliance.

Trumpism follows the same logic. The damage is rarely done only by the leader—it is done by institutions that comply, citizens who rationalize, and systems that normalize cruelty.

Winter deepens not with a roar, but with silence.

Jack Frost vs. the Spirit of Resistance

Jack Frost represents the counterforce:

• Warmth

• Renewal

• Moral courage

• Resistance to fear

He does not conquer through domination, but through restoration. He reminds communities of what they already know but have forgotten: that fear is not strength, and cruelty is not protection.

This is the spiritual heart of the allegory.

Jack Frost is not just a hero—he is the reminder that winter is not permanent.

Why This Matters Now

Authoritarianism does not arrive with a single speech or law. It arrives gradually:

• Normalized through repetition

• Softened through humor and spectacle

• Justified through fear narratives

That is why children’s stories matter. That is why allegory matters. That is why Jack Frost still matters.

Kubla Kraus is not frozen in 1979. He reappears whenever societies fail to protect:

• Truth

• Compassion

• The vulnerable

The Poem: Trump Kraus

TRUMP KRAUS

An Allegory of Power, Winter, and the Thaw

I. THE POEM

Trump Kraus

He came in winter colors, loud reds, false gold, a crown stitched from grievance and borrowed applause.

His skin glowed orange under torchlight lies, a man warmed only by mirrors, hair swept sideways as if hiding the truth beneath it.

He promised strength, but delivered frost. Promised greatness, but froze the wells of mercy.

Trump Kraus ruled by spectacle—not wisdom, not law, but noise. Always noise.

He taught the frightened to shout, the cruel to laugh, the faithful to kneel not to God, but to him.

In his kingdom, truth was treason, kindness was weakness, and children learned fear before they learned hope.

He built walls of ice and called them protection. He shattered trust and called it winning.

Around him gathered the silent, the benefited, the ones who said, “This isn’t my fight.”

Winter deepened.

But ice has a flaw Trump Kraus never understood it cannot hold forever.

Somewhere, a frost spirit stirred. Somewhere, warmth remembered itself. Somewhere, a child asked, "Why is this cold?”

And questions crack ice. And truth melts lies. And spring does not ask permission.

Trump Kraus laughed until the thaw reached his feet.

History has seen him before—different names, same cold heart.

And history will see him again, melted down to a cautionary tale told by fires to keep the next winter away.

(Full poem available as a companion piece and performance text.)

Conclusion: The Thaw Is a Choice

Every generation faces the same decision:

• Do we surrender to cold power?

• Or do we choose warmth, justice, and courage?

Kubla Kraus always loses—not because he is weak, but because fear cannot sustain itself indefinitely. Ice cracks. Empires fall. Truth resurfaces.

The only unanswered question is how much damage is done before the thaw.

Universal Rainbow Faith – Spiritual Coda

From a spiritual lens, fear is not sacred. Love is sacred. Human dignity is sacred.

Any system that requires cruelty to survive is already dying.

Spring is not naïve. Spring is inevitable.