A cult is a religion with no political power.

The line draws attention to how labels like “cult” and “religion” can function less as neutral descriptions than as judgments shaped by social legitimacy and power. Wolfe’s formulation suggests that what society calls a “cult” may differ from an established religion not primarily in beliefs or practices, but in institutional standing—especially access to political influence, legal recognition, and cultural authority. The quote also implies that once a movement gains enough power, it can normalize itself and shed the stigmatizing label. Read this way, it is a critique of how majorities police boundaries of acceptable faith and how political power can confer respectability.