Is Trumpism a cult?

[Kid Berwyn]

A new book from a former cult member makes the case.

By Sean Illing
Vox.com, Dec 13, 2019

Excerpt...

A new book by cult expert Steven Hassan, called The Cult of Trump, is the first serious attempt to argue that Trumpism is a cult. Hassan has studied cults for years and is himself a former member of the “Moonies” cult, an offshoot of the Unification Church of the United States led by Sun Myung Moon that made headlines in 1970s.

Hassan is convinced that Trump is more than just a manipulative, charismatic politician. The president, he writes, “employs many of the same techniques as prominent cult leaders and displays many of the same personality traits.”

Snip...

Steven Hassan: I began this book with the assumption that Trump is a malignant narcissist. Actually, watching him and listening to him reminded me of Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the cult I joined in college, in that both have a kind of God complex where they’re the only one with the answers, the only one who can fix things. Moon was going to create a theocracy and Trump was going to “drain the swamp.” But the way they carry themselves is similar.

But what really made me think of Trump as a cult was the way the groups who supported him were behaving, especially religious groups who believed that God had chosen Trump or was using Trump. There are actual pro-Trump religious groups, like the New Apostolic Reformation, whose leaders were saying, “We’re of God. The rest of the world is of Satan, and we need to follow our chosen leaders who are connected to God.”

There was this blind-faith aspect to the whole thing and an unwillingness to look at any inconvenient facts. That’s all very cult-like.

Continues...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/13/20992370/trump-republican-party-cult-steven-hassan

Nice reading for a Friday the 13th In Putin’s America.

[FM123]

1. Seems like a cult to me.

I remember reading something that went like this: cults have a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power.

[Kid Berwyn]

3. Belief in the "Chosen One"

For too many, belief is more powerful than reason. From The Guardian:

what makes a cult

Excerpt...

Some groups may not fit the definition of a cult, but may pose potential risks for participants. Here are 10 warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader.

• Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability.

• No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry.

• No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement.

• Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions.

• There is no legitimate reason to leave, former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil.

• Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances.

• There are records, books, news articles, or broadcast reports that document the abuses of the group/leader.

• Followers feel they can never be “good enough.”

• The group/leader is always right.

• The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion

[muntrv]

2. Uh yeah!

[Kid Berwyn]

5. I believe in the International Cultic Studies Association

Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups - Revised

Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.

Concerted efforts at influence and control lie at the core of cultic groups, programs, and relationships. Many members, former members, and supporters of cults are not fully aware of the extent to which members may have been manipulated, exploited, even abused. The following list of social-structural, social-psychological, and interpersonal behavioral patterns commonly found in cultic environments may be helpful in assessing a particular group or relationship.

Compare these patterns to the situation you were in (or in which you, a family member, or friend is currently involved). This list may help you determine if there is cause for concern. Bear in mind that this list is not meant to be a �cult scale� or a definitive checklist to determine if a specific group is a cult. This is not so much a diagnostic instrument as it is an analytical tool.

‪* The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.

‪* Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.

*‪ Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).

*‪ The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry�or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).

*‪ The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar�or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).

*‪ The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

*‪ The leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).

*‪ The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members' participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).

*‪ The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion.

*‪ Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.

*‪ The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.

*‪ The group is preoccupied with making money.

*‪ Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities.

*‪ Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.

*‪ The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

This checklist will be published in the new book, Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships by Janja Lalich and Madeleine Tobias (Berkeley: Bay Tree Publishing, 2006). It was adapted from a checklist originally developed by Michael Langone.

Source: http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm

[muntrv]

16. I was recruited for the Amway cult. Turned them down

after a few meetings.

[Kid Berwyn]

17. The Great Pyramid Scheme Of Michigan

Oops. I forgot, it’s not a pyramid. The model is that if a flower. Associates now are the petals around the daisy’s perimeter that kick up the dough to the Center.

Glad you got out, muntrv! Absolute Cult. I’ve got family members who fell in with them. I now remember they saw the light when they had to buy stuff to make a quota.

As you know, the Michigan economy is still tied to auto manufacturing. The thing is, now robots have almost all the jobs that used to be done by skilled workers.

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. why yes, of course it is

[Kid Berwyn]

6. The Question Then Becomes: How Do We Defeat a Cult?

Is there a magic bullet? Like when the People saw the emperor was unclothed? Not that the Moronic Mushroom is an idea worth contemplating.

[dustyscamp]

13. We need to destroy everything they believe in

Hate Radio, Corrupt Politicians, RWNJ Celebs, businesses, NRA & most importantly Trump. We need to keep fighting back hard destroying or ruining their reputations till there is nothing left. Make being in the MAGA cult a pain in the ass.

[Poiuyt]

30. You can't do it with reason or rational thinking

I don't know the techniques for deprogramming a cult member

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. Yes

[Kid Berwyn]

18. How Donald Trump Hypnotized America

"I don't repeat myself. I don't repeat myself. ... I don't repeat myself."

by James Harbeck
The Week, May 17, 2016

Snip...

1. Trump uses the same words and phrases incessantly and identically. These aren't just any words and phrases: They have strong emotional valuation. Win. Great. Huge. Sad. Weak. Lame. Lyin' Ted. Crooked Hillary. Goofy Elizabeth Warren. Repeat a thing often enough and it burrows into the mind and becomes a given. Even if you disagree with it, it becomes the established idea that you're trying to disagree with.

Snip...

2. Trump uses the same structures over and over and over to set up an automatic cue-response expectation. Trump's tweets often have a structure so clear it's become famous:

Snip...

3. Trump uses the rule of three. Say the same thing three times, use the same structure three times, make sets of three. The rule of three is used in jokes, in fairy tales, in religious texts, in fiction, in advertising, in speeches... everywhere, since at least the time of the Romans.

Continues...

https://theweek.com/articles/623396/how-donald-trump-hypnotized-america

[RandySF]

8. Yes

[Kid Berwyn]

19. Trump Winning with ' Trumpnosis'

by Judy Kurtz
The Hill, March 30, 2016

A world-renowned hypnotist says there’s one person folks should turn to if they want a master class in the art of mesmerizing a crowd: Donald Trump.

Richard Barker has even coined a term for what he says the GOP presidential front-runner engages in on the campaign trail: “Trumpnosis.”

“Trumpnosis” has been around for a very long time, including politics and religion,” Barker, known professionally as “The Incredible Hypnotist,” says. “But Donald Trump has mastered it. What it basically is, is it’s mass persuasion, mass influence and mass hypnosis.

“The idea of Trumpnosis is being able to sow the seeds of persuasion, suggestion and ideas en masse to other people.”

The triggers, according to Barker, a former police detective who’s worked and performed as a hypnotist for more than two decades, are always the same: “It’s always identifying the problem, identifying another problem and then verbalizing the solutions to the point that people need the solutions.”

Continues...

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/274609-hypnotist-trump-winning-with-trumpnosis

[mnmoderatedem]

9. is that a rhetorical question?

Charles Manson supporters are starting to think Trump Davidians are a little weird.

[Kid Berwyn]

21. The Art of Persuasive Speaking

Robert M. Pirsig pointed the way forward.

[Raftergirl]

10. Yes.

[Kid Berwyn]

22. Robert J. Lifton examined "brainwashing" and who becomes worthy of "existence."

Chapter 22: Ideological Totalism

Topics

Milieu Control
Mystical Manipulation
The Demand for Purity
The Cult of Confession
The "Sacred Science"
Loading the Language
Doctrine Over Person
The Dispensing of Existence

A discussion of what is most central in the thought reform environment can lead us to a more general consideration of the psychology of human zealotry. For in identifying, on the basis of this study of thought reform, features common to all expressions of ideological totalism, I wish to suggest a set of criteria against which any environment may be judged - a basis for answering the ever-recurring question: "Isn't this just like 'brainwashing'?"

These criteria consist of eight psychological themes which are predominant within the social field of the thought reform milieu. Each has a totalistic quality; each depend upon an equally absolute philosophical assumption; and each mobilizes certain individual emotional tendencies, mostly of a polarizing nature. In combination they create an atmosphere which may temporarily energize or exhilarate, but which at the same time poses the gravest of human threats.

Milieu Control

The most basic feature of the thought reform environment, the psychological current upon which all else depends, is the control of human communication. Through this milieu control the totalist environment seeks to establish domain over not only the individual's communication with the outside (all that he sees and hears, reads or writes, experiences, and expresses), but also - in its penetration of his inner life - over what we may speak of as his communication with himself. It creates an atmosphere uncomfortably reminiscent of George Orwell's 1984.

Such milieu control never succeeds in becoming absolute, and its own human apparatus can - when permeated by outside information - become subject to discordant "noise" beyond that of any mechanical apparatus. To totalist administrators, however, such occurrences are no more than evidences of "incorrect" use of the apparatus. For they look upon milieu control as a just and necessary policy, one which need not be kept secret: thought reform participants may be in doubt as to who is telling what to whom, but the fact that extensive information about everyone is being conveyed to the authorities is always known. At the center of this self-justification is their assumption of omniscience, their conviction that reality is their exclusive possession. Having experienced the impact of what they consider to be an ultimate truth (and having the need to dispel any possible inner doubts of their own), they consider it their duty to create an environment containing no more and no less than this "truth." In order to be the engineers of the human soul, they must first bring it under full observational control.

Snip...

The Dispensing of Existence

The totalist environment draws a sharp line between those whose right to existence can be recognized, and those who possess no such right.

Are not men presumtuous to appoint themselves the dispensers of human existence? Surely this is a flagrant expression of what the Greeks called hubris, of arrogant man making himself God. Yet one underlying assumption makes this arrogance mandatory: the conviction that there is just one path to true existence, just one valid mode of being, and that all others are perforce invalid and false. Totalists thus feel themselves compelled to destroy all possibilities of false existence as a means of furthering the great plan of true existence to which they are committed.

For the individual, the polar emotional conflict is the ultimate existential one of "being versus nothingness." He is likely to be drawn to a conversion experience, which he sees as the only means of attaining a path of existence for the future. The totalist environment - even when it does not resort to physical abuse - thus stimulates in everyone a fear of extinction or annihilation. A person can overcome this fear and find (in martin Buber's term) "confirmation," not in his individual relationships, but only from the fount of all existence, the totalist Organization. Existence comes to depend upon creed (I believe, therefore I am), upon submission (I obey, therefore I am) and beyond these, upon a sense of total merger with the ideological movement. Ultimately of course one compromises and combines the totalist "confirmation" with independent elements of personal identity; but one is ever made aware that, should he stray too far along this "erroneous path," his right to existence may be withdrawn.

Continues...

https://culteducation.com/brainwashing19.html

[democratisphere]

11. Blue Jeans and beer cult.

Last edited Sun Dec 15, 2019, 03:11 PM - Edit history (1)

According to them!

[Kid Berwyn]

23. Hassan explains to deprogram, be nice and open their eyes.

From a Salon interview...

If Trumpism is a type of cult, how does one go about deprogramming millions of people?

That is the main reason why I wrote my new book "The Cult of Trump." I knew that the people who need the book the most are not going to read it. People in cults don't think they're in a cult. I felt like I needed to first start with those people who will listen and then learn that mind control is real. Brainwashing can take place. People are witnessing that very directly in America right now. Unfortunately, what is happening in America right now is that people who have family members or friends who have become Trumpists are now calling them names and cutting off contact from them.

This happens when someone's loved one gets into Scientology or the Moonies or any number of other such groups. The family tries to convince them to leave the cult and when that doesn’t work, they cut off contact from their loved one.

To get your loved ones or friends out of Trump’s cult, you need to reach out to them strategically. Don’t start with saying how stupid you think the Trump cultists are. And I would also appeal to people who are Trumpists to stop being so hostile to people who do not support Donald Trump. To try to get people out of Trump’s cult we should first try to engage them in an intelligent conversation about the psychology of influence. We should also talk to Trumpists about how to better discern facts from opinions and beliefs.

One of the universal techniques that I teach my clients is that you want to focus on another group initially, and not the group in which the person you are trying to help is a member. Focus on China, for example, or some other country that is engaging in brainwashing of its population.

To extricate someone from a cult such as Trump’s, you should also ask the person to think about people who have lied to them or people who took advantage of them. Ask them to reflect on an experience where someone hired them and then refused to pay them. Would they want to work for someone like that again? Would they trust someone like that again?

In this moment with Donald Trump and his movement, we also need to have conversations based on love and respect to take control of the fact that we are on one planet together and our mutual survival or destruction depends on us ending this massive social and political polarization.

Source: https://www.salon.com/2019/10/22/cam-members-of-the-trump-cult-be-deprogrammed-after-the-leader-falls-steven-hassan-says-yes/

[appalachiablue]

12. Actually I dislike the use of the term 'cult' for German Nazi followers

and Trumpists. Cult implies people who are persuaded by some mystical power and brainwashed by things 'beyond their control.' It suggests people are not responsible iow.

Followers of Hitler were to a degree restricted in German society but also comfortable with the jobs they received and the national economic improvement provided by Der Fuhrer. Yet there were people who saw through the lies and horror.

With cults I think of people whose lives are very closely attached to the leader, living in a communal setting, having to turn over income to the cult and getting approval to marry, etc.- not the case with Germans and Trump followers.

[Kid Berwyn]

24. Modern Media Turbocharge Brainwashing

Excellent points regarding those who also experienced Goebbels and the rise of Hitler. Many really were “good Germans” who saw through the crapola and opposed Hitler, despite what they were being told. I also don’t want to absolve anyone of their responsibilities.

My reason for the OP is to find what is needed to destroy Trump’s Svengali like hold on his followers’ critical faculties.

The thing is, America of 2019 has been dumbed down and manipulated in ways unimaginable to Orwell. Public education is a priority for piratization. Textbooks ignore science and history. The rise of television sped alienation. Relatively few read books regularly. Big media sing the same Corporate McPravda tune. New media emphasize individual self-interests. And the Big Lie has become an almost unnoticed part of the polluted information environment.

Like peace, let’s give truth a chance. Democracy is counting on it.

[Skittles]

14. I cannot get past how utterly fucking ridiculous Trump is

he's such a BUFFOON, how can ANYONE look at him, LISTEN to him and not see the truth????

[coti]

25. It's true. To be taken in by him, one has to be a serious dumbfuck.

It's very easy not to respect Trump supporters.

[Kid Berwyn]

27. He cultivated millions via "The Apprentice"

Show started on NBC in 2004. Mark Burnett is its British-born producer.

What I just learned:

The online social networking site MySpace and reality TV producer Mark Burnett are teaming to launch the search for an independent presidential candidate.

Snip...

Potential candidates will audition for the show by submitting a video. Once the contestants are chosen, they will set up MySpace profiles to serve as their campaign headquarters.

The hope is that the show, with its Internet component, will engage younger voters in the political process.

“Through this new network television series and the partnership of MySpace, we’re going to discover in a big way what America really thinks, and bring to light the issues that are closest to those who now finally have a chance to be heard,” Burnett said.

MySpace is a unit of Fox Interactive Media, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

Source: http://freewilliamsburg.com/rupert-murdoch-mark-burnett-to-launch-search-for-an-independent-presidential-candidate

The scales just fell off, bigly. Oh boy.

[Skittles]

29. once again

I watched five minutes of him ONE TIME on that show and he literally made me feel nauseated - his is sick, narcissistic BULLY - FUCK EVERYONE who were entertained by that sick piece of shit - seriously, WTF

[Kid Berwyn]

31. That shows who's on the level.

Their level.

Which is why the guy is a golden magnet to the murdering fascist slavemasters.

What bugs me is he’s now allied the NAZIs with Putin’s crowd.

Trump suggests Putin called Obama the n-word. Seconds later: “I hope (Putin) likes me.”

By German [e-mail]@vox.com Jul 27, 2016, 2:42pm EDT

Within 20 seconds at a press conference on Wednesday, actual Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump went from suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had once called President Barack Obama the n-word to saying he hopes Putin likes him.

This is not an exaggeration. It really happened:

Trump talking Putin goes from "he called Obama the n-word" to "I hope he likes me" in 20 seconds. pic.twitter.com/u1iNXOpQmL

— Elliott Schwartz (@elliosch) July 27, 2016

For the record, there is literally zero evidence that Putin ever called Obama the n-word. It’s hard to say where Trump got this idea, but he has a long history of naively restating things he heard from one person — even random people on Twitter. As Ezra Klein argued for Vox, Trump’s gullibility is one of the reasons he’s not qualified to be president.

(Link to Tweet above is busted.) Source: https://www.vox.com/2016/7/27/12299964/trump-putin-n-word

Deplorable.

[Garrett78]

15. No predecessor has had an approval rating nearly as steady as Trump's has been over his first 3 yrs.

[Kid Berwyn]

32. Team Loyalty

Fox News is a powerful drug. It makes people believe falsehoods and swallow hate for the other. It makes people believe a traitor is qualified to serve as President.



All the members of the armed forces pictured above were required to swear loyalty to one man.

Donald J Trump, according to his ex-wife Ivana, kept a copy of the guy’s speeches on his nightstand for reading.

[WhiskeyWulf]

20. My elderly father is a Trump supporter.

Studying cults is a long-time hobby of mine, & I've been telling him since 2016 that he's acting like a cult member. It's awful to witness up close, quite aside from the effect the phenomenon is having on our country & the rest of the world.

[onecaliberal]

26. It very much seems so.

[thegoose]

28. Hell yes

He's laughably ugly. He's stupid. He's a two-bit conjob. He's hateful and vindictive. But the MAGATs all get misty-eyed when they talk about "Fearless Leader."