How to trumpers happen? We are watching the film Wild Wild Country on Netflix -

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Wild_Country

Somehow my wife and I completely missed this event - but the movie tells the fascinating, but horrifying, story of how Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his totally bizarre right hand person Ma Anand Sheela essentially hijacked a small Oregon town (Antelope, population 40) and did some rather unbelievable things to get control of the area for their cult and huge area of habitation.

Watching all of these people dressed in red talking about how they all have their own free will, the hero worship, the manipulation, the lies - it reminded my wife and I exactly of what we are seeing in the country today.

Maybe because I don't have a shred of "follower" gene in my body, I just can't understand how cults can exist - those twisted power hungry people (monsters) who form/lead them, and especially, the masses who wish to just forget their individuality (and common sense) and blindly follow.

It certainly is a fascinating movie to watch, because something that happened in the US nearly 40 years ago seems to be, at least in a broad sense, repeating itself on a much larger, widespread scale, today.

Horrifying stuff, for sure.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. I suspect that those people need the "strong daddy" figure to feel safe.

And that is where it starts.

[Eliot Rosewater]

2. Will have to watch it, but in the case of rump, it is simpler, I think.

Rump truly hates black people, Latinos, Muslims and everybody knows it, so do his followers.

Gay people he can take or leave, but if his followers want them tortured or deported or killed, he will certainly do that for them.

It really is this simple, especially given how these people had to SUFFER under Obama, getting healthcare, being saved from a total meltdown of the economy, they were truly suffering. FOR REAL, they had to watch a BLACK man do all that with the name Obama, they could not take it.

McConnell had to walk up to his FACE and TELL HIM he would NEVER get a SC seat. HATE is what is is about.

And you know what, they finally got me to hate, and I hate now with a FUCKING PASSION.

[bullwinkle428]

3. Yeah, I watched an old "Forensic Files" episode which focused on the

bio-terrorism food poisoning of 751 people by two of the leaders of the Rajneeshee cult, but the Baghwan himself was never prosecuted, as it could not be proven he was a part of the plot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

[cilla4progress]

4. We started it too - wanted to learn about

Cult mentality.

Need to get back to it.

[Maraya1969]

5. There is a FB page for followers of him still. I've read some of their comments

and they firmly believe he was an enlightened master. After all that happened.

But to give him some credit it was Ma Anand who was the real sociopath in that group. I don't know who sanctioned the group orgy like looking things that happened everyday though.

[blm]

6. Watched that earlier this year. Predators fleecing the vulnerable and

demanding money from them and power over them.

[Generic Other]

7. I also watched this in amazement

They acted a lot like Trumpers. But the Trumpers are worse. Like Jonestown.

[Mme. Defarge]

8. I lived through that period in Oregon's history

and it was more than a little unsettling. I was friends with a married couple who were graphic artists - both very intelligent and talented but were fell under the spell of Scientology before eventually becoming Rajneeshies. I eventually lost contact with them, but clearly they were searching for something that provided meaning and structure to their lives.