LATimes: Call Trumpism what it is: a cult

[CousinIT]

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-10/donald-trump-cult-steven-hassan-moonie

. . .

A lot of nut jobs have peddled lies to Americans before, and even styled themselves as messianic. But at no time in history have so many Americans been drawn to what’s looking increasingly like a cult. I don’t use the term recklessly.

When Steven Hassan, an expert in cults and an ex-Moonie (as in the Unification Church, founded by a Korean businessman, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon), published “The Cult of Trump” last spring, some reviewers objected to his use of the cult framework as incendiary and not all that useful.

. . .

Journalists Luke O’Neil and Edwin Lyngar, as well as Jen Senko in “The Brainwashing of My Dad,” have compiled stories of Americans who have gone over. O’Neil summarized the transformation this way: “A loved one … sat down in front of Fox News, found some kind of deep, addictive comfort in the anger and paranoia, and became a different person.”

Sounds about right.

Hassan — who remembers, during his Moonie days, shouting, “I don’t care if Moon is like Hitler. I’ve chosen to follow him, and I’ll follow him to the end” — broke free, and became an expert on cults and how to leave them. He has spent his career proving it’s possible.

To see Trumpism as a cult is not to refuse to engage with its effects, the crimes committed in its name or the way it has awakened and emboldened the cruelest and most destructive beliefs and practices in the American playbook. Instead, the cult framework should relieve the pressure many of us feel to call Trumpites back to themselves, to keep arguing with them. They are stuck in a bad relationship with a controlling figure.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. totalitarian cult of personality

[blm]

2. Important read.

Moon easily gained influence over the GOP in the 80s. Republican minds have been targeted for conditioning since 1981.

[mopinko]

3. he had his fingers in our party, too.

remember when danny davis had some kind of cult ceremony in one of the rooms in the house building? details are fuzzy, but i remember a pic w crowns.
i thought danny had more sense, but i have also been to his service office. good man, but got some, well, less than the sharpest knives in the drawer in his office.

but yeah, there are important clues here to what we are dealing w.

[blm]

6. Oh yeah, most definitely.

But then, Moon was spreading a LOT of money around to a few of the black churches in order to divide them politically.

[certainot]

4. they're just fucking dittoheads. these analysts just have to turn off the music

once in a while and listen to the radio and multiply it by 1500 radio stations going 15 hrs a day with no one getting in their face

every day for 30 years the analyzers miss the radio, mostly because they live in cities

fox is is the cartoon cliff notes for talk radio

[DEbluedude]

5. "fox is is the cartoon cliff notes for talk radio"

Love it!

[lame54]

7. Lyintology

[NCProgressive]

8. I agree

When one adores a leader who is such a scumbag, with so many negatives, it is a cult.

[Gurmal]

9. They support whatever he says

And if he changes his mind, they support his new position.