Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation - Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Notes)

 

[These notes are a summary of Kristin’s thesis based on a podcast interview with her, not the book itself.]

Kristin Du Mez, professor at Calvin University was inspired to write her book when her students handed her a copy of Wild at Heart written by John Eldredge in 2001, who encouraged a rugged and militant masculine Christian faith. Rather than looking to the Bible, he looked to Hollywood, military men, cowboys, Braveheart, and mythological heroes and called that “biblical manhood.” He said God is a warrior God and man is made in his image, so every man has a battle to fight.

By 2005 dozens of books promoted similar images of rugged masculine Christianity. We were in the midst of the Iraq war in 2006 when these books came out, and polls showed that white evangelicals supported the Iraq war, pre-emptive war, condoned the use of torture, and embraced aggressive foreign policy.

Is this a fringe dark underbelly of evangelical Christianity or mainstream? Eldredge sold 4 million copies of Wild at Heart. Mark Driscoll in the 2000s was also wildly popular, and he preached a masculine, militant, crass Christianity. Du Mez collected numerous examples of abuse of power, sexual abuse, and protecting abusive colleagues among Christian leaders promoting this kind of masculinity.

Du Mez noticed how many white evangelicals got behind Trump. By fall of 2016 more than 80% of white evangelicals supported him. After the Access Hollywood tape of Trump’s sexual abuse and misogyny and lying, saying it wasn’t him on the tape, they continued to support him all the more. There is a habit in evangelical circles of enabling this kind of masculinity and looking the other way. They weren’t holding their noses when they voted, but were drawn to Trump’s alpha masculinity. Robert Jeffress said he didn’t want someone meek and mild, he wanted the meanest, toughest son of a bitch in the White House.

In the Nineteenth century we see genteel, respectful, self-restraint defining Christian masculinity. White men were seen as empowered to discipline women, children, and slaves. By the time of Roosevelt in the 1920s, we see rugged, rough, tough individualism, linked to whiteness and American power. By World War II, liberal Christians were more militaristic, but evangelical Christians weren’t. Evangelicals believed that a nation didn’t have a soul, people did, so America couldn’t be a Christian nation. That view among evangelicals would come later in their culture wars.

By the 1940s, evangelicals and Protestants attempted to unify and take back America through pop culture—magazines, books, radio, TV. This led to the rise of Billy Graham and eventually televangelism. During the Cold War in the 1950s, communism is identified as atheistic anti-God, anti-family, and anti-American. It’s a military threat that must be defended against with the military. America needed to be Christian and kept Christian, so faith and patriotism was linked to fight communism.

In the 1960s we see Civil Rights movements challenging southern white Christians, the feminist movement disobeying what were believed to be God’s commands for gender roles, and Vietnam and the anti-war movement. Evangelicals became increasingly pro-war, pro-military, and pro-gender roles: men were to be strong, tough protectors and women were to be weak, meek, and submissive. This increased the evangelical opposition to acceptance of LGBTQ acceptance and abortion.

John Wayne became the model of Christian masculinity for evangelicals. He was a cowboy, individualist, war hero, and a good guy who uses violence to defeat bad guys. Like Eldredge, this kind of Christian masculinity depends on fictional characters not formed by Christian virtues like loving your enemy as yourself.

If every man is made for a battle, then every man needs a battle, and that battle is the conservative evangelical culture war. Donald Trump comes along and is seen as the masculine strong man who is going to fight the enemies of the evangelicals, so they embraced him.

Fifty-five percent of evangelical women supported Trump, but they also help support patriarchy and believe in their own role of being a wife and mother who submits to patriarchal authority, which supports the strong man as protector. God gave men testosterone to have the strength and aggression to protect their home, faith, and country, so men must be very masculine and women very feminine. Women must be ready to meet their husband’s needs and not tempt other men.

The Cold War ended in the nineties, so Promise Keepers arose to answer the question: “What does it mean to be a man?” The warrior motif was there, but it was a tender warrior; a soft patriarchy. It got too soft, so a number of books released in 2001, like Wild at Heart, called for a militant, testosterone-filled, rugged Christianity. When September 11th happened, they became best sellers. We all have a battle to fight, and now we know who the enemy is: radical Islam.

Large conservative evangelical organizations like Focus on the Family promoted former Muslim terrorists who converted to evangelical Christianity and warned that Muslims wanted to come to America and kill us. There were numerous speakers, and they all turned out to be frauds. These evangelical ministries, knowing they were frauds, continued to promote them anyway because the ends justify the means.

Evangelicals were afraid because their leaders stoked their fear. Fear is a requirement to sustain militancy. They become Islamaphobes as a spate of books were written about the dangers of Islam. They believed they had to be ruthless and kill them first before they came here and killed us.

Many American evangelical organizations have global reach, so this masculine evangelicalism is exported all over the world where different cultures assimilate these ideas, leading to heartbreaking abuse.

Christians know Trump isn’t a Christian, but he promised to protect them and charge into battle on their behalf better than Rubio, Cruz, Carson, because Trump is tough, unconstrained by political correctness, civility, or rule of law, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

James Dobson said Trump was a baby Christian. Evangelicals tried to baptize Trump because they believe he is on their side, if not one of them. How could they support a man who was so morally reprehensible? The ends justify the means.

White evangelical values are deeply racialized. Christian nationalism says we were founded as a Christian nation and things were great until they went bad in the 1960s. Only white Christians can say that, not noticing their supremacy and privilege, completely ignoring the black experience in America.

Trump helped spread the narrative that Christians are persecuted while at the same time promising to privilege them. Evangelicals tell themselves that Democrats like Obama and Clinton are not true Christians, but actually hate Christianity. They are enemies who want to destroy your faith. But no matter how terribly Trump behaves, they see him as one of them.

The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control - Steven Hassan (Notes)

 

Introduction

To say that President Trump is using mind control on his supporters, and to call them followers of an charismatic narcissist who behaves like a cult leader and they like cult members is a provocative claim. Hassan, a cult expert who has written numerous books over the decades on the topic, was alarmed when he saw the parallels between Trump and his supporters and cult leaders and their followers. In describing the parallels, he makes it clear that this is not a partisan political hit piece.

When Trump first ran for president, it was hard for anyone to take him seriously, so it was quite shocking to find his most ardent supporters among evangelical Christians. Trump was a casino mogul, playboy, philanderer, regularly told outright lies, and doubled down on them when challenged. His life resembled nothing of Christian values and morals.

As Trump became the Republican nomination for president, it was clear that he was using psychological and social techniques, exploiting these methods to great effect. He was a media manipulator who got Fox News to insult his opponents and brag about his accomplishments while CNN and MSNBC couldn’t get enough of covering his circus-like behavior. He was an entertaining, blustery speaker who used simplistic repetitious terms and slogans as anthems at his rallies: (“Lock her up” and “Build the wall”). He gave catchy nicknames to his opponents: (“Crooked Hillary,” “Lying Ted,” “Sleepy Joe”).

Trump has an air of absolute confidence and grandiosity (“Only I can fix this”), demands devotion and adoration, sows fear and confusion, demands absolute loyalty, lies and creates “alternative facts,” shuns and belittles critics and ex-supporters, and inspires a binary us-versus-them tribal mentality—those with him are in a special category and all against him are evil and dangerous. These are all techniques high profile cult leaders use.

Trump has an infatuation for authoritarian leaders like Putin, Erdogan, and Jong-un and has similar aspirations towards authoritarianism. When a leader gains psychological sway over his followers and other politicians, the checks and balances of healthy democracy can be stripped away.

Political operatives Roger Stone and Sam Nunberg developed for Trump the slogan that we were going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Trump didn’t love it, but his crowds did, so he used it to conjure images of murderers and rapists at the border that only he can protect America from with a big shiny wall meant to insulate, isolate, and elevate America from the rest of the dangerous world. His Muslim travel ban, which was the idea of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon, a peddler of anti-immigration propaganda, achieved the same effect, as many on the Christian right fear that Islam will take over America and impose sharia law. This is how Trump uses fear and xenophobia to inspire loyalty.

“Trump uses all kinds of cult tactics—lying, insulting opponents, projecting his weakness onto others, deflecting, distracting, presenting alternative facts and competing versions of reality—to confuse, disorient, and ultimately coerce his followers.” (xiv)

At the top of the list is fear, which Trump told Bob Woodward is real power. He spends a lot of time on the air and on Twitter sowing fear of Mexicans, Muslims, migrants, globalists, radical left-wing Democrats, socialists, Hollywood, actors, and the liberal media, claiming they are all out to destroy America and only he can keep us safe. Trump, like other cult leaders, manufactures problems that don’t exist, then tells people to put their trust in him to fix it.

Trump doesn’t manipulate alone, he gets help from the right and far right media, Trinity Broadcasting Network, social media, internet trolls, and the Russian government.

Trump’s manipulation encompasses the control of behavior, information, thought, and emotion. By questioning government, politicians, and the media, claiming “fake news” and saying reporters are “enemies of the people,” he blunts critical thinking and closes his followers’ minds to disconfirming evidence and arguments. He alone becomes the source for truth.

Just as cults divide people from families with an all-or-nothing, us-versus-them polarization, family and friends have stopped speaking to one another based on whether or not they are for or against Trump. Otherwise rational people have become radicalized and obsessed with their support for Trump.

Hassan hopes his book will free people to be individuals who are authentic, who can free their minds from propaganda and regain their critical thinking skills, and he hopes this book will heal fractured families, relationships, and the nation from the division sown by Trump.

1 – What Is a Cult?

During Donald Trump’s first cabinet meeting six months into his tenure, his cabinet took turns outdoing one another with praise and adulation for him. It was a spectacle of flattery. Shouldn’t they be counted on to give him honest advice, not stroke his ego? Trump interrupted them only long enough to praise himself, saying no president has passed more legislation as quickly as he did with the exception of FDR. In cults, members feel blessed even to be sitting in the same room as the leader, will not contradict him in any way, and compete to indoctrinate each other in loyalty to him.

Trump shuns, bullies, baits and expels in fury and anger all who “betray” and are disloyal to him—Munchin, Acosta, Sessions, Comey. He accused Democrats of treason for not clapping during his first State of the Union address.

A cult can be defined by “a small or narrow circle of persons united by devotion or allegiance to some artistic or intellectual program, tendency, or figure.” Many cults revolve around a central figure or leader. Cult leaders are motivated by power, money, and sex, in that order.

Robert Jay Lifton broke down “thought reform” in his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, which looked at how political prisoners in China and American soldiers held prisoner during the Korean war were systematically broken down and remade to believe the exact opposite of what they once did. The term brainwashing was coined in the 1950s by intelligence agent Edward Hunter to describe how the Chinese Communist army was turning people into followers.

Lifton identified eight criteria of thought reform. The Trump parallels are striking:

1)      Milieu control. The leader or inner circle has complete control of information and claims only they are trustworthy. Everyone else is untrustworthy. Followers internalize this and become their own thought police, grateful to be in an echo chamber and keep the “fake news” out.

2)      Mystical manipulation. Contriving, engineering, or staging “spontaneous” events believed to be supernatural or mystical. Trump agreed with his evangelical audience that God had chosen him to be president.

3)      Demand for purity. Viewing the world in simple binary terms of black and white and good versus evil. Members must strive for perfection as impossible standards are set for them. (Forty-six Trump appointees have been fired or resigned since his inauguration. Trump is known to fire people impulsively.)

4)      Confession. Personal boundaries are broken down and destroyed. Every thought, feeling, and action that does not conform to the group’s rules are confessed, remembered, and used against them. Trump never forgets even perceived betrayals. He had a staff member police others in the White House and report back to him any hint of treason or untrustworthiness.

5)      Sacred Science. Group doctrine and ideology is considered absolutely, scientifically, and morally true. There is no room for questions or alternative viewpoints. The leader, a spokesperson from God, cannot be questioned. Trump denigrates scientific and medical expertise for his own agenda, whether it be about climate change or the Covid pandemic.

6)      Loading the language. Members learn a new vocabulary to constrict their thinking into clichés that conform to group ideology. “Lock her up,” “Build the Wall,” “Crooked Hillary,” and “Pocahontas” are examples. Terms like “globalist” and “deep state” do the same to rouse emotion and direct people’s attention.

7)      Doctrine over person. Group ideology is everything. Doubts and critical thoughts towards group ideology are a result of a person’s own shortcomings. Anyone that doesn’t agree with Trump’s views and agendas are seen as traitors of America, trying to destroy it.

8)      Dispensing of existence. Only those in the group have the right to exist. Ex-members and dissidents do not. Trump is arguably responsible for the rise of hate crimes fueled by his rhetoric, speeches, and tweets. The in-group is privileged, the out-group is marginalized.

Undue influence is exerted on others, disrupting an individual’s ability to make independent decisions from within their own identity, by using behavior, information, thought, and emotional control—what Hassan calls the BITE model.

Trump controls behavior by demanding loyalty and obedience, publicly insulting those who disagree with him, creating false enemies, using us-versus-them thinking, and rewarding those who support him and punishing those who don’t. Trump controls information by branding anything critical or negative of him “fake news.” He replaces news with supportive propaganda for his followers. He controls thoughts by reducing complex issues into clichés and buzz words, oversimplifications, using repetition, forbidding criticism, and labeling alternative belief systems illegitimate or evil. He controls emotions by making followers feel special or chosen, fanning fear and implanting phobias, framing the world is a dangerous place that only he can fix. At rallies, he tells his supporters who they should be afraid, shouldn’t trust, or should hate, then sets himself up as the greatest defense against those things. This fearmongering makes the country and the world feel like a more divided and dangerous place than it really is.

The goal of cults is to replace the “authentic self” with the “cult self.” There are religious cults, political cults, psychotherapy/educational cults, commercial cults, and cults of personality. Trump represents a cult of personality; he is a charismatic authoritarian leader—a narcissist who uses others as a means to obtaining power. He uses politics and right wing ideology to inspire loyalty. His followers in turn use him for their own political and religious agendas. Some loathed him and learned to like him, some view him as a useful tool, and some view him as a person who genuinely holds their values.

Age of Propaganda has a chapter called “How to Become a Cult Leader” which gives a list of seven simple steps:

1. Create your own social reality. Eliminate all sources of information other than that provided by the cult. Provide a picture of the world that members can use to interpret all events.
2. Create an in-group of followers in contrast to an evil out-group. All who are with you are good and all who oppose you are to be feared and hated.
3. Create an escalating spiral of commitment. Begin with making simple requests—small donations, attending services and rallies—and escalate until they have pledged full commitment, time, energy, and resources to your cause.
4. Establish your credibility and attractiveness through myths and stories. Create a flattering biography that can be passed from member to member.
5. Send members out to proselytize the unredeemed. Have people campaign on your behalf and spread your agenda.
6. Prevent members from thinking undesirable thoughts. Continually distract people with propaganda than engenders loyalty to the group and the message.
7. Dangle a notion of a promised land before the faithful. Convince people that you can make everything better and that a new world awaits those who are loyal and faithful to you.

2 – The Making of a Cult Leader

Trump is used to getting his way, using any means necessary. He loves to wield his authority, and does so in a ham-fisted and frenetic fashion. Like many cult leaders, he invents and reinvents his life story as a self-made man who has overcome adversity due to belief in his own abilities. When we look at his biography, we see a different story.

Donald’s father Fred was tough, demanding, and a workaholic. He showed no affection, was hypercritical, and offered no praise. He raised his boys to be “killers” and “kings,” teaching them that people are weak and only the strong survive. In childhood, Trump became a bully. He had to win, as there was no tolerance for losing.

He went to Norman Vincent Peale’s church in New York. Peale wrote The Power of Positive Thinking. He taught people to expect the best and accept no defeat. Have absolute confidence in yourself—self-doubt is the work of the devil. Remove all sense of inferiority and inadequacy. Peale was a forerunner to the prosperity gospel, which taught that material wealth and success are consequences of faith, so poverty and failure come from fear and doubt. Banishing doubt leaves no room for skepticism, criticism, introspection, self-reflection and other tools necessary for correction.

Trump said Peale thought of him as “the greatest student of all time.” In part, Peale gave Trump his self-confidence, which borders on grandiosity, a refusal to negotiate or take no for an answer, his predator-versus-prey stance toward other people, and his taste for winning.

In military school, Trump learned that if you show weakness, tough men will go for the jugular, so you have to project strength. He had a reputation for being a bully and hypercompetitive in school.

Trump’s first lawyer, Roy Cohn—also a mafia lawyer, often described as cold, slithery, without empathy, vicious, and the devil himself—taught Trump to attack and fight, never defend. When you’re hit, you hit back harder. When you are accused of something, you deflect, deny, and turn the attention back onto your enemies. You never apologize.

Trump’s book The Art of the Deal teaches readers to be shrewd, brash, and cut-throat if they want to be successful in business—a zero-sum winner-take-all game.

Trump bragged about his womanizing, which got him in trouble when an off the record recording by Access Hollywood was released. Trump bragged that he moves on women and grabs them by the genitals, and they let him do it because he’s a celebrity.

Despite a lifetime of scandals and bankruptcies and being a D-list celebrity who was broke, he was hired for The Apprentice where he was turned from court jester to king. His image was rehabilitated as a self-made man who typified the American dream, though his real life doesn’t reflect this. With this image, he turned fans into voters.

3 – The Cult Leader Profile

In 2017, twenty-seven psychiatrists and mental health professionals convened at Yale School of Medicine to discuss the mental health of Donald Trump. The results were published in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, edited by Brandy X. Lee. (The updated book in 2019 contains ten more essays) They concluded that Trump exhibited a disturbing and dangerous psychological pattern: narcissistic tendencies, impulsivity, delusions, paranoia, xenophobia, misogyny, inability to take ownership of errors, pathological lying, and extreme hedonism.

The office of president requires some level of narcissism—confidence, boldness, bravado, flamboyance, and assertiveness—called grandiose narcissism. We all have a streak in narcissism in, wanting to stand out from others, be appreciated, and be thought of as special. It becomes pathological when people will do anything to get that feeling of being special— like lie, cheat, steal, betray, and hurt those closest to them.

A darker and more dangerous form of narcissism—malignant narcissism—results from combining these traits with psychopathology, anti-social behavior, self-affirming sadism, and paranoia. Malignant narcissists are arrogant, bombastic, supremely confident, demand attention and admiration, and rarely admit making a mistake. They lie, cheat, and steal with no conscience or empathy. They have no morality, only caring about protecting their power over others. When authority figures exhibit this behavior, it can become accepted by the populace as the new norm and their followers justify it. Hassan argues that Trump is a malignant narcissist with a dangerous effect on his supporters.

People with narcissistic personality disorder display a characteristic pattern of traits:

1)      Grandiose self-centered behavior.

2)      Fantasies of power, success, and attractiveness.

3)      A need for praise and admiration.

4)      A sense of entitlement.

5)      Lack of empathy which can lead them to exploit, bully, shame, and demean others without guilt or remorse.

Beneath the surface is low self-esteem—they are plagued with feelings of inferiority, emptiness, and boredom.

Grandiosity is the exaggeration of talents and achievements. Every cult leader does this. Trump has a string of “Nobody knows more about ______ than I do” statements and claims to have achieved things no other president in history has ever achieved.

Narcissists live in a fantasy world propped up by distortion, self-deception, and magical thinking in which they can exaggerate their power, wealth, intelligence, and looks and minimize or ignore their faults and flaws. They feel shame, humiliation, and rejection even from the most constructive criticism.

Donald Trump has a habit of exaggerating and bragging about his intelligence, sexual prowess, looks, wealth, celebrity, and entitlement—that because he is a celebrity he can do whatever he wants with women and they let him. He takes offense to and threatens to sue anyone who dares to expose his lies.

Due to lack of affection in childhood, narcissists crave approval and admiration. For some, this becomes a demand for devotion. They need attention and glory, and manipulate people to get it. Trump falsely bragged that his inauguration had the largest audience of any other president both in person and remote. Despite clear evidence this was false, he doubled down and kept repeating it.

Once people become loyal to a narcissist, they will lie, cheat, steal, and take the bullet for him, as his former lawyer Michael Cohen did. Fox News had no problem rubber stamping Trump’s narrative, shamelessly spreading his lies, and demonizing his enemies for him. Anyone at Fox News who contested Trump’s narrative was viewed by his supporters as traitors.

Narcissists believe they are so exceptional that they are entitled to get whatever they want—wealth, devotion, sex, special treatment. They believe they are above the law. Had Robert Muller found collusion between Trump and Russia, Trump said he would just pardon himself. He has accumulated over 3,500 lawsuits the past 30 years and feels he doesn’t need to pay his contractors or his taxes.

Narcissists lack empathy. They can read other people well, but use this to take advantage of them and use them for their own ends. Trump has a habit of minimizing catastrophes, showing no compassion for families separated at the border, and making bullying, obscene, mocking, and degrading jokes and insults about others on a regular basis.

Narcissists are driven by envy. Trump hated Obama because he envied his success, talent, looks, achievements, and competency. His jealous attacks on Obama ran deep. Narcissists cut down others around them to make themselves look better. Trump envies the power Putin and Jong-un have over their people and even wanted a military parade to show off his power after being impressed with President Emmanuel Marcoon’s military parade in France.

Anti-social behavior can be described as an ingrained disregard and even contempt for morals, social norms, and the rights and feelings of others. Malignant narcissists make an art form of lying to and manipulating others. They confuse and gaslight people—causing them to question their own observations and sanity, keeping them endlessly off balance.

Cult leaders lie about just about everything to keep their image and power, and their followers devoted. Trump is unparalleled in his lies and in deflecting his followers away from any information that is not in agreement with him, calling it fake, phony, and fraudulent news. Reporters, he says, are enemies of the people. Giuliani said truth is not the truth, but somebody’s version of it. Kellyanne Conway used the phrase “alternative facts” to defend Trump’s lies. For Trump, lies are standard operating procedure. To fact check, reality check, or listen to anyone but him is disloyal and a betrayal of allegiance. This is exactly how cults operate.

Malignant narcissists are opportunistic. They exploit people for personal benefit and financial gain. Trump has failed to pay contractors, opened a University that was shut down due to fraud, and his charitable organization is under investigation for misuse of funds.

Malignant narcissists can be sadists—angrily attacking, degrading, dehumanizing and defending themselves from all insults and criticism. Cult leaders use shunning, shaming, expulsion, and physical punishment toward those who criticize and disobey them. Trump doesn’t believe in taking the higher ground. He believes when you are hit, you hit back ten times harder, as his dad and his lawyer Roy Cohn taught him. Trump has a cruel streak and manic glee about causing harm, pain, and humiliation to other people. He showers those around him with praise until they don’t give him what he wants, then mercilessly attacks and degrades them. His followers follow, attacking who he attacks. He uses the courts to harass and silence critics.

Malignant narcissists are known for their violent behavior and sexual abuse. There are dozens of sexual assault allegations following Trump. His first wife Ivana said he was cruel, inhumane, and physically and verbally abusive. Trump famously encouraged violence in his rallies, telling people to punch protestors in the face.

Malignant narcissists are paranoid and project the worst aspects of themselves onto others, then attack them. Their paranoid anxiety makes them preoccupied with conspiracy theories. They fear that people are judging them and conspiring to work against them. Trump is a germaphobe who prefers fast food because of his fear of being poisoned by those around him and believes there is a shadow “deep state” in the government trying to bring him down.

He mistrusts friends and subordinates. Their loyalty must continually be tested in sometimes abusive and humiliating ways. Trump has a record turnover of staff, as even being perceived as disloyal turns once-valued associates into villains and “idiots” overnight. Trump had an aide draw up a list of possible staffers he thought could not be trusted—an enemies list. This same behavior is seen in Hitler and Stalin.

Trump sees enemies everywhere—the mainstream media, Democrats, globalists, the deep state, immigrants, Muslims, and in every critic. Narcissists lose touch with reality and feel there is always a powerful enemy that must be vanquished. Some can become dangerously psychotic in bending reality so that they feel special in opposing this enemy, as if fated or destined by God to save a country or the entire world.

Malignant narcissists are seven times more likely to be men and have biological relatives with antisocial personality disorders. They are formed in an environment where nurture is lacking and they are told to be tough, tolerate pain, show no emotion, and learn to manipulate others. Parental figures are cold and spiteful, but over-admiring of their children’s talents and charms.

This is how Trump was raised. He views the world in a binary zero-sum game of domination and submission, winners and losers, the creator of fear or the one who succumbs to it. There can be no vulnerability or self reflection, only competition and winning.

4 – America, A Country Wired for Manipulation

Trump racked up a trillion dollar federal deficit, cheated on his wife with a porn star and bought her silence, endlessly lied, and insulted and denigrated McCain—all of which was completely unacceptable to the Republican Party before Trump. What happened? How did Trump take over the Republican Party? How did he get ordinary citizens and politicians to fall in line and support a man who did things they despised? How did they lose their moral compass, override their conscience, and throw good judgment and common sense out the window?

We are hardwired as social creatures to agree with others, even if it means doubting our own perceptions. When in doubt, we conform to the tribe, and there find security and safety. We trust authority figures and do what they say, even if our conscience says we’re doing something wrong. When given power and authority, otherwise good people can become sadistic in a short amount of time. We are not primarily rational, but hardwired to adapt, conform, and follow, as this promotes survival.

Cognitive dissonance is the attempt to minimize the conflict between belief and reality—to rationalize for congruency. Trump said we were going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, then later said he never said they would write a check, but are paying through the USMCA trade agreement. This was good enough for his followers. Though Trump lies daily and doesn’t keep his promises, somehow his supporters repeat that he tells it like it is and gets the job done. This is done by selective attention and ignoring what doesn’t fit.

Trump is a master of confusion—saying things, then saying he never said them, then saying them again in another context. Sometimes he says two different things at once, which is called crazy-making. Cults use double binds—the message that you’re screwed if you do and screwed if you don’t: “You are free to go, but you’ll regret it and never make it without us.” “You can leave, but no one will ever love you like we do.”

Once people are broken down and confused, they are changed by confident repetition and indoctrination. They are immersed in a subculture or echo chamber, absorbing materials, attending group meetings, and becoming convinced through programming rather than actual learning that their beliefs are true. They absorb and emulate. They are praised and rewarded by the group for standing their ground and repeating the narrative. They denigrate their old, blind ways and want to “rescue” you and put you through this indoctrination process as well. The new group is their new family, and the new identity is their new calling. Their old self is gone and the new cult-self has emerged.

Right wing media, like Rush Limbaugh and those who emulate him, speak to the gut, not the mind. Fox News is a propaganda machine meant to make viewers feel patriotic and push their views with passion and confidence, but offer little to no evidence supporting their narratives. They play on tribal identities and ratchet up fear and hatred of outgroups—immigrants, Democrats, ethnic minorities, Muslims. Their ratings are increased by more fear, panic, disgust, anger, and outrage coming from their pundits, and their viewers emulate this.

5 – The Persuasiveness of Trump

Trump is a master of persuasion, exaggeration, hyperbole, speaking to emotions, and capturing his audience by playing to the camera—bypassing reason and facts completely. Persuasion and influence have little to do with honesty or truth. It’s the ability to capture and play to people’s imagination. Trump makes his followers feel heard and worthy, complimenting them, gaining their loyalty and donations. He makes them true believers. MAGA hats then become a symbol of identity. This is the conman playbook.

Trump reframes, diverts attention, tells stories that create vivid narratives and conspiracies, and uses repetitive phrases and slogans that trigger emotions. Trump bombards listeners with lies and exaggerations so as to overwhelm them, then gaslights them by saying he never said it.

Evangelical Christians, particularly in the New Apostolic Reformation, tirelessly encouraged their congregations to see Trump as God’s gift to America; a supernaturally anointed candidate who is confirmed through prophecy to take on the left, which is supernaturally controlled by Satan. Trump is an answer to prayer, and electing him is doing spiritual warfare to save America from the satanic left and God’s judgment. For conspiracy theorists, Trump as an outsider is keeping the New World Order at bay. Believers, influenced by this rhetoric, report a stream of dreams, visions, and prophecies showing that Trump is on their side and is a gift from God. They encourage one another, saying a vote for Trump is a vote for God and a vote for Hillary is a vote for Satan. Having anointed Trump and believing him to be doing God’s agenda, all criticism is reserved for Trump’s enemies while he is supported uncritically.

Trump uses pattern disruption, goes off script, interrupts, and is bold. He uses politically incorrect words to show he isn’t a politician, but an outsider. He tweets all hours of the night. His followers love him for being a disruptive troublemaker at the expense of honesty, trustworthiness, and respect. The worse he behaves, the more his base likes it and behaves like him. They encourage one another to behave this way. Cults depend on members emulating and modeling themselves after their leaders.

Trump is a master at projection, spreading the birther hoax, then saying Hillary Clinton invented it in 2008. This is a hallmark of malignant narcissism. When called a misogynist, he said no one loves women more than he does and that no one in politics has been more abusive to women than Bill and Hillary Clinton. Projection and deflection save the ego of the narcissist. There is no personal responsibility or self-reflection.

Fear and hatred are powerful tools used to unite people against a common enemy. Whether it’s the media or immigrants or Muslims, Trump creates bogeymen and riles up hostilities against them in devotion to himself, who alone can fix everything.

He loves to repeat himself, brag about how smart he is, and brag about winning.  He uses social proof, saying everyone likes him and thinks he’s the best. If everyone else likes him, so should you.

6 – Manipulation of the Media

In the 1920s a Roman Catholic priest named Father Charles Coughlin used the radio to critique Roosevelt. On his show, he spread anti-Semitism and voiced support for the fascist policies of Hitler and Mussolini. His views resonated with many Americans. He was forced off the air in 1939 with an audience of 30 million people. He alarmed a watchdog group called the Institute for Propaganda Analysis. They commissioned a book called The Fine Art of Propaganda: A Study of Father Coughlin’s Speeches which outlines seven of his techniques, all of which have been used by Trump:

1)      Name-calling. Degrading, and insulting all who don’t agree with you.

2)      Glittering generalities. Associating positive virtues with those you agree with you.

3)      Transfer. Associating an admired, respected, or revered person, institution, or idea with another to make the latter more attractive, or associating a disrespected, disgraced, ridiculed, or scorned person, institution, or idea with another to make it look less attractive.

4)      Testimonial. Having a respected person support and endorse what you do.

5)      Plain folks. Convincing supporters you’re a plain folk like them with the same concerns and grievances they have.

6)      Card stacking. Selectively citing facts and falsehoods and framing data to make what you support look better than it is and what you oppose look worse than it is.

7)      Bandwagon. Claiming everyone agrees with you and your policies, so you should jump onboard too.

Rush Limbaugh is a modern-day Charles Coughlin. He became the model for many conservative media imitators—Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, etc. Limbaugh claimed that the mainstream media was biased and that his right wing views were unbiased. With this technique, you could simply dismiss all criticism of conservative ideas as biased. They use confusion, distrust, fear, conspiracy, exaggeration, and us-versus-them black and white thinking to cultivate their audiences.

The massive Trinity Broadcasting Network does the same for millions of Christian conservatives, where self-proclaimed prophets give God’s endorsement to Trump and conservative policies and demonize all who oppose him, calling them satanic.

Fox News took what Rush Limbaugh did on radio and moved it to TV. Its founder, Roger Ailes, knew that television helped win elections. He partnered with Rupert Murdoch and Fox News became a propaganda outlet to help conservatives win elections.

In Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control, Kathleen Taylor outlines the tactics conservative media and Fox News use to indoctrinate their viewers: lying and skewing, sowing confusion and doubt, blaming and dividing, branding and labeling, using language and framing, fearmongering, and bullying and shaming.

More than anything else, conservative media uses fear to create phantom menaces, like the proposed “terror mosque” in New York. To watch Fox News daily is to be bombarded with anger, bombast, paranoia, and white resentment.

According to Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics, numerous media studies show that right wing media is more likely to promote misinformation, lies, conspiracies, and half-truths unrivaled by the mainstream media.

Alex Jones is a dangerous hate-filled conspiracy peddler, yet Trump appeared on his show and praised him as his political operative Roger Stone cultivated Jones’ audience to vote for Trump. Stone was with Jones the night Trump was elected. Steve Bannon, who joined Trump’s team, moved Breitbart far right with conspiracies and anti-immigration fear mongering, pushing for a wall to be built.

Studies in media bias show that much of it has to do with the bottom line—giving their viewers what they want to hear to make billions in profits from advertising. There is far more money in conservative bias than liberal bias. Scripts are handed down from corporate overloads to maximize profits. This is not journalism.

Fox News merged with the White House and became a megaphone for Donald Trump. This is deflected with projection—endless complains about the fake, divisive, and biased mainstream media.

7 – The Influencers

As Trump ran for president, he questioned the legitimacy of the government and said if he lost the election he might not accept the results. This strategy was developed by Paul Weyrich and William S. Lind in The New Conservatism.

The Christian right, white supremacists, alt-right groups, libertarian Ayn Rand devotees, and the Russian government have all worked together to weaken, divide, disrupt, and deligitimize the American government and install their own version of reality. They provided Trump his messaging and a ready-made audience.

Despite all of the evidence of Russian interference gathered by the FBI, Trump called the probe a disaster, a hoax, a witch hunt, and a disgrace. He described the Muller investigation as a personal attack. Trump has a history of undermining American institutions and defending Russia and Putin, complimenting his strength as a leader and minimizing his human rights abuses. Putin is Trump’s vision of a true leader. Like Trump, he is a malignant narcissist.

All cult leaders lie about their past—embellish, distort, exaggerate, inflate, and create mythology to enlarge themselves in the eyes of their followers. When it comes to the Christian right, no other group has so shamelessly appropriated, reworked, and manipulated Trump’s tale, using their own loaded language and imagery for their own purposes. For them, Trump was chosen by God to lead America and turn it back into a Christian nation; an anointed Sampson or King Cyrus. Once imbued with anointing, millions of conservative Christians pledge him their loyalty, devotion, and obedience. To oppose him is to oppose God.

Some, believing Trump had become a born again Christian and is now “one of them,” treat him with special privileges, like not holding his past against him since God has forgiven him, being patient with his present flaws, and encouraging him rather than judging him. When reminded that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are professed Christians, they don’t get the same treatment. Their sins are held against them and they are viewed as liars, opportunists, and imposters—demons and antichrists. Trump, however, they “know in their spirit” or because God spoke to them personally, is sincere.

The Christian right is a large network of many different groups with many different agendas, many of them wanting a Christian America under the euphemism of “religious freedom.” For these groups, Trump is the way of attaining a nation that privileges their own brand of Christianity and empowers them. They use Trump for power just as he uses them for the same.

Hassen covers groups like the Family, the New Apostolic Reformation, Ralph Drollinger and Capitol Ministries, Opus Dei and the Catholic Right and their visions of theocracy, political involvement and power, and why they support Trump. The evangelical right wants to “take back America for God” using conservative moral principles and Judeo-Christian values while the evangelical left views Trump as a danger, wanting to “take back America for God” by opposing the right wing culture war with more liberal and inclusive values they believe better reflect the Christian message. This is the theme of Ron Sider’s The Spiritual Danger of Donald Trump: 30 Evangelical Christians on Justice, Truth, and Moral Integrity.

Hassen also looks into the alt-right white supremacy groups who have cozied up to Trump and why they felt so emboldened and empowered by Trump’s rhetoric.

Libertarians like Trump because of his emphasis on competing and winning while delegitimizing government.

QAnon and the alt-right helped Trump with endless parade of conspiracies about global elites, the deep state, and satanic pedophiles in the Democratic Party and running the government.

8 – Trump’s Followers

At Trump rallies, there are always villains, and he takes them down with boasts and insults, making his followers feel strong and heroic. As terrible as Trump is, what accounts for his supporters’ excitement, adoration, and total commitment to him?

Trump has kept his base the same way he attracted them—by drawing upon his grandiosity, exaggeration, and ability to manipulate and lie, distracting, overloading, exploiting fear, and using simplistic us-versus-them, good and evil narratives.

To win the working class, Trump cast himself as an outsider and underdog who understood the working class plight and promised to drain the swamp of elites from Washington. He learned to speak their language and mirror their frustrations.

9 – How to Undo Mind Control

How do you know you are under mind control?

1)      Reality test. Take time away from everything that reinforced your current viewpoint—people, places, and media.

2)      Educate yourself. Learn all you can about social psychology and mind control techniques.

3)      Listen to critics and former believers. Read sources and expose yourself to media that you disagree with. Seek out and respect the work of highly credentialed professionals. Read critics. Ask for good evidence beyond slogans, especially for extraordinary claims. Leave your echo chamber.

4)      Self-reflect. Ask how you came into the belief system, who influenced you, what media you consumed, and what captivated you.

5)      Ask questions. Why do you choose to trust a person who lies multiple times a day and has a history of false and exaggerated claims and scandals? Why do you defend him and make excuses for his bad behavior? What has Trump done to earn this kind of loyalty from you?

Political opponents view one another as brainwashed and evil. It isn’t helpful to call someone brainwashed, evil, stupid, or cultic, because they only double down and become defensive. Instead, ask questions, build genuine rapport and trust, genuinely care, and lead them to realize for themselves that they are being had by a con man.

10 – The Future

To avoid another Trump phenomenon, Hassan addresses checks on the president’s mental health, rethinking legal protections for destructive propaganda on social media, exposing discrimination based on “religious freedom,” more awareness of how people become propagandized and lose their identities, better mental health awareness, fact checking the media, supporting journalistic integrity, building stronger social bonds, and teaching children that the behavior they are now seeing now in Trump’s presidency is not the norm.

Concerned for the future, Hassan notes: “Cult leaders do not relinquish power. If Trump runs again and is not reelected in 2020, he might claim that the election was rigged. Who knows what he might call on his followers to do in that case?” (233)

Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen said he and Trump devised the strategy of saying the election was rigged had Trump lost the 2016 election. Though Trump lost the popular vote but won by Electoral College, he claims he won the popular vote by a landslide if we don’t count the millions of illegal votes for Hillary, though offering no evidence of voter fraud. Cohen ends his book Disloyal saying: “Please remember what I testified to Congress, the second time: There is a serious danger that Donald Trump will not leave office easily, and there is a real chance of not having a peaceful transition.”

Donald Trump’s niece Mary in an article called Mary Trump on the end of Uncle Donald: all he has now is breaking things wrote: “This is what Donald’s going to do: he’s not going to concede, although who cares. What’s worse is he’s not going to engage in the normal activities that guarantee a peaceful transition. All he’s got now is breaking stuff, and he’s going to do that with a vengeance. . . . He’ll be having meltdowns upon meltdowns right now. . . . I worry about what Donald’s going to do in that time to lash out. He will go as far as he can to delegitimize the new administration, then he’ll pass pardons that will demoralize us, and sign a flurry of executive orders.” She predicted that Trump will run in 2024 just to save face and distract himself from the fact that he will probably go to prison.

As predicted, there was not a peaceful transfer of power. Instead, Trump claimed that the election was rigged and stolen by voter fraud. Biden was not the legitimate president. Trump incited his supporters to go to the Capitol and fight like hell or we won’t have a country anymore. Rioters overwhelmed police and broke into the Capitol, leading to multiple deaths and injuries. Trump condemned the violence, but praised the protestors, calling them patriots and heroes whose anger was justified. Trump’s social media accounts were banned for rhetoric used to incite violence. Predictably, Trump sued these social media companies, complaining of leftist censorship.

When confronted, Trump’s followers created further conspiracies that the riots were orchestrated by the FBI, that it was staged with actors, that it was Antifa posing as Trump supporters, that those causing harm were a few bad apples and not true Trump supporters, and that it was the fault of mainstream media, not Trump’s rhetoric. Their loyalty to Trump the truth teller and his enemies as liars remained in cultic form.

When compared to Biden, Trump supporting friends and family didn’t flinch in calling Biden weak, demented, unfit, a puppet, a liar, a racist, a war hawk, murderer, rapist, and pedophile. More than one said his election was helped by Satan or the Antichirst to help destroy America but handing it over to communist China because we are in the end times. Trump was defended as the greatest president we ever had, once again in true cultic form.

Christian prophets who believed God gave us Trump the first time around predicted that Trump would beat Biden by a landslide and continue God's agenda through him for America. When their prophecy failed, few apologized. Most claimed their prophecy was accurate: Trump did win by a landslide, but the election was stolen. Spiritual Warfare is now needed to save our anointed hero from the demonic left, as Trump is in a showdown with Satan himself. Why? Because Trump might be the most important figure in history next to Jesus. Again, true to cultic form.

As I type in July of 2021, Trump continues to spread his election fraud hoax in speeches with the help of Newsmax and pundits like Tucker Carlson at Fox News, reportedly telling associates he believes he will be reinstated in August after voter fraud is exposed (a current poll showing 30% of Republicans believe this will happen), and that he has decided to run again for president in 2024 (unofficially announced thus far).

As Mary Trump predicted, the Trump Organization has been indicted and is under criminal investigation for tax fraud, with Trump possibly facing prison time. This, Trump and his followers note, is nothing more than a political witch hunt. Tthe Republican Party is trying to decide whether their political careers depend on loyalty to Trump or whether they can distance themselves from him and move the party forward. So far, Trump is by far the frontrunner in Republican support for nomination in 2024, meaning we will be seeing and hearing a lot more for Trump in the years to come.

 

Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump – Michael Cohen (Notes)

 

Foreword: The Real Donald Trump

In February 2019, before Cohen was to testify about Donald Trump before Congress, Cohen faced hundreds of death threats from Trump followers after Trump tweeted that Cohen was a rat as well as other angry accusations against him and his family.

Cohen claims that Trump colluded with the Russians, but not in a sophisticated way. He knew that the Mueller investigation was not a witch hunt. He tried to pursue a major real estate deal in Moscow during the 2016 campaign. While Trump told Americans, “I have no dealings with Russia,” Cohen was overseeing his deal for a Trump tower in Moscow and keeping Trump and his kids informed on the progress.

Trump has a million acquaintances, but no true friends. He has spent his whole life avoiding and evading responsibility for his life. He has crushed or cheated all who stood in his way. Cohen played a big role in making that happen for him. He was Trump’s liar, spin doctor, thug, and intimidator.

Trump has always needed fixers and lawyers to break the law and fight dirty on his behalf. Roy Cohn, Cohen and now Giuliani, Barr, Kushner, and Pompeo are willing to distort the truth, break the law, risk jail time, and ruin their careers for Trump.

If Trump loses reelection in 2020, he will not go peacefully because he will have to face accountability for his criminal behavior and face jail time. He projects his sins and crimes onto others because he believes everyone is as corrupt, shameless, and ruthless as he is. He is immersed in a tangle of fraud, scams, and lawlessness, and his minions will do anything to lie, distract, and cover it up. What the public knows is only the tip of the iceberg.

1 – The Apprentice

When Cohen had an opportunity to work for Trump in 2006, he was thrilled. He considered The Art of the Deal a masterpiece. He felt he had the best of Trump’s qualities: deal-driven, relentless, a hard worker, never afraid, and prepared to be brutal and heartless in pursuit of his ambitions. He already had wealth, but he wanted it all: power, the good life, public acclaim, big deals, fast cars, private planes, and the excess and glamour and zest for life that Trump seemed to personify so effortlessly.

2 – The Fixer

Cohen was mesmerized by Trump’s celebrity and power, and like a cult member, would do anything for him, including take a bullet. The sheer tornado that surrounded Trump was addictive. The energy, action, and chaos was intoxicating. Cohen was obsessed with Trump because he made him feel excited and alive. He was fully devoted to Trump, worshipping him, seeing him as his success and salvation. He felt like he belonged to something or someone important. All he had to do was be loyal and obey unquestioningly and Trump would invite him into a different reality of wonder, excitement, power, intrigue, and adulation. Cohen leapt at the chance to be Trump’s personal lawyer and became a willing participant in a fantasy that heightened his senses and sense of self.

3 – The El Caribe

(Nothing consequential)

4 – Laura

(Nothing consequential)

5 – Catch and Twist

When sexual assault cases came against Trump, like in the case of Jill Harth, Cohen was instructed to “catch and kill.” He was to find, stop, kill, bury, or twist and distort beyond recognition any story that could be harmful to Trump’s brand. These women were to be paid off, have favors done for them, or threatened into public statements of denial or silence.

In the 1980s, Trump had a fake spokesperson named John Barron who shared with the tabloids stories of Trump’s sexual prowess and the beautiful women he’d dated. In the 1990s Trump created an alter ego named Johnny Miller who was actually him disguising his voice. He would call tabloids to brag about his wealth and sexual conquests. Keeping his name in the papers was good for the brand. Now Cohen was Trump’s spokesman to the media.

When it came to being on Forbes’ richest people list, Cohen was instructed to inflate Trump’s wealth. When it came to paying taxes, he was instructed to deem his properties worthless and at a loss to avoid paying taxes and to get refunds.

Believing that Trump was a billionare who could afford any deal that came him way, Cohen realized during the 2008 financial crisis that Trump’s career as a real estate developer was over. He had far less money than Cohen imagined. He focused on licensing deals for his brand and endorsed just about anything.

Trump showed no interest in any conversation in which he was not the center of attention, never shared the joy of  anyone else’s success, often bragging that he was more successful instead, and saw life as a zero sum competition in which he always had to win.

When Trump went on an angry tirade against Cohen, he belittled, mocked, shouted, and made fun of the smallest aspect of his appearance or manner. His form of leadership revolved around anger, fury, rage and chaotic blaming and shaming.

He often publicly mocked, insulted, and embarrassed his son Don, Jr. Don was happy as a bartender, being far from his dad, but Donald gave him an ultimatum to come work for him or be cut off entirely—disowned and disinherited. He now does what he hates—real estate, office politics, and enduring the circus of his dad’s life to avoid being exiled.

6 – Trump for President (Part One)

Since 2007, Cohen encouraged Trump to run for president, believing he could cut through political correctness, put America first, fix the infrastructure, stop needless wars in the Middle East, and improve our international trade agreements. Cohen knew Trump was a liar, delusional, and a manipulator, but he was a visionary with a no nonsense attitude and charisma to attract voters. He did very well with working class fans of The Apprentice and WWE wrestling. Cohen also wanted Trump to run and win because he knew it would bring him power too. “I wanted to be able to crush my enemies and rule the world.”

Though Cohen had never heard Trump use the N-word, he recalls Trump talking about a contestant on The Apprentice named Kwame Jackson, saying, “I’d never let that black fag win.” Trump admired Don King, Mike Tyson, and Oprah and was friendly to many African American people, but only rich celebrities he respected and considered in his peer group of the rich and famous.

When Obama was elected, Cohen described Trump’s racism as a reactionary and unhinged “Archie Bunker racism” as he would refer to Obama as Barack Hussein Obama, with a disdainful emphasis on his middle name. Nelson Mandella was also an object of contempt for Trump. “Tell me one country run by a black person that isn’t a shithole,” Trump said, particularly of Africa. “They’re all complete fucking toilets.” He preferred the Apartheid-era white rule of South Africa.

Watching the inauguration of Obama in 2008, Trump was incensed. When Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, he was unhinged. He ranted and raved, mocking every aspect of Obama—the way he talked, walked, and dressed—and couldn’t understand America’s adulation for him. He thought Obama “acting presidential” and giving good speeches was an act, making him a phony, that Obama got into Harvard through affirmative action because he wasn’t smart, believed he was born in Kenya, and that he was a Manchurian candidate—a politician being used as a puppet by an enemy power. At one point, Trump hired an Obama actor to sit a  chair in his office so he could rant at him and fire him. But the truth was he deeply envied Obama’s power and position and wanted it.

Cohen showed Trump a poll in 2011 that said 26% of Republican voters would support him as president, telling him that that was unprecedented for someone who wasn’t a politician and not even running. Trump, excited, asked Cohen to find out how to make it happen. The timing was perfect in his age, wealth, and celebrity and he believed he could run the country better than Obama. If he lost, he said, it would be the greatest infomercial for his brand in the history of politics. It was a win-win.

Trump polled highly with conservatives because of his positions: pro-gun, anti-abortion, low taxes, a trade war with China, and a promise to make America great again. But it was birtherism that put him over the top—the racist and nativist conspiracy that Obama wasn’t Hawaiian, but Kenyan, so was an imposter. Trump didn’t care if the conspiracy was true, he just had an instinct for locking onto divisive messaging—something to exploit to his advantage—to stir strong feelings in those who took his side. Trump knew how to stir up deep prejudices and fears for his benefit, like making the absurd claim that he saw Arabs dancing in the streets in New York as the twin towers fell. He exploited tribal, us-versus-them thinking, speaking to the irrational and emotional impulses of the masses for ratings in the news cycle.

Trump started reading populist publications like Breitbart and World News where he picked up more conspiracies, adding to his arsenal the belief that Obama wasn’t a Christian, but a secret Muslim.

Trump called a reporter and told him he had investigators in Hawaii who had found proof that Obama was born in Kenya and he would be shocked at what they found. The reporter asked for an exclusive when Trump was ready to share the details. Trump said okay, just run the headlines. He made the story up on the spot. There was no team and no investigation. For all of his complaints about fake news, Trump had a long history of calling reporters and inventing things to get him in the headlines. Soon, reporters called from every major news outlet and Trump reveled in the free publicity. “Fuck Obama. If you think he hates me now, just wait.”

As Trump demanded that Obama’s school records be released, he had Cohen insure that his own never be made public, because though Trump was competitive, he didn’t compare with Obama. Cohen called the New York Military Academy where Trump attended and pressured them to send him Trump’s records through strong arm tactics.

People believe that Obama roasting Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner was the moment Trump hated Obama and decided to run, but Cohen says that not even close to true. Trump hated Obama and decided to run long before that.

In 2012, political operative and conspiracy-monger Roger Stone entered the picture. Trump described him as crazy, devoid of moral purpose, willing to do anything in service to himself or any politician he supported, always and only because it would benefit him personally. For Trump, these are good qualities to have. Years previous, Stone taught Trump to always be on the attack and never back down, just as his old lawyer Roy Cohn told him to never show weakness or apologize—when attacked, attack back harder. “Roger’s a fucking pervert,” Trump said, knowing he was bisexual and that he and his wife were swingers, “but he can help me. He’s the dirty trickster. He’s the best trickster money can buy.”

How did Trump, a man with no personal piety or interest in church or religion in any way gain the interest of evangelicals? Cohen was a neighbor of Paula White, a televangelist who had known Trump for a decade. After seeing her on TV, Trump invited her over to give him private Bible studies in the only version of Christianity that could appeal to him—the prosperity gospel. White is self-interested, consumed with lust for worldly wealth and rewards, and with two divorces, a bankruptcy, and a senate financial investigation on her record, she was the preacher for him. It helped that she was blonde and beautiful. Paula White wanted to set up a meeting between Trump and a number of evangelical leaders—Jerry Falwell, Jr., pastor Darrell Scott, and Creflo Dollar among them—to discuss his potential run for president and the spiritual dimensions of that.

When Trump was a kid, he attended Norman Vincent Peale’s church in New York, a mixture of Christianity and positive thinking to gain wealth and power in life by the banishment of all negative thoughts, emotions, fears, and doubts. He shared this with the group of evangelical leaders in the room and they were impressed. Cohen knew that day he would become president because he has no trouble lying to them about his personal convictions and they had no trouble believing him. He was cunning and knew how to appeal to their desires and fantasies.

They asked to lay hands on Trump and pray for him. Being a germaphobe who didn’t like being touched, still he agreed. They prayed that God would guide him to do his will for America and the gospel. Trump sat with his eyes closed, faking piety, as if moved by God. He asked them if he should run for president. Paula White told him the time wasn’t right. Trump said he agreed. When the meeting had ended and they left the room, Trump said to Cohen of their laying on of hands and prayer, “Can you believe that bullshit? Can you believe people believe that bullshit?”

Chatting with Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife Becki, Cohen discovered they were staying in New York an extra day so their daughter could see Justin Bieber perform on the Today Show in Rockefeller Plaza the next morning. Cohen used his connections to get them front row tickets, a favor that would pay off in 2016 when Trump ran for president.

Trump didn’t run in 2012 for a number of reasons. His polling numbers dropped to 8% after Obama released his birth certificate but Trump continued to push the birther conspiracy. Americans got tired of that. Plus, he had business concerns to take care of, like trying to strike a deal in Ukraine. Trump promised to run in 2015, and Cohen promised to be by his side.

7 – Stormy Weather (Part One)

A story emerged that porn star Stormy Daniels had sex with Donald Trump in a hotel at a golf charity event in Utah in 2006. Her lawyer contacted Cohen to get a statement of denial from Trump as Daniels would also deny it so they could make the story disappear. Trump said he was there with quarterback Ben Roethliberger, but the ladies ignored him because they wanted “Trump.” (He frequently spoke of himself in third person.) She allegedly had sex with Trump in exchange for getting on The Apprentice, but Trump couldn’t convince the producers to let a porn star on the show. He hoped to kill the story so Melania wouldn’t hear about it. Cohen believed she knew Trump slept with other women because that came with the territory of being married to him, but she didn’t ask and didn’t want to know.

8 – That’s What Friends Are For

Cohen explains that Trump reads the news to find weaknesses in businesses and families and offers to “help” them, but in the end takes everything they have. Cohen details how he helped Trump screw small businesses and contractors in 2011 by inventing frivolous grievances and bullying and threatening them. Cohen and other staffers didn’t mind doing this dirty work for Trump because if they didn’t, they’d face Trump’s rage and be fired immediately. Similarly, those surrounding him in the White House and right wing TV pundits rubber stamp Trump’s lies and delusions so they aren’t ousted from his inner circle. The buck never stops with Trump when something goes wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault. He simply demanded that whatever the problem was, his fixers fix it.

9 – The End of the World

Trump has an eye for sycophants, yes men, and loyal soldiers and used his charisma to draw them into his inner circle. Cohen was one of them. He tells more stories of refusing to pay contractors and ruining their lives. Trump never expressed regret or remorse, but saw screwing others over as winning. Every time Trump praised Cohen for a job well done, Cohen got sadistic glee from doing the wrong thing and hurting people. He knew that lying before Congress to defend Trump was wrong, but he liked it.

Concerning the Miss Universe Pageant, Cohen claims that Trump behaved like an adolescent teen, picking out his favorite “piece of ass” and bragging that he could have sex with any one of them he wanted because he was a celebrity. He bragged about going backstage to watch them change. He came from an era of the Rat Pack of the 1950s where women weren’t respected, but treated as playthings for men. Trump told Cohen that if Melania ever caught him cheating and wanted a divorce, he wouldn’t be upset or hurt. “I can always get another wife. That’s no problem for me. If she wants to go, so be it.” She was just another transactional relationship like everyone else in his life. He was more concerned about how much she would take from him in a divorce.

“Trump’s grandiose sense of self-importance, his need for constant praise, his exploitation of others without guilt or shame was the classic definition of a narcissistic sociopath.” (181) Trump projected his worst traits onto others, believing they were all as bad as he was, asking Cohen how often he cheated on his wife, and didn’t believe him when he said never.

Cohen recounts a time Trump saw a woman on a tennis court and said, “Look at that piece of ass, I’d love some of that,” not knowing she was Cohen’s fifteen-year-old daughter. He complimented her figure, asked her for a kiss, and told her to watch out because in a few years he’d be dating some of her friends.

10 – How to Fix a Poll

In 2014 CNBC ran a poll to determine the twenty-five most influential business people alive today. Trump ranked 187 of 200 and was furious. Cohen had a tech friend who suggested buying 200,000 IP addresses for $15,000 and using them to move him up to #9 by the time the poll concluded, which they succeeded in doing. Trump printed out the results and bragged to all of his friends who fed his ego in return, as if he really believed he’d earned the spot. But there was a disclaimer on the poll saying CNBC had the right to remove any name they wanted for any reason, and Trump’s name was promptly removed. Furious, Trump had Cohen threaten a law suit, but nothing could be done. When the man who bought the IP addresses and ran the scam billed Trump for $15,000, he refused to pay him because he didn’t get the results he wanted.

Jerry Falwell, Jr. called Cohen needing another favor. While vacationing in Miami years previous, his wife Becki sat on a tractor as he took photos of her, and before long she was topless. They’d befriended a “pool boy” and promised to finance a business for him, but when they didn’t, he revealed that he had the photos of Becki topless and would make them public, ruining their reputation as evangelical Christian leaders. Falwell had no idea how he got access to his phone, but he needed Cohen to fix this. Cohen called the pool boy’s lawyer and said this was extortion, and if he didn’t get the photos and the names of everyone else the pool boy sent them to by the end of the day he’d call the FBI. The pool boy dropped the case and promised the photos would never see the light of day, to Becki’s great relief.

11 – Trump for President (Part 2)

Trump decided to fund his own campaign on the cheap, knowing he would get tons of free publicity. Cohen wants readers not to miss this: the media won Trump the election, covering his every move, speech, and interview for free. Right, left, moderate, tabloid, broadsheet, radio, television, internet, and Facebook all gave him free press. Trump was pure chaos all the time, appealing to something primal in us, and like a car accident, we couldn’t look away. When Trump was waning, he played the media by using attack tweets, saying something racist or insulting to make sure there was always something for the media to fixate on.

In June 2015, as Trump announced his candidacy with an incoherent, rambling speech full of bragging, lies, and racism, the Trump team looked at each other in disbelief, asking if Trump really wanted to win. They cringed and couldn’t believe he was saying what he was saying. But after the speech, everyone in his circle praised him, told him the speech was great, and inflated his ego. As usual, no one told him the truth. Disgusted, Cohen’s wife and kids begged him to stop working for Trump.

Ivanka and Don, Jr. were mortified and horrified. They worried that Trump was irreparably destroying his brand, as people stopped doing business with him. They begged Cohen to convince him to drop out of the race before the business was destroyed.

The media condemned Trump that night as a joke, a racist, and a bully, but he tapped into the resentments of some Americans: the undereducated, reactionary white folks and conservative and Christian men and women who were sick of political correctness, illegal immigration, globalization, climate change, gay marriage, abortion, the loss of American jobs overseas, and disregard for God. Trump was their advocate and champion.

When Cohen asked Trump to ease up on the anti-Hispanic rhetoric, Trump reportedly said he didn’t care because he would never get the Hispanic vote anyway. “Like the blacks, they’re too stupid to vote for Trump. They’re not my people.”

Trump pretended not to be racist and anti-immigration when around those who questioned him on these matters just as he pretended to be pious for Paula White and a room full of evangelicals. Cohen knew Trump had what it took to be president because he could be deceitful and disingenuous without shame. Behind closed doors, he told Cohen he stood by his comments about Mexicans because they are true.

During a debate, Fox News personality Megyn Kelly asked Trump about his misogynistic comments about women. After commenting on Rosie O’Donnel and feeling attacked by Kelly, Trump got on the radio the next day and said Kelly had blood coming out of her eyes and out of her “wherever.” Now she was in hiding with her kids as Trump supporters appeared at her house threatening her. Roger Ailes from Fox called Trump and told him he had to come on her show and make this right so they would leave her alone. Trump agreed to come her show only if the questions were softballs and pre-written by Cohen. His supporters would see them together and stand down. Still, Trump had no sympathy for her. “She came after me. If you come after me, I come after you ten times harder.”

12 – Russia (Part One)

People keep wondering why Trump admires Putin as much as he does. The answer is simple. He envies him because he is rich and powerful. Trump was impressed that Putin controlled 25% of Russia’s economy and considers him the richest man in the world by far—worth trillions. He loved the idea of being a lifelong ruler or dictator who can do whatever he wants. He liked that an entire country could be run like a personal business. Cohen believes if Trump loses the 2020 election he will not leave peacefully or voluntarily. He wants to keep his power.

There was no organized or direct collusion between Trump and Putin. Putin disliked Hillary Clinton because of negative comments she made about him. Putin wanted to interfere with our democracy and help Trump win, and this caused Trump no unease. Trump reasoned that we interfere in other people’s elections and overthrow their countries too, so it’s fair game.

When American Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed and dismembered in Turkey, this crime had no impact America’s foreign relation policy with the Saudis. “What the fuck do I care? He shouldn’t have written what he did. He should have shut the fuck up,” Trump said. He liked the idea of traitors and the disloyal being dealt with harshly.

Trump didn’t expect to win the election, so praising Putin meant that his channels would remain open for business dealings when he lost. Like Putin, neither of them cared about their countries, but only their personal wealth and power at the expense of their countries.

Trump cares nothing for the wellbeing of Midwestern white working class folks. He is a con man who pretends to care about guns, abortion, and God for votes because his base is his path to power.

The chapter details trying to get Trump Tower Moscow built. Putin had to approve it, so Trump praised him. He used campaign money to make money for himself to fund that project. When there was little progress on the tower, Cohen suggested pulling the plug.

As Cohen sat in Trump’s office, Don, Jr. came in and said, “The meeting is all set.” Trumps said, “Okay, good, let me know.” A Russian lawyer was offering dirt on Hillary Clinton.

14 – Hurricane Stormy (Part 2)

Cohen details looking for racially diverse people to support Trump so he could transform Trump’s white nationalism into the image of a God-fearing, open-minded, and inclusive leader. Cohen did this by courting black Christians like pastor Darrell Scott. Cohen’s job was to create an upside down Alice in Wonderland world where people doubted their own eyes and ears. Cohen did this simply by saying any insinuation that Trump was a racist, sexist, bigot, xenophobe, Islamaphobe, demagogue, narcissist, anti-Hispanic, and anti-Semitic were lies from the disgusting liberal mainstream media.

By spring of 2016, it was down to Trump and Cruz in the primaries. Cohen decided to create fake news for the National Inquirer. More than a friend and supporter of Trump, David Pecker, head of the paper, was a sycophant, supplicant, and propagandist for Trump. People worry about Russia but ignore the role the National Inquirer played in helping spread disinformation to help Trump win—like printing a photo of Lee Harvey Oswald standing next to a man whose face is hard to make out and alleging that it was Ted Cruz’s father, making him to be a Cuban co-conspirator in the Kennedy assassination.

The Enquirer ran the story on Cruz’s father when the Indiana primaries were coming up and Cruz was surging in the polls. No one picked up on it or repeated it, so Trump got on Fox and Friends and blasted the fake news mainstream media for not reporting on this conspiracy and it worked. The story then went viral and Cruz lost Indiana. Trump believed the National Enquirer—a fake news rag—should win a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting.

If any candidate began rising in the polls, The National Inquirer ran conspiracies against them in the headlines for hundreds of millions of Americans who saw the headlines at grocery checkout counters. The mainstream media would then write disapproving articles about these made up stories, giving them exposure, which gave Trump more free press.

Whenever Trump refused to act presidential and became petty, like comparing Cruz’s wife to Melania, the media would become aghast, but his base loved it. His supporters reveled in how juvenile he was, especially if it upset the left and mainstream media.

They invented stories about Rubio having a love child, a mistress, a cocaine connection, a secret gay past, his wife Jeanette having a lurid past, and their marriage being on the rocks. The message behind this disinformation campaign was if you were an evangelical Christian or family values person, you should run from Rubio and—the irony—vote for Trump.

Cohen noticed that every time Trump held a rally and it was on TV, everyone behind him was white. He told Trump he needed more diversity. Soon a few carefully placed black supporters began appearing behind him on TV. This was not to win black voters, but to ensure his base, like white Christian woman who would hold their nose and vote for him, that he wasn’t racist while openly using racist rhetoric.

Once Trump won the nomination and bragged that he liked winning with women, women with whom he’d had affairs started coming forward, like Playboy model Karen McDougal. Pecker paid $150,000 for the story to squash it. Trump had to pay Pecker and Pecker had to pay McDougal by hiding it so no one would find out. Pecker paid McDougal, but every time he tried to get his money from Trump, he stalled. Trump stiffed him.

Trump personified the phrase typical of narcissists: “accusations are confessions.” If Trump accused you of lying, cheating, or stealing, you can best bet it’s because that’s what he was doing.

Cohen was shocked that Trump was able to get away with so much and the media never looked for it, but instead combed through Hillary’s past and dealings in great detail and made her answer for it. He could only surmise that this was because they believed Hillary would win, so was the more important person to focus on.

Cohen was made aware of the Access Hollywood tape where Trump bragged that he could sexually assault women because he’s a celebrity—the infamous “grab ‘em by the pussy” quote. When that blew over, porn actress Stormy Daniels, who had already been paid to have her story squashed, wanted to sell the story of her affair with Trump. Two weeks before the election, now was the time to capitalize on it, believing that Trump would lose and her story be worthless after the election.

Trump didn’t want to pay it, but considered it a deal compared to what he would have lost in a divorce to Melania. He bragged to Cohen that this fans would think it was cool that he slept with a porn star. He knew Pecker wouldn’t buy her story and squash it because he still hadn’t paid him for the McDougal deal. After clearing it with Trump, it was agreed that $130,000 would be paid to Daniels by Cohen personally.

15 – Election Night

The night Trump won the election, Cohen was given a VIP to the event but didn’t sit with Trump in the suites with the others. He knew something was off, that Trump was distancing himself from him. Expecting  his bonus to be the usual $500,000 with an extra $150,00 for paying Stormy Daniels to keep silent, he will pissed to find that his bonus was only $50,000. The excuse was that the company lost money that year due to the distraction of the election. After complaining, he got $420,000 and the job of being personal attorney of the president. He was reimbursed for Daniels in the form of fake legal fees.

Cohen makes a case that everything in the Steele Dossier is false. An anonymous person called wanting $20 million for the footage of Trump with prostitutes peeing on the bed the Obamas had slept in, but refused to let Cohen see and verify it first. The dossier clamed Cohen went to Prague, but he’d never been to Prague. The FBI investigated and conformed this.

Trump asked Cohen what he thought of the Muslim travel ban. Cohen said he hated it. Trump said it was Bannon and Miller’s idea and they’ll fix it the next time around.

16 – Typhoon Stormy (Part Three)

In January 2018 the Wall Street Journal ran a story saying that Cohen paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 through a company called Essential Consulting. He went on a media tour defending Trump while Daniels went on a media tour promising to share details about Trump’s penis size. Cohen and Trump got on the phone with Melania and tried to lie to her about it, Trump acting shocked that Cohen hushed the story with money from his own pocket, as if he didn’t know. She knew they were lying, so changed the subject. She understood that this came with being married to Trump.

Soon after, the FBI raided Cohen’s home and office. He didn’t know what they were looking for or why they were there. He called Trump. “They’re coming after us,” Trump said. “This is all part of the witch hunt. Stay strong, I have your back. You’re going to be fine.” That’s the last time they ever spoke.

17 – The Conviction Machine

Trump over next few weeks made public statements saying Cohen wasn’t really his lawyer, just a low level PR guy, putting distance between them. Trump, Jared, Ivanka and Cohen entered a joint defense using Cohen’s lawyer. Trump stiffed him on the legal fees. Still, Cohen lied and stayed on message on TV and before Congress: this is a witch hunt and Trump has no dealings with Russia.

Cohen pleaded guilty to five tax evasion charges to protect his wife from going to trial and possibly facing prison time. He was sentenced to three years in jail.

18 – Otisville Federal Satellite Camp

Cohen recounts his time in prison and getting cease and desist letters from Trump’s organization forbidding him to write this book.

“Please remember what I testified to Congress, the second time: There is a serious danger that Donald Trump will not leave office easily, and there is a real chance of not having a peaceful transition. When he jokes about running again in 2024 and gets a crowd to chant ‘Trump 2024,’ he’s not joking. Trump never jokes. You now have all the information you need to decide in November.” (360)