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
“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,
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
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Establish your credibility and attractiveness through myths and stories. Create a flattering biography that can be passed from member to member.
- Send members out to proselytize the unredeemed. Have people campaign on your behalf and spread your agenda.
- Prevent members from thinking undesirable thoughts. Continually distract people with propaganda than engenders loyalty to the group and the message.
- 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
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
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
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 –
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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