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:
- 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 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.