The cult of Trump — a suicide pact

After Trump came on the political scene, it took a long time for the legacy media and others to stop using euphemisms when commenting on his statements.  “Not correct, not accurate, questionable,” eventually turned into the proper term: lies–approaching 16,000 and counting. It has also taken a long time to accept what many observers, unhindered by politically-correct restraints, have been saying about his grip on power: it’s a cult. I wonder how much longer it will take for other well-deserved adjectives to be widely used: insane, dangerous, treasonous. Let’s talk about the cult.

Last October Steven Hassan published The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control. At the beginning, some reviewers objected to his use of the cult framework as incendiary and inappropriate. But Hassan knows what he’s talking about. Hassan is a mind-control and licensed mental health expert with unique knowledge of cults and how they develop and function. He’s an ex-Moonie (as members of the the Unification Church, founded by a Korean businessman, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, are called), so he has personally experienced the phenomenon.

Hassan draws parallels between Trump and such infamous cult leaders as Jim Jones, David Koresh, Ron Hubbard, and Moon, arguing that Trump’s presidency is similarly a destructive cult. He provides details on ways in which followers are brainwashed through several social psychology methods and how they are rendered fiercely loyal and obedient. Trump, for example, continually instills a divisive mentality of us versus them. He is a pathological liar, has no conscience, never admits being wrong, and projects all of his flaws on to others. Hassan explains how Trump has gotten millions of people to believe, support and adore him by using tried and true techniques represented by the BITE model, which involves steering BEHAVIOR, manipulating INFORMATION, controlling THOUGHTS, and regulating the victims’ EMOTIONS. The objective of the cult indoctrination process is to create a kind of “cult self” that suppresses the authentic self a person naturally develops.(1) This makes some people express different personalities and they become unrecognizable to friends and family.

One can add that Trump is gradually becoming more authoritarian, more outrageous, more unhinged. He knows more than anyone about everything, including his generals in matters of war, and has no qualms about belittling them. He calls himself a stable genius. And he proclaims that only he can “fix” what ails the country, which he describes in dark terms when convenient, only to contradict himself when he wants to boast about his “accomplishments.” His ego has no bounds, and he says he has done more for the country, in less time, than any other president. He desperately tries to suppress inconvenient facts and has created a parallel universe for him and his followers. And his need for adulation is a trait of other infamous cult leaders. 

Hassan shows that “given the right circumstances, supposedly sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be persuaded to believe the most outrageous ideas.”(2) As a reviewer put it, Hassan’s book “provides an eye-opening analysis of Trump and the indoctrination tactics he uses to build a fanatical devotion in his supporters.”(2) Hassan “looks at [the] golden age of cult leaders [such as L. Ron Hubbard’s, Jim Jones, and Lyndon LaRouche] and draws good lessons about what to watch out for: supreme confidence, a grandiose nature, demands for absolute loyalty, a complex web of simplistic ‘alternative’ facts and a penchant for sowing fear.”(3) These postures, as well as Trump’s manipulative tactics, such as “insulting opponents . . . deflecting, distracting . . . to confuse, disorient and ultimately coerce his followers”(4) are not random; there is a method to his madness.

In the words of another reviewer, “The comparisons have come hard and fast, at least since 2015. Trump is like Silvio Berlusconi, like Adolf Hitler, like Boris Johnson. A 2018 film called ‘The Trump Prophecy’ took the evangelical route, comparing Trump to Cyrus the Great, the 6th century BC Persian monarch chosen by God to free Jewish captives in Babylon.”(5) But then in August, Trump looked toward the heavens and declared himself the chosen one. “Suddenly, among evangelicals, it wasn’t enough to make comparisons with Cyrus or even King David. He had to be the savior himself. The far-right radio host Wayne Allyn Root called Trump ‘the second coming of God.’ Then former Energy Secretary Rick Perry straight up affirmed Trump’s craziness, telling him, ‘You are here in this time because God ordained you.’”(6) Trump thanked Allyn Root, and went on to call himself “the King of Israel.”(7) 

 (The pope, however, knows something about religion and as far back as 2016, before Trump won the Republican party nomination, warned that Trump is not even a Christian).(8)

A recent example of Trump’s extraordinary cultish influence played out during his impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate. Fifty-two out of 100 senators listened to overwhelming evidence of Trump’s guilt, justifying removal from office, but did nothing about it. Did they believe he had done nothing wrong? In fact, some admitted that the House managers had proved their case and Trump did violate the Constitution, but found ways to let him off the hook anyway, with no consideration even for a resolution to sanction him. This behavior is of a piece with the mental gymnastics that Trump supporters practice every day to “explain” what Trump meant by this or that, or to spin it out of shape, justifying what is not justifiable. This is typical behavior of cult followers, in this case mixed with a good dose of political cowardice. 

For example, immediately after the news broke about Ukrainegate, which resulted in the impeachment inquiry, Trump sycophants rallied around him. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham declared that he had “zero problems” with the president’s phone call with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. The House minority leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), appeared on TV and denied that the transcript of the call said what it said about Trump requesting a “favor” from Zelensky. And “Stephen Miller, Trump’s domestic policy adviser and designated wordsmith, echoed his boss’s rhetoric of counterattack by labeling the whistleblower ‘a deep state operative, pure and simple.’”(9) The same behavior continued throughout the House investigation and the Senate trial. Trump’s bewitching effect even infected his lawyers, who risked their careers by brazenly misrepresenting the facts and the law in ways that could result in the imposition of sanctions, even disbarment, if they were not powerful celebrities.

A more recent example of cult leader behavior was Trump’s speech at last week’s National Prayer Breakfast, when “he rejected the advice of Post columnist Arthur Brooks — echoing the Sermon on the Mount — to love your enemies. ‘Arthur, I don’t know if I agree with you,’ Trump said, and then proceeded to question the religious faith of Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”(10) 

Then he proceeded, in a “deranged performance” in the White House East Room, to denounce the impeachment process as “evil” and “corrupt” and called Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff “vicious” and “horrible” people. On Friday Trump went on to fire Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, for truthfully testifying about Trump’s attempts to blackmail Ukraine. Vindman, a war hero, was escorted off the White House grounds along with his twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, “whose only sin is to be related to one of the ‘human scum’ Never Trumpers, as Trump labeled the witnesses against him. Trump also fired his own inaugural committee donor, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, who had testified that there was a quid pro quo linking U.S. military aid to Ukraine to an investigation of a company that employed former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter.” After this “Friday Night Massacre,” Trump’s minions made it clear that his campaign of retaliation has only begun.

Such behavior is typical of cult leaders who suffer from malignant narcissism and manifest their sadism by a conscious ideology of self-affirmation, according to Hassan. Such individuals “have a tendency to destroy, symbolically castrate, and dehumanize others. Their rage is fueled by their desire for revenge.”(11)

Among the general population, meanwhile, we see people being interviewed by network journalists whose mental state is “if Trump says it’s so, it must be so.” It seems like 40 to 50 percent of the voters in this country have decided to stop thinking and simply follow our new, “Dear Leader.” At his rallies, Trump whips his followers into a frenzy not unlike Hitler or Mussolini did, and the crowds react much like they did in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy with their cult of personality.

Some are beginning to vocally recognize this cult phenomenon. The former Tea Party Republican Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois announced on CNN last Friday that he was ending his primary run and would be throwing all of his support toward the eventual Democratic candidate, as “any Democrat would be better than Trump in the White House.” He made clear what his emphasis would be in a post on Twitter: “I’m suspending my campaign, but our fight against the Cult of Trump is just getting started.”(12) 

Republican Senator Bob Corker, also was quoted in the Washington Post as saying “it’s becoming a cultish thing, isn’t it?” Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin said it more bluntly: “The Republican party is almost like a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family.”(13) It is encouraging, of course, that Walsh, Corker, and a few others are beginning to raise the alarm.

All of this is happening even as the religious landscape of the United States continues to change rapidly. In Pew Research Center surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians, down 12% over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously “nones” (self-described atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular”) now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.(14) Trump has become the alternative religion for many of these so-called Christians who are white and see themselves losing ground in a demographic earthquake where they will no longer be a majority of the country. Some of those untethered to any religion may also find comfort in the web of lies and alternative reality propounded by the president, as they  face rapid sociological and technological changes that have polarized and scared millions of Americans. Destructive cults are not necessarily religious; there are political, psychotherapy, and commercial cults as well as personality cults.(15) Ultimately, the goal of all cults is to make people dependent and obedient, and personality cults lead to caudillismo and the political enslavement of the masses. Like cult leaders and dictators throughout history, Trump “seizes upon the people’s needs and fears, and amplifies them . . .  [He] manufactures problems that do not exist and then say[s] ‘trust me’ or ‘believe me’ and promise[s] that only he can fix [them].”(16)

Hassan may not be right in all aspects of his analysis, and perhaps this country is too large, complex, and diverse to be doomed . But the situation is certainly alarming. “When polled, far too many Republicans come across as having abandoned their commitment to libertarianism, family values or simple logic in favor of Trump worship. They’re lost to paranoia and factually unmoored talking points, just the way Hassan was lost to Sun Myung Moon.”(17) 

Meanwhile, by enabling Trump, his followers and apologists are facilitating the destruction of American institutions and the pillars of democracy itself, wreaking havoc on the environment, eliminating measures designed to combat anthropogenic climate disruption, promoting the extinction of millions of species, and endangering the very survival of humanity. One might fear  it is a suicide pact on a much larger scale than the events at Jim Jones’ jungle commune in Jonestown, Guyana.

Amaury Cruz is a writer, lawyer, and political activist from Miami Beach. He has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a Juris Doctor.

¹ The Cult of Trump, Kindle Ed., p. XV.

² Id. pp. 13-15.

³ https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-10/donald-trump-cult-steven-hassan-moonie

⁴ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-republican-party-is-in-thrall-to-trump-does-that-make-him-a-cult-leader/2019/10/03/63855136-d592-11e9-9343-40db57cf6abd_story.html

⁵ Id.

⁶ https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-01-10/donald-trump-cult-steven-hassan-moonie

⁷ Id.

⁸ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7Is5mR_dv4

⁹ https://www.npr.org/2016/02/18/467229313/pope-says-trump-is-not-christian

¹⁰ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-republican-party-is-in-thrall-to-trump-does-that-make-him-a-cult-leader/2019/10/03/63855136-d592-11e9-9343-40db57cf6abd_story.html

¹¹ https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/08/trumps-friday-night-massacre-is-just-beginning-i-fear-whats-come/

¹² The Cult of Trump, Kindle Ed., p. 54

¹³ https://www.marketwatch.com/story/republican-joe-walsh-drops-out-of-the-presidential-race-calls-gop-a-cult-and-trump-its-cult-leader-2020-02-07

¹⁴ The Cult of Trump, Kindle Ed., p. XVII

¹⁵ https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/

¹⁶ The Cult of Trump, Kindle Ed., p. XVI

¹⁷ Id., p. XV