He’s a political genius. He’s a master strategist. He’s doing this or that seemingly insane thing to distract the public from the Mueller investigation or something else he doesn’t want us to think or learn too much about. He may seem crazy, but he’s really crazy like a fox. So goes the nightly drone of well-paid news anchors and political analysts trying to explain the day’s chaotic events and make sense of the incomprehensible.
So many complex explanations for such a simple fact: Donald Trump is a narcissist with enough money to buy power and influence. That’s it. No, he’s not a genius. No, he’s not a master anything except liar and con man. Yes, he probably is trying to distract us from hearing any more facts about his criminal activity, but to assign logical thought to his actions is stretching too far. He is simple, not complex. He is driven by instinct, not logic. His basic instinct is to protect his gargantuan but fragile ego, and he will do whatever it takes and destroy whatever and whomever he must to accomplish that goal.
Then why does he have a following? Why does Congress not take action to counteract his destructive force? Why do religious leaders give him a pass on his immorality that violates every one of their stated beliefs? There’s only one explanation that makes sense: The branch of the modern Republican Party dominated by right-wing extremists is a cult, and Donald Trump is the cult leader. He’s the Jim Jones, the David Koresh, the Cyrus Teed. You think that sounds extreme? Okay, let’s take a look at the nature of cults and the parallels between those groups and today’s far-right Republicans.
Let’s start by looking at the defining characteristics of cults. There is some difference of opinion here, but several distinctives span the various lists. Although the term “cult” is most commonly used to refer to outlying religious groups which are not part of a mainstream denomination, the word may also be used to designate any group which is formed around a core set of characteristics. Here are the three most agreed on:
First and most obvious, every cult is founded on authoritarian leadership, “an authority figure who exercises excessive control on cult members. As prophet or founder, this leader’s word is considered ultimate and final” (Andy Naselli, Six Sociological Characteristics of Cults). Janja Lalich and Michael Langone describe it this way: “The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.”
Matt Slick adds: “Leaders are often seen as prophets, apostles, or special individuals with unusual connections to God. This helps a person give themselves over psychologically to trusting someone else for their spiritual welfare. Increased submission to the leadership is rewarded with additional responsibilities and/or roles, and/or praises, increasing the importance of the person within the group.”
And Rick Ross describes the cult leader as a charismatic figure,
“who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority.”
The word “Messiah” also shows up in most of the lists.
The second important characteristic is psychological control exercised by the leader over the cult members. Independent or rational thought is discouraged, sometimes punished, and is the surest way to get oneself shunned by or excluded from the group. According to Rick Ross, “A process of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as coercive persuasion or thought reform (commonly called ‘brainwashing’).”
Third, every cult is exclusivist and elitist; part of the brainwashing or mind control performed by the leadership is making members believe they alone know the truth. Thus, they become impervious to criticism from outsiders, because those critics are simply not in the inner circle that is privy to the truth. Exclusivity produces increasing isolation, thereby shielding members from any possible reality check the outside world might present. Janja Lalich and Michael Langone say, “The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s), and its members (e.g., the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being . . . and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).”
Other characteristics mentioned in at least one of the lists include the following. “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group” (Janja Lalich and Michael Langone). Matt Slick includes “group think”: “The group’s coherence is maintained by the observance to policies handed down from those in authority. There is an internal enforcement of policies by members who reward ‘proper’ behavior, and those who perform properly are rewarded with further inclusion and acceptance by the group.” Matt Slick also includes persecution complex: “When someone (inside or outside of the group) corrects the group in doctrine and/or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.”
Now what do all of these things have to do with Donald Trump and his followers? Well, let’s start with authoritarianism. Ya think? Has any other president ever demanded such unquestioned obedience or behaved more like a dictator than the kind of president described by our constitution? Every leader enjoys the admiration of his or her followers, but has any other leader ever been so shameless as to require praise and adulation from his staff as this one does? Our constitution outlines a tripartite government; the branches are executive, legislative, and judicial. And our founders wisely established a system of checks and balances to prevent one of those branches from assuming too much power. Each day that the Republican Party enables its authoritarian leader to assume more and more power, it continues to erode the checks and balances that have stabilized our democracy for more than 200 years.
Unlike many other dictators, Trump doesn’t (yet) have his critics murdered; but he kills their influence by delegitimizing them. He calls our free press and reputable journalists “fake news”; through Twitter and the stump speeches at his “rallies,” he viciously attacks those who dare criticize him; he spreads lies and conspiracy theories about those by whom he feels threatened, such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Early on, he justified his failure to say anything negative about Vladimir Putin: “He says nice things about me, so I’ll say nice things about him.” The single determining factor for winning this “president’s” approval is “saying nice things” about him. Egomaniac much?
While we’re discussing disposing of critics or people perceived as disloyal, let’s talk about how many officials Trump has fired or driven off in a mere 18 months. The count, as of April 11, 2018, was 47 who have either been fired or have left because they were forced out or could no longer stand being associated with this administration. And let us not forget that he’s been itching to fire Jeff Sessions and Robert Mueller but hasn’t yet figured out a way to pull off firing those two without repercussions that even he doesn’t want to face.
For comparison, NPR says Trump’s turnover rate in his cabinet alone has set records: No president in the last 100 years has had the rate of turnover in his cabinet that Trump has had. Reagan lost four cabinet members in his first two years, but Trump tied that number in a mere 14 months. Yet, as with everything else the Supreme Leader does, he casually brushes off the statistics, claiming that change is good: “’There will always be change, and I think you want to see change,’ Trump said on March 15, not quite tamping down the latest rumors of possible Cabinet departures. ‘And I want to also see different ideas’” (NPR). Come on, Donald, we all know the part about you wanting to see different ideas is a lie. The truth is you fire people because they have different ideas.
One of the most perplexing questions about this “president” is how he gets away with the lies he tells every day. And we’re not talking about subtle evasions of truth, little white lies, or slips of the tongue. We’re talking about big, out-in-the-open whoppers so easily disprovable that our fact checkers have probably become bored with their jobs. So if you lie and everyone knows you’re lying, how does it help? Remember the second characteristic of the cult structure and mentality: “psychological control exercised by the leader over the cult members. Independent or rational thought is discouraged, sometimes punished, and is the surest way to get oneself shunned by or excluded from the group.” I just googled “taking Trump figuratively or literally,” and the full page of articles that popped up is evidence of how much that topic has been discussed and of how his followers have attempted to justify his flagrant disregard for truth.
In a cult, truth is internal; the cult leadership creates its own reality. We might call it “alternative facts.” Wow, that sounds so familiar. Members are undeterred by evidence presented from the outside, because they have been convinced (brainwashed?) to believe only their reality is legitimate and that they alone possess truth. Consider the Koreshan Cult, led by Cyrus Teed, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Just a few miles from my home here in Southwest Florida stands a state historic site, the preserved community built by Teed and his followers. This group believed they were living on the inside of the globe rather than the outside, science be damned! It would have done no good to present these faithful followers with scientific evidence, because anything that violated their truth was a lie. Sound familiar? How can anyone reject the science of climate change or claim not to “believe in” it? Well, your cult leader tells you it’s a hoax, and so that “fact” becomes part of your alternate reality. When “believing” becomes “believing in,” the subject has become part of a system of truth which cannot be logically refuted.
The expression “drinking the Kool-Aid” is familiar to every modern American because on November 18, 1978, 900 people participated in a mass suicide led by Jim Jones, America’s most infamous cult leader. There is some doubt as to whether all 900 willingly swallowed the poison, but the fact that so many people followed a demented leader to Jonestown in the first place is evidence of the powerful mind control at the heart of cult culture. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Jones had built a large following for his People’s Temple; and they followed him right up to the Kool-Aid table.
So powerful is cult members’ belief in whatever their alternate reality is that, even when faced with factual reality, facts mean nothing. Truth is falsehood, and falsehood is truth. When Cyrus Teed died, his followers refused to believe he was permanently dead. The allure which enticed them to join Teed’s cult was the promise of immortality, so it was understandably confusing when their trusted leader died. According to the State Library and Archives of Florida, “When Teed died in 1908, his followers, expecting his resurrection, laid out his body until county inspectors later insisted something else be done. His body was placed in the mausoleum and watched 24 hours a day for his return until 13 years later when the mausoleum with Dr. Teed’s remains washed into the sea during a hurricane on October 23, 1921.” Bummer. Hate it when that happens.
Achieving the elitist aura around the Trump Cult has been greatly simplified and expedited by the marriage between the Republican Party and the Religious Right, without whom the Republican Party’s numbers would be greatly decimated and without whom we would not have known the nightmare of a Trump “presidency.” Evangelicals have long indoctrinated their followers with the elitist belief that they alone know the truth and that theirs is the true religion. Arguments and fact checks which might prove otherwise are simply dismissed and scoffed at because they come from outsiders who are not privy to the truth of which they are the sole owners and guardians.
Such blind adherence to an alternate reality requires the ability to silence critics, and what better ally to have on one’s side than God? Who’s going to argue with God, right? Through extensive cherry picking, these keepers of the truth have managed to assemble a definitive list of everything God likes, dislikes, hates, rewards, and punishes. Each item, of course, is accompanied by one of the cherries picked usually from the Old Testament. For example, God hates gay people. How do we know this? Leviticus. End of argument. Don’t bother us any more.
That air of superiority is intrinsic to cult culture. Members see themselves as living above the noisy critics who attempt to present factual evidence to counter the error of the group’s thinking. According to Lalich and Langone, “The leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, . . . and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity.” Enter Donald Trump, “God Emperor” (Yes, some of his followers actually call him that) who is obviously ordained of God because he won an election against such overwhelming odds. He is on a mission to make America great again, and he alone can do it.
Less often cited yet no less relevant is this characteristic, mentioned in paragraph nine: “The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group” (Janja Lalich and Michael Langone). Now that has to sound familiar to anyone who’s been paying attention these last two years. Yeah, Trump might tweet a tad much, and his language is a little “salty,” and golly gee he can say some surprising things. And you’re right, we “Christians” don’t normally approve of adultery, crotch grabbing, and such. But he gave that stolen SCOTUS seat to our guy, he wants to help us overturn Roe v. Wade, and the NRA loves him so he’ll let us keep our weapons arsenals. He gives us permission to hate and discriminate against gays, blacks, Latinos, and anyone else we don’t like (and whom we know God doesn’t like). Obviously he’s God’s anointed, so how can we not support him?
Matt Slick includes persecution complex: “When someone (inside or outside of the group) corrects the group in doctrine and/or behavior, it is interpreted as persecution, which then is interpreted as validation.” Has any president ever whined as much as this one about how badly he’s treated? No, but according to his faithful cult followers, he has been the most maligned president in history. I don’t claim to know which of our presidents has been the most persecuted, maligned, or disrespected; but if I had to make a wager, my money would be on Barack Obama. He and his family were subjected daily to vile, degrading, racist taunts; yet he never whined about his treatment or lashed out at his enemies on Twitter. He continued doing his job with grace and dignity.
And our hypocrite-in-chief led the charge against President Obama with conspiracy theories which he continued even after they’d been clearly debunked, and he has made the driving force behind his “presidency” the undoing of everything Obama did. Mention this to a true Trump cultist on social media, and the standard response will be that DT has done more in 18 months than Obama did in 8 years and that Obama will go down in history as the worst president ever. That’s another of those alternate reality “truths” which can easily be disproved to rational people but which the cultists will never believe because it conflicts with their internal reality.
What attracts people to cults? The most authoritarian leader is nothing without willing followers. Who are these people who willingly follow a leader right up to the Kool-Aid table? Fleur Brown, in an article titled “I Grew Up in a Cult and I Can Tell You Why ‘Normal’ People Join Them,” says his mother needed “a soft place to land” after losing her father at a fairly young age. “She found sanctuary in the Worldwide Church of God, an American fundamentalist religion that offered concrete answers for seekers; a road-map for the meaning of life, infused with a little self-help theory and some healthy eating tips.”
My own experience growing up in an out-of-the-mainstream denomination affirms that statement. A large percentage of the people I met had troubled pasts and welcomed a “safe” environment in which authoritarian leadership made their decisions for them, sparing them the painful consequences of continuing to make flawed decisions on their own.
Most psychologists agree that, although people who join cults fall into no one particular “type,” they do have some common characteristics. Shannon Quinn, in a Psychology Today article “10 Psychological Reasons Why People Join Cults,” says many are attracted to the seductive promises made during the recruitment process. Remember, Cyrus Teed promised his followers immortality; then he went and died. Quinn says, “More often than not, a cult will promise to solve an issue in society that no one else is offering a solution to. Cults also offer a very structured lifestyle, with absolute answers about what is right and wrong.” So does that mean if some guy tells a group of people how shitty everything in their country is and that he alone can fix it and promises to drain the swamp and make America great again, those people might make him president? I think we’ve seen this movie.
Quinn also says people join cults to find a purpose for their lives and a cause for which to fight: “Whether it is attaining eternal life in a spiritual realm, or working day and night to change a political issue, a cult can give a purpose in life to people who did not have their own strong goals.” Quinn cites Dr. Adriann Furnham:
“In times of confusion and uncertainty when people feel lost, extreme groups offer absolute answers to questions that people have. Many people find comfort in seeing the world in terms of good and evil, right and wrong. Cult leaders offer simple solutions in a way that makes sense, and they know how to motivate people to devote their life to the leader’s cause.”
Another reason people join cults, according to Quinn, is that they’re fed up with society. The leader promises change and gives members a platform from which they can make a difference. In another Psychology Today article “Why People Like Trump,” Jack Schafer offers this explanation:
“Finding common ground quickly promotes likeability. Most people have little in common with Trump but many Americans live vicariously through Trump. Trump’s success, popularity, and self-confidence fill the secret dreams of ordinary people. To reject Trump is to render the aspirations of most Americans meaningless.”
Elizabeth Esther, in “Top 5 Reasons People Join Cults,” begins with the disclaimer: “It’s not because they’re stupid.” According to Esther, cults exist “because NOBODY believes they’re in one!” (Her emphasis). That means some intelligent, well-educated people join cults simply because they offer something they’ve sought for but have never found anywhere else. She says cults give their members a sense of purpose and a sense of superiority. Gee, I guess if the president likes me and my kind and calls those “other” people “haters and losers,” that would make me feel kinda superior, huh?
I think Abraham Maslow gave us the answer to the question of why people follow cults, including the Trump Cult, a long time ago. In his Hierarchy of Basic Human Needs, he lists 5 needs which every living human has. Every human has belongingness and love needs and every human has esteem needs. We all want a place to belong and to be valued, and we all want to be respected by others and to be able to respect ourselves. People find the fulfillment of those needs in cults. Jack Schafer sums it up this way:
“Political correctness can stifle free speech but it cannot stop people from thinking forbidden thoughts. People who cannot express their true thoughts and feelings become frustrated. The more the forbidden thoughts backup behind the dam of political correctness, the more the frustration builds. Trump serves as society’s pressure valve releasing pent up frustration. Trump says what ordinary people cannot say for fear of losing their jobs, status in their communities, or their reputations. When built-up pressure is finally released, people feel good about themselves. The Golden Rule of Friendship states, ‘If you want people to like you, make them feel good about themselves.’ When Trump speaks, he makes people feel good about themselves and, as a result, people like him.”
Journalists would do well to heed Hanlon’s Razor in their daily attempts to find explanations for Trump’s behavior: “Never attribute to malice [or strategy or shrewdness or political genius] that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Sophisticated, convoluted explanations can be replaced by much simpler ones. When the “president” behaves like a toddler, he’s not following some clever political strategy; he’s just acting out, as toddlers do.
The modern Republican Party, with their unprecedently authoritarian leader, has all the marks of a cult. They have their own truth, their own reality, their own “alternative facts”; and no amount of reason will convince them they’re wrong. The only solution is to vote ‘em ALL out! We have a lot of momentum going right now, but recent history teaches we can’t become complacent. Ignore the polls, ignore the pundits, and keep fighting right up to the voting booth. Our democracy depends on it, as do the lives of our children and grandchildren and those precious caged children at our southern border.