Cult expert Steven Hassan: Trump's "mind control cult" now faces an existential crisis

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

During the 1970s, Steven Hassan was a senior member of the Unification Church, an offshoot Christian sect led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. Hassan was so loyal to the Unification Church that he pledged to die or kill at Moon's command.

After escaping the Unification Church, Hassan dedicated his life's work to freeing other people from mind control organizations and destructive cults. He is now one of the world's leading experts on mind control and cults.

Hassan is a direct personal witness to the way cult leaders are defined by their use of money, power, greed, sex, lies, charisma and violence to control their followers and empower themselves. In 2016 Hassan saw those traits personified in the form of Republican nominee Donald Trump. He then tried to alert the public to the danger that a cult leader would become president and that ruin and despair for the United States would be the inevitable result. Hassan's new book "The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control" attempts to explain how this all came to be.

While many pundits and others have remained in denial about the existential threat posed by Donald Trump and his movement, Hassan warned early on that Trump's followers were effectively cult members and would not be swayed from supporting their leader for any reason. With the coronavirus pandemic, Trump's power over his followers is on full display, as he and his spokespeople are now suggesting that older and other vulnerable Americans should be willing to risk their lives in order to "save the economy" — and of course to aid Trump's victory in the 2020 presidential election.

https://www.salon.com/2020/04/07/cult-expert-steven-hassan-trumps-mind-control-cult-now-faces-an-existential-crisis/

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[Mike 03]

2. Spectacular interview, highly recommended.

Excerpt

Unfortunately, there are millions of Americans who believe that Donald Trump is doing a good job with the coronavirus pandemic because they are not looking at any other source of news or reality testing. These people are doing a lot of praying and they have put their faith in an authoritarian leader who continually tells them, "I know better than everyone else, the experts, the doctors, etc." Trump says that all the time. He always tells his followers that he knows better than the scientists, generals and other experts. Trump is telling his followers that he is omnipotent.

What happens to a person's mind when it becomes subsumed by the cult leader?

As someone who was in a cult, the way I try to explain it is that mind control is a type of dissociative disorder where there is a split between who you really are and the cult identity. Cult members do have moments where their real authentic self re-emerges. For example, they miss their families. But then the cult part of the mind reasserts itself through fear or thought stopping or any number of other techniques to suppress the authentic self again.

As long as a person stays in the cult, they are receiving constant reinforcement of the cult identity. What is happening at present is very different from my experience in the 1970s. Then, you had to be taken to an isolated place to have your brain conditioned and programmed by the cult. Now the Internet, YouTube, Facebook and other types of media can program a person into a cult identity. Fox News and right-wing talk radio are obvious ways that Trump's followers are indoctrinated into his cult. Sleep deprivation by having people constantly tuned into the cult programming is another form of programming.

edit

Donald Trump constantly tells his followers that he loves them. His people need and want to believe that Donald Trump loves them. Trump's followers have a deep investment in him emotionally and personally. I would tell Trump's true believers the same thing I would tell people in other mind control cults: Think back to what you thought you were getting involved with, and now think about where you are now. If you knew then where you would be three and a half years later, would you have ever gotten involved with Donald Trump in the first place?

I would also tell Trump's cult members to think about his lies. They need to realize that they made decisions based on things proven to not be true. Now Trump's followers know better. It is time for them to leave his cult. I would tell his cult members that it is time for a new chapter in their lives. They need to reboot their minds and behavior. Trump's followers need to think about the future, how they want to live and how they want to raise their children.

[2naSalit]

3. K&R

[kentuck]

4. The first rule of a cult.

Deny that you are in a cult.