The Cult of Trump

by Steven Hassan

  Due in part to these new understandings and methods for controlling people’s minds, cults began to proliferate in the late 1960s and 1970s. Some of them, like Charles Manson’s group, which committed a series of murders in four different locations over two days in 1969, made front page headlines. One of the biggest cult stories of the time was of Patty Hearst, the daughter of one of the country’s most powerful newspaper publishers, William Randolph Hearst III. On February 4, 1974, she was violently abducted from her Berkeley, California, apartment, locked in a closet, raped, and systematically indoctrinated. She emerged to the world two months later, during a dramatic bank robbery, as Tania, a member of a left-wing terrorist cult, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Hearst was captured, jailed, and ultimately freed and would later talk about her experiences as a form of brainwashing.

  Perhaps the biggest and most devastating story, one that turned “cult” into a household word, was the 1978 massacre in Jonestown, Guyana. More than nine hundred followers of Jim Jones, about a third of them under the age of sixteen, drank cyanide-laced fruit punch and died, on the order of Jones. The idea of brainwashing had been in the culture but that it could be carried out in such a massive and devastating way stunned the world.

  A MODERN PHENOMENON

  The rise of cults can be attributed to a few other factors. Among the most fundamental is the breakdown of families and communities and the growing sense that our society is in disarray. Economic factors play a role. A large and growing segment of the world’s population is poor, while a relatively small elite controls an ever-increasing share of the world’s resources. More people have been uprooted, even in the United States. Whereas once they could expect to spend their entire life within a five-mile radius of their birthplace, today it’s not unusual to relocate to faraway places. Such big transitions can create greater susceptibility and vulnerability in people. They feel disenchanted and separated from their culture, and seek answers in fringe groups of all types, from fanatical religious sects to militia groups.

  Today, with so much access to information at our fingertips and a greater awareness of the dangers of persuasion and influence, you might think there would be a decline in cult activity. The opposite is true: computers and the internet have taken this phenomenon to the next level. Children, adolescents, and adults may become addicted to video games and deprive themselves of the social contact that people need to function in healthy ways. While apocalyptic visions are not new, the means by which they can be promulgated is changing at an unprecedented pace. We have television, social networks, and the internet to spread alarmist ideas. With the internet, it’s easy to download information and training manuals and to use them to manipulate others into new beliefs, behaviors, and cult identities. The internet has been used to great advantage by terrorist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram, and human trafficking rings—all of which fit the definition of a cult.

  THE INFLUENCE CONTINUUM

  The cult mindset might be black-and-white but cults themselves exist on a kind of continuum. Groups with charismatic leaders and devoted followers are not always harmful. Unlike destructive cults, which have members who tend to lie and deceive to recruit people, and which control information to keep people from doubting or questioning, some groups are transparent in their recruiting. They allow members to freely read, talk, and even leave the group. Fans of a sports team, musician, or a popular game might fall into this category. Bruce Springsteen has legions of adoring followers who revere him and call him the Boss, but they are free to leave a concert, are permitted to not like a particular song or album, and are allowed to like other musicians. This is a fanciful example but it makes the point that groups exist along a continuum—from healthy ethical influence to destructive unethical influence. Distinct criteria can be used to discern harmless groups from destructive ones. Depending on which criteria are used, groups may fall at different points along this continuum. They may be more or less harmful with regard to certain aspects, and less so regarding others, though destructive behaviors do tend to cluster.

  Ultimately, it’s not a group’s content or ideology but rather its pattern of behavior that generally defines it as a destructive cult. Cults can promote all kinds of beliefs in all kinds of areas—commercial, political, psychological, beliefs in UFOs, science fiction, as well as religious—but they typically possess a common structure.

  Most destructive cults exhibit a pyramid structure, with a leader, or some kind of authority figure (or figures), at the top who uses deceptive recruitment and an arsenal of mind control techniques to render people dependent and obedient. Those closest to the top, the inner sanctum or circle, are deepest in the group and often most indoctrinated. Those at the bottom may have never even met the leader and may be more or less actively involved with the group.

  If we apply the pyramid structure to Trump the businessman sitting in his gilded offices at the top of Trump Tower, his family would make up the first tier of trusted business advisors; associates like his former attorney Michael Cohen and others would be the second tier. Lower down would be various underlings, whom he rules with an iron hand, demanding absolute loyalty and obedience, rewarding good deeds and punishing or expelling those he deems disloyal.

  We can also apply a similar schema to Trump the president, sitting in the Oval Office, surrounded most closely by family members and then by aides, advisors, staffers, and the vice president. The next tier comprises his cabinet as well as Republican members of Congress, to the extent that they come into his personal orbit. Lower down, the structure widens to include state politicians, Republican donors, and then finally his fans and supporters, who may be more or less fervent—literally his base. (As we will see later, the Cult of Trump is much more complex. For example, Trump’s power over his base and his use of Fox News and other right-wing media are what help to keep the middle tiers—members of Congress—obedient.)

  Some of Trump’s followers may have disliked, even hated, him at the start but have come to respect and even revere him, thanks to the policies he has implemented. Much of Trump’s support, both in his base and in the upper echelons, comes from the Republican Party, the Christian right, libertarian groups, the National Rifle Association, the alt-right, and white supremacy groups. These movements and organizations, if not their individual members, may see in Trump a useful tool for enacting their own political agendas. Trump himself has no real ideology other than the one he had as businessman: winning. He has depended on advisors such as Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Stephen Miller; a covey of wealthy donors such as the Mercers, the Koch brothers, and Sheldon Adelson; Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes, Bill Shine, and the right-wing media, especially commentators like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter; factions on the Christian right; and certain extremist groups to set an agenda.

  Initially, cults exert their control through other members—the power of community is huge. The social setting may be intimate—such as three women chatting you up in a cafeteria—and become progressively more expansive. People can also be recruited and indoctrinated online. Humans are intensely social and cults play upon this, often creating an instant sense of community through techniques such as love bombing; group prayer, singing, and chanting; and staged and dramatic group experiences, such as those that occur at political rallies.

  THE BITE MODEL

  Cult members may bring other people through the door but what ensnares them is a complex array of influence techniques, applied incrementally to control almost every aspect of a person—the way they act (behavior), what they read, watch, or listen to (information), the way they think (thoughts), and how they feel (emotions). Trump has gotten millions of people to believe, support, and even adore him by using techniques in each of these areas:

  Behavior: Trump demands loyalty and obedience, and often gets it, using a variety of tried-and-true cult tactics such as shunning and publicly insulting those who disagree with him. He creates false enemies—Mexicans, Muslims, the media, to name just a few—to engender
us versus them thinking, which renders people more fearful and obedient. He rewards those who support him and punishes those who don’t. He holds mass rallies filled with people wearing Trump and Make America Great Again hats and T-shirts and chanting slogans, which promote identification with him and the group in opposition to outsiders, though this is a common feature of many political rallies.

  Information: Cult leaders are masters of deception but they, like Trump, use other tactics: discouraging access to noncult or critical sources of information; compartmentalizing information into insider versus outsider doctrines. Clearly Trump’s branding of the “liberal media” as “fake news” or “phony” hits these nails right on the head. On the flip side, cults flood their members with cult-generated information and propaganda—videos and podcasts distributed by YouTube and social media. They take “outsider” statements out of context or misquote them. Of course, Trump could not have done this without the propaganda machine of right-wing TV shows like Fox and Breitbart News, as well as right-wing talk radio.

  Thought: In the Moonies, I was taught to suppress negative thoughts by using a technique called thought stopping. I repeated the phrase “Crush Satan” or “True Parents” (the term used to describe Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han) whenever any doubt arose in my mind. Another way to control thoughts is through the use of loaded language, which, as Lifton pointed out, is purposely designed to invoke an emotional response. When I look at the list of thought-controlling techniques—reducing complex thoughts into clichés and platitudinous buzz words; forbidding critical questions about the leader, doctrine, or policy; labeling alternative belief systems as illegitimate or evil—it is astounding how many Trump exploits. As I have mentioned, one of the most effective techniques in the thought control arsenal is hypnosis. Scott Adams, the creator of the cartoon Dilbert, described Trump, with his oversimplifications, repetitions, insinuating tone of voice, and use of vivid imagery, as a Master Wizard in the art of hypnosis and persuasion.3

  Emotion: Cults have many techniques for controlling their members’ emotions, such as making them feel that they are special and chosen—true Americans, in Trump’s parlance. But the most effective is by fanning fear and implanting phobias. Trump’s Wall is most compelling because of what it will do—keep out murderers and rapists. Inspiring fear of real and imagined threats is what cult leaders do best. It was by exaggerating the threat of foreigners that he gained his foothold in the political landscape. Trump’s perverse genius, and he follows in the footsteps of cult leaders and dictators alike, is to convince his followers that the world is a dangerous place that only he can fix.

  As New York Times columnist Charles Blow observed, “Trump’s magical mixture is to make being afraid feel like fun. His rallies are a hybrid of concert revelry and combat prep. Trump tells his followers about all the things of which they should be afraid, or shouldn’t trust or should hate, and then positions himself as the greatest defense against those things. His supporters roar their approval at their white knight.”4 The unfortunate thing is, all his fearmongering has made the country and the world a more divided and dangerous place.

  AUTHENTIC SELF/CULT SELF

  Ultimately the goal of the cult indoctrination process is to render a person dependent and obedient—to create a kind of “cult self” that suppresses the “authentic self” that a person is born with. Through my work, I’ve come to believe that people want to be free—they do not like being lied to, manipulated, or exploited. Reaching that authentic self, and helping to liberate it, is the goal of my work with cult members. It was striking how Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen described himself in dichotomous terms during his February 2019 congressional testimony. He was the devoted husband, father, and son of a Holocaust survivor who “tried to live a life of loyalty, friendship, generosity, and compassion.” He was also the man who ignored his conscience and was “so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong.” He claimed that he was even prepared to take a bullet for Trump.

  THE FIVE MAIN TYPES OF CULTS

  As I mentioned, groups using mind control operate in many different areas of society, but they roughly fall into five categories: religious cults, political cults, psychotherapy/educational cults, commercial cults, and cults of personality. Their philosophical inclinations may vary, but their methods are strikingly similar.

  Religious Cults

  Religious cults, like the Moonies, Heaven’s Gate, and more recently, the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, are the best known and most numerous. These groups use religious dogma to justify their ends. Some, like the Moonies or the World Mission Society Church of God, use their interpretation of the Bible. In the case of ISIS, it’s of the Koran. Some, like Soka Gakkai, are based on their own version of Buddhism. Shoko Asahara, leader of the notorious Japanese sarin gas cult, Aum Shinrikyo, claimed to be Jesus and Buddha. Others draw on occult lore. Some are purely the inventions of their leaders, like Bonnie Nettles and Marshall Applewhite of Heaven’s Gate. Although most claim to involve the spiritual realm, or to follow a strict code of religious principles, it is common for these cult leaders to enjoy a luxurious lifestyle, with the groups owning millions of dollars of real estate and running extensive business enterprises.

  Political Cults

  These groups are organized around a particular political dogma. The Aryan Nations believes in white supremacy and has ambitions to take over the U.S. government. Lyndon LaRouche, the apocalyptic and conspiracy-obsessed cult leader who ran for president of the United States eight times, once from prison, started on the far left and ended on the far right. The now-defunct Democratic Workers’ Party of California, headed by Marlene Dixon, was for years an extreme left-wing cult, as was the Symbionese Liberation Army, the cult that kidnapped Patty Hearst. The Nazi Party, under Adolf Hitler, was an infamous political cult. This is true of many dictatorships. They are brutal, repressive regimes that imprison or kill critics and dissidents and, like Hitler, use propaganda to spread their message and keep people in line. Kim Jong-un’s North Korea, Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, Vladimir Putin, the Saudi prince Mohammed Bin Salman—they control the press and prevent free assembly and elections that might check their power. Rarely do people hear about the deceptive recruitment and mind control practices that link these authoritarian regimes to political cults. But despots tend to play by similar rules. They use similar words, techniques, and political moves to acquire control and power. Dictators don’t just install irrational fears—they actually have the power to imprison, torture, hunt down, and kill opponents.

  Psychotherapy/Education Cults

  These cults hold expensive workshops and seminars that provide participants with “insight” and “enlightenment,” usually in a hotel conference room. They use basic mind control techniques to provide participants with peak experiences, which are usually hypnotically induced trances or states of euphoria. For many, that is all that happens, but others are manipulated to sign up for more expensive advanced courses. Graduates of the advanced courses may then become enmeshed in the group. Once committed, members are told to bring in friends, relatives, and coworkers, or to cut off contact with them if they disapprove. Some members have experienced nervous breakdowns, broken marriages, and business failures, as well as suicides and accidental deaths by reckless accidents as a result of their involvement. The people who run these groups sometimes have questionable personal backgrounds, and, often, few or no credentials.

  Commercial Cults

  Commercial cults prey on people’s desire for wealth and power. Many are pyramid-shaped marketing organizations whose members deceptively recruit people who, in turn, recruit others, who then provide income for the recruiting member. Companies like Amway and Herbalife promise get-rich-quick schemes through selling goods, such as health and beauty products or supplements. These pyramid-scheme or multilevel marketing organizations promise big bucks, but in fact 99 percent of participants lose money.5 Some of thes
e companies have gotten into trouble with federal regulators for defrauding members. Yet members of these groups are indoctrinated to believe that the pyramid scheme works. If they lose money, it’s their fault.

  Some multilevel marketing organizations sell services, such as business and leadership programs and seminars. Major legitimate businesses unwittingly hire these pseudo-consultants to train their employees. Believers within the company pressure other employees to attend the programs. One of the most notorious groups is Keith Raniere’s NXIVM, which in early 2018 came crashing down. Raniere was arrested, and later convicted, for sex trafficking, conspiracy to commit forced labor, and other charges. He had previously been shut down by no fewer than twenty attorneys general for his multilevel marketing, pyramid scheme, Consumers Buyline. He then created a coaching entity, Executive Success Programs, that employed many of the psychological techniques used in destructive cults. The 2018 arrest made headlines not only for the organization’s lurid practices—using a cauterizing iron to forcibly brand women with Raniere’s initials—but also because of its celebrity involvement. One of Raniere’s main lieutenants was Smallville actress Allison Mack, who was also arrested. She would later plead guilty to racketeering and racketeering conspiracy.6

  Perhaps the most pernicious of all commercial cults are pimps and human trafficking rings who deceptively recruit people with dreams of making money, and then buy and sell them for sex and labor. An estimated 4.8 million people are victims of sex trafficking worldwide, and more than 40 million are victims of labor trafficking. Organized crime, drug cartels, and gangs often make money from extortion, selling on the black market, and human trafficking.