The Cult of Trump

by Steven Hassan

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  I dedicate this book to all those who have suffered from abusive mind control in the hope that it helps them heal. Freedom of mind—which includes critical thinking, pursuing facts, listening to one’s conscience, and acting with integrity—is the foundation of all our other freedoms, including freedom of religion.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I was nineteen and attending Queens College when I was recruited—tricked—into joining a dangerous mind-controlling cult: Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. During my time in the group, I experienced a radical personality change, fervently believing and spreading the cult’s doctrine. I felt totally in control of my mind and thoughts—something I can now confidently say was not the case. It was only through luck, and some clever maneuvering on my family’s part, that I was able to free myself. I was a cult member for only two and a half years. I’m one of the fortunate ones. Since then, I’ve become a mental health professional and have devoted my life to helping people break free from destructive cults, passing on the lessons learned through my own deprogramming. Over the past forty years, I’ve gotten a close look at hundreds of dangerous groups—as well as individual relationships—and know what, exactly, makes them destructive and cultish. I have spoken out publicly about cults and have faced a lot of backlash from some pretty scary and powerful organizations. I’ve faced lawsuits, death threats, and slander upon my character. Still, I feel privileged to do the work that I do.

  I talk to a lot of people, some of whom disagree with me, and it’s important for me—both personally and professionally—to be as unbiased and trustworthy as possible. The people whom I help—along with their families—need to trust that I am telling the truth. I have always sought to be nonpartisan and keep politics out of my work. But Donald Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, and the cultlike aspects of his presidency, have become too obvious to ignore. I realize that the title of this book, The Cult of Trump, and its central argument—that the president of the United States may be viewed as the leader of a cult—may be off-putting, if not outrageous, to some. I hope that my expertise, which I have gained through decades of work, will persuade you to continue with an open mind. My goal is not to write a political book about Trump—many have already been written—but instead to look at the Trump presidency through the lens of psychology, and in particular the psychology of mind manipulation and influence. I believe that the ultimate weapon against mind control is knowledge and awareness. That is what I try to provide in this book.

  I have done my best to ensure that the material in this book is as accurate and verifiable as possible. Of course, when writing about another person, there is always a certain amount of subjectivity, and many opportunities for bias to creep in. I have no doubt that some will take issue with what I have written. I ask you to take the wider view. I also invite you to differ with me. My goal is to empower people to think for themselves, which may mean moving outside of our ideological bubbles.

  This is a book about an area of human behavior that I liken to a dark forest. As a former cult member, I personally have seen the trees, as have millions of people who have escaped destructive groups and found their way to freedom. As a mental health professional, I’ve also spent decades mapping the contours of the cult mind control phenomenon. My hope is that this book may help point a way out of the dark forest of authoritarianism.

  Steven Hassan

  April 2019

  INTRODUCTION

  I know but one freedom, and that is the freedom of the mind.

  —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

  When Donald J. Trump announced he was running for the presidency of the United States, I had a hard time taking him seriously. Like many Americans, I could not imagine that a reality TV star—especially one so brash and controversial—might soon become the most powerful person on Earth. Trump and I grew up about a mile from each other in Queens, New York, but I knew little about him. I once watched about ten minutes of an episode of The Apprentice and switched stations. I was surprised by the intensity of Trump’s support, especially from evangelical Christians. He was a casino mogul and a notorious playboy and philanderer, who married—and fathered children with—three different women. He regularly told outright lies and, when challenged, would stubbornly double down on them. How could he possibly gain enough support among the conservative Christians who would be so important for him to be elected?

  As I watched him pick off, one by one, his fellow GOP contenders, I had no choice but to take him seriously. I have spent many years studying influence—how people systematically use psychological and social techniques for their own ends. It became clear to me that Trump was exploiting those methods to great effect. He certainly was not playing by traditional political rules. He was a master media manipulator, calling media outlets like Fox News to insult his opponents and brag about his own accomplishments, attracting the attention of other cable networks like CNN and MSNBC with his circuslike behavior—and gaining an estimated $2 billion worth of free publicity.1 He was an entertaining, if blustery, speaker who used simplistic, almost hypnotically repetitious, terms. He gave insulting but catchy nicknames to his opponents—“Crooked Hillary,” “Lying Ted,” “Low Energy Jeb”—and used slogans that became rousing anthems at his rallies—“Lock her up” and “Build the Wall.”

  I had a bizarre kind of déjà vu. It struck me that Trump was exhibiting many of the same behaviors that I had seen in the late Korean cult leader Sun Myung Moon, whom I had worshipped as the messiah in the mid-seventies. Moon had promised to make America—indeed the entire world—great. He promised a re-creation of the Garden of Eden. No wars, poverty, crime. Everyone would live in harmony together in God’s paradise on earth. Moon, of course, was not a messiah, nor were his aims beneficent. That is the case with many cult leaders—they promise something that people want to believe in but that they can never actually deliver. They do so by utilizing a set of influence techniques that can be likened to a cult leader’s playbook.

  I now believe—and it is the argument of this book—that Trump has gotten where he is today in large part because he has exploited that same playbook. Trump’s air of absolute confidence, his grandiosity—“Only I can fix this”—his practice of sowing fear and confusion, his demand for absolute loyalty, his tendency to lie and create alternative “facts” and realities, his shunning and belittling critics and ex-believers—these are the same methods used by Moon and other cult leaders such as L. Ron Hubbard, David Koresh, Lyndon LaRouche, and Jim Jones, to name just a few high-profile ones. Moon thought American democracy was satanic, and sought to install in its place a worldwide theocracy with himself at the head. His family and designates were 100 percent loyal and obedient. They promised to do whatever they were told, including, as I found out in my top leadership meetings, amending the Constitution to make it legal to execute those who were not faithful to Moon’s policies. As I watched Trump, especially as he has revealed his infatuation with authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin, Recip Tayyip Erdogan, and Kim Jong-un, I grew worried that he might have similar aspirations or, at the very least, that he might try to push American democracy toward authoritarianism. When a leader gains psychological sway over his followers and also over other politicians—members of Congress, the cabinet, and even the judiciary—the ch
ecks and balances of healthy democracy can be stripped away.

  Once I noticed the connections between Trump and Moon, I could not stop seeing them. My colleagues who have studied cults, especially those who are former members, agreed with my assessment when I started blogging about Trump in 2015. One of the most effective and insidious of Moon’s techniques, and of many cult leaders, is the way he manipulated his followers’ emotions. He would begin by making them feel special, part of an “inside” group in opposition to unenlightened, unbelieving dangerous “outsiders.” Playing on ancient human tribal tendencies, cult leaders encourage a kind of dualistic “us versus them” mindset. Trump uses this trope constantly, and to great effect. During his campaign rallies, he would single out members of the audience whom he perceived as hostile and eject them, often to deafening cheers from his supporters. He was demonstrating who counts as “us,” and what needs to be done about “them.”

  Like Moon, Trump commands, and even demands, devotion and adoration from his audiences, but I also saw telling differences. Trump’s over 500 rallies are far more choreographed and stage-managed than Moon’s mass assemblies ever were. Rousing patriotic music heralds his appearance onstage, while enthusiastic supporters stand behind him cheering. Trump rallies are also, strangely, more intimate. Part of Trump’s effectiveness is the way he talks to his audience, taking them into his confidence with personal asides, talking about how misunderstood and maligned he is by the media. He further earns his followers’ sympathy and allegiance by telling them how great they are to be followers of his, and how much he loves them.

  Moon always set himself apart, which was appropriate for someone who was, as he was fond of saying, “ten times greater than Jesus.” But just beneath the surface of Trump’s woe-is-me facade is a messianic streak. He may not come out and say that he believes he is a messiah, but he has done nothing to dispel the notion, popular among some Christian followers, that God has chosen him to be their leader. Certainly he makes no bones about the fact that he is the only one who can restore America to an imagined past glory—and save them from a terrible future. One of Trump’s earliest campaign moves was to establish the image of a great shining Wall in the minds of his followers. The Wall was a key piece of Trump propaganda to insulate, isolate, and elevate America from the rest of the dangerous world. The idea was actually suggested by political consultants Roger Stone and Sam Nunberg, who were looking for a mnemonic device that would keep Trump on message.2 Trump didn’t love the idea at first, but he tried it out at a rally and the crowds went crazy.3 It turned out to be a stroke of marketing genius. Not only did it play on the us versus them trope, but it also allowed Trump to conjure images of murderers and rapists amassing at the southern border. It allowed him to instill fear in the hearts and minds of his followers, far beyond what is the norm at campaign rallies and yet straight out of the cult leader playbook. The Muslim ban, which Trump tried to implement early in his presidency, was a variation on this theme as many of the Christian right fear that Islam wants to rule the world and impose sharia law on Americans.

  Trump uses all kinds of cult tactics—lying, insulting opponents, projecting his weaknesses onto others, deflecting, distracting, presenting alternative facts and competing versions of reality—to confuse, disorient, and ultimately coerce his followers. Repetition programs the beliefs into the unconscious. But fearmongering tops the list. In my experience, phobia indoctrination—the creation of fearful thoughts to promote and reinforce a desired set of beliefs or behaviors in followers—is one of the most powerful and universal techniques in the cult leader’s arsenal. This is why Trump spends so much air and Twitter time painting a frightening picture of the danger posed by immigrants—Mexicans, Muslims, the migrant caravan. The more vivid the thought or image installed in people’s minds, the greater a hold it has, and the less susceptible it is to rational or critical thought. There are other enemies in Trump’s world—globalists, radical left-wing Democrats, socialists, Hollywood actors, the liberal media—all of whom want to destroy America. Inspiring fear of real or imagined threats overrides people’s sense of agency. It makes them susceptible to a confident authority figure who promises to keep them safe, and can make them more compliant and obedient.

  Fear defines Trump’s philosophy, his personality, and his presidency. It is also his definition of power, according to Bob Woodward’s aptly titled book, Fear. In it, Woodward reported that Trump told him: “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word: fear.” Trump, like cult leaders and dictators throughout history, seizes upon people’s needs and fears and amplifies them. Like these authoritarian leaders, he may manufacture problems that do not exist, and then say “trust me” or “believe me” and promise that only he can fix it.

  Given the right circumstances, sane, rational, well-adjusted people can be made to consider and ultimately believe the most outrageous leaders and propositions. There is a method to the madness. Cult leaders may look and behave differently, but even the craziest, most chaotic ones follow a similar pattern. While they usually have no academic training, they are masters of human psychology, especially social psychology. They understand that human beings are social creatures who, at some level, are wired to follow leaders and powerful members of their group. They know that they can confuse people with false information and lies, and then sow doubt by claiming that they never said what they said in the first place. People like to think they are rational and in control, but the lessons of history and social psychology demonstrate, time and again, that simply isn’t so. We go about our days, and our lives, using unconscious mental models. When cult leaders manipulate those models, in subtle and overt ways, we can be persuaded to believe and do things we might never have considered without such systematic psychological influence.

  Ultimately, their goal is to make people dependent and obedient. Before the 24/7 world of smartphones and the internet, cult leaders would physically isolate members in order to control all aspects of their lives—their behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions, or what I call the BITE model of indoctrination. But physical isolation is not always necessary for indoctrination to occur. Through the media and the internet, people can be indoctrinated—and even recruited—on their smartphones or in their own homes. Some cult leaders, including pimps and human traffickers, use smartphones and digital technology to monitor and control their followers.

  Taken to an extreme, the indoctrination process can break down a person’s fundamental identity to such an extent that they could be said to have a new pseudo-identity, cast in the image of the group’s leader or ideology. In her documentary, The Brainwashing of My Dad, Jen Senko shows how her once loving and liberal father, Frank, came to espouse hate-filled racist views after listening to Rush Limbaugh and other right-wing radio hosts for many hours a day while commuting to work. He was essentially radicalized by these shows and also by Fox News television. I have met and heard about followers of Trump who have undergone radical personality changes, adopting viewpoints that would have been abhorrent to their former selves. Perhaps most confounding is how so many devout Christians have come to believe that a man who cheated on his pregnant wife was handpicked by God to be president.

  Of course, Trump is not carrying out this indoctrination single-handedly through his Twitter account. In the case of Frank Senko and many others, Trump was aided by a vast and mutually supportive right-wing media machine—notably news programming like Fox, Breitbart, Sinclair, Nexstar, Trinity Broadcasting Network, and many others. He has also been helped by internet trolls, social media manipulators, and even—as has been shown by numerous federal investigations—by agents of the Russian government.

  Some may reject the characterization of Trump and his followers, including members of his administration, as a cult. The cult of Trump does not fit the stereotype of religious devotees dressed in special garb—Hare Krishnas in their saffron robes or followers of the late cult leader Rajneesh (also known as Osho) clothed in red. It turns out, these cu
lts are the exceptions. Most people involved in destructive cults dress like you or me, and many work regular jobs. Nor are they necessarily religious—there are political cults as well as psychotherapy and commercial cults as well as personality cults. As we will see, it’s not their beliefs that define these groups as cults but the way they deceptively recruit, indoctrinate, and ultimately control the lives of their members. It may be hard to view an elected figure, much less the president of the United States, in this light. But having worked with victims of cult leaders for more than four decades, the warning signs are hiding in plain sight.

  I am not alone in seeing them. On June 7, 2018, the New York Times ran an editorial, “The Cult of Trump,” describing how the Republican Party was obediently, almost blindly, rallying around the president in a cult of personality.4 Former Tennessee Republican senator Bob Corker was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “It’s becoming a cultish thing, isn’t it?” In 2019, Maryland Democratic representative Jamie Raskin said, “The Republican party is almost like a religious cult surrounding an organized crime family. That’s the mentality.”5 Former White House staffer and Apprentice contestant Omarosa Manigault Newman ends her book, Unhinged, with these memorable words: “I’ve escaped from the cult of Trumpworld. I’m free.”

  Prominent psychiatrists and psychologists detailed their concerns in The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, edited by Yale forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee. The book is filled with descriptions and also dire warnings about Trump’s mental health and his fitness to serve. “In Donald Trump,” one of the authors in the book declares, “we have a frightening Venn diagram consisting of three circles: the first is extreme present hedonism; the second, narcissism; and the third, bullying behavior. These three circles overlap in the middle to create an impulsive, immature, incompetent person who, when in the position of ultimate power, easily slides into the role of tyrant, complete with family members sitting at his proverbial ‘ruling table.’ Like a fledgling dictator, he plants psychological seeds of treachery in sections of our population that reinforce already negative attitudes.”