The Cult of Trump

by Steven Hassan

  HARASSMENT AND SILENCING

  Trump is not the first malignant narcissist to use the courts. Hubbard’s church of Scientology made the legal system a weapon of oppression, as a 1993 U.S. district court memorandum decision made explicitly clear: “[Scientologists] have abused the federal court system by using it, inter alia, to destroy their opponents, rather than to resolve an actual dispute over trademark law or any other legal matter. This constitutes ‘extraordinary, malicious, wanton, and oppressive conduct.’ ”46 Hubbard himself is quoted in a 1955 manual as saying that the purpose “is to harass and discourage rather than win. The law can be used very easily to harass, and enough harassment on somebody who is simply on the thin edge anyway, well knowing that he is not authorized, will generally be sufficient to cause professional decease. If possible, of course, ruin him utterly.”47

  For journalist Paulette Cooper, author of The Scandal of Scientology published in 1971—the first book critical of Scientology—legal harassment was only the start. “They sued me 19 times, all over the world, put me through 50 days of depositions.”48 Scientologists then broke into her house, lifted her fingerprints, and used them to frame her for a bomb threat. Luckily, she avoided the fifteen-year jail sentence when an FBI raid uncovered evidence of the forgery.

  Few individuals can compete with Trump in terms of lawsuits—he has been involved in more than 3,500 litigations, according to an analysis by USA Today.49 He was the plaintiff in 1,900—more than half of them. Before becoming president, he would send his lawyers to sue real estate developers, small business owners, and even cities. “Since winning his party’s nomination in July 2016, Trump has threatened dozens of lawsuits, often against vocal critics and news media companies,” writes Alexis Sachdev in Metro. “He once vowed to ‘open up’ libel laws to make it easier to sue media outlets. He’s also threatened to sue women: those who accuse him of sexual assault, criticize his golf courses, and a teenager who made a website” where users could virtually scratch Trump’s face with kitten paws.50 Trump issues these threats mostly to intimidate—he rarely follows up.

  VIOLENCE

  Malignant narcissists are also well known for violent behavior. “I pulled the wings off a fly so that it couldn’t get away,” Moon told an audience of followers. “I spent hours each day watching it. I watched it clean its legs. I loved it so much that I didn’t want it to escape. That is why I pulled its wings off.”51 Allen Tate Wood, a former Moonie, once asked Moon about his views on homosexuals. Moon replied, “Tell them that if it really becomes a problem to cut it off, barbecue it, put it in a shoe box and send it to me.”52 He was referring to their penises.

  Keith Raniere, leader of the coaching cult NXIVM, became notorious when it was learned women were being branded. “We took turns holding one another down—three would be on them and the fourth would be filming,” said ex-member Sarah Edmondson. “The first woman laid on the table and then the other women and I were sitting on her holding her legs down. With the first cut of her flesh—they burned her flesh—we were crying, we were shaking, we were holding one another. It was horrific. It was like a bad horror movie. We even had these surgical masks on because the smell of flesh was so strong… imagine someone taking a lit match to your crotch and drawing a line with it.”53

  Sexual abuse is another commonality.54 The children in “Moses” David Berg’s Children of God cult, for instance, had sexual activity forced upon them at a very early age, some as young as two years old.55 Women were turned into “Happy Hookers for Jesus” and sent out to get new recruits as well as earn money and favors for the group.56

  Dozens of women have made allegations of sexual assault against Trump, a situation that was brought to the fore by the Access Hollywood tape and also by the #MeToo movement.57 But sexual abuse is most often committed behind closed doors, with only the perpetrator and the victim as witnesses. Divorce documents filed by Trump’s first wife, Ivana, allege “cruel and inhuman” treatment, with verbal and physical abuse, including rape. Ivana has since made statements recanting her sworn testimony, saying that she does not want the rape to be considered in a “literal or criminal sense.”58

  Many of history’s dictators were malignant narcissists. A thorough examination of their sadism and cruelty is beyond the scope of this book. But it is clear that when a malignant narcissist obtains power, they gain a platform for inflicting enormous harm. A simple review of history is filled with sobering reminders of the danger of violent leaders—Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot… the list goes on.

  PARANOIA

  In his 1975 book, Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism, renowned psychiatrist and professor Otto Kernberg describes paranoia as the root cause of the malignant narcissist’s need for self-inflation. “The paranoid tendencies in malignant narcissists reflect their projection of unresolved hatred onto others whom they persecute. They have a deep sense of mistrust and view others as enemies/fools or idols, either devaluing or idealizing them. They have disorganized superegos and consequently lack the capacity for remorse, sadness or self-exploration. They are preoccupied with conspiracy theories. Their pathological grandiosity is a defense against paranoid anxiety.”59 In short, paranoia is the driving force behind malignant narcissism, the fear that people are judging you, and working and conspiring against you.

  As we have seen, Trump’s approach is to fight fear with fear, to return to that telling quote: “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, fear.”60 Interestingly, Trump’s fear of assault extends to the invisible—he is a germaphobe. So too was Hubbard, who demanded that his clothes be washed multiple times. “His clothes had to be washed in pure water thirteen times, using thirteen different buckets of water to rinse a shirt,” said Tonja Burden, a former Scientology member.61 Hubbard, she said, “frequently exploded if he found dust or dirt or smelled soap in his clothes.” Trump washes his hands multiple times a day, as he acknowledged to radio host Howard Stern in an interview.62 His love of fast food arises, in part, from a fear of being poisoned, which is “one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s—nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade,” reports former White House insider Michael Wolff in his book, Fire and Fury.63

  ALLIES

  One of the more tragic features of malignant narcissism is an inability to trust friends and subordinates. Their loyalty must be continually tested, often in abusive and humiliating ways. Trump is notorious for record-setting staff turnover and his preoccupation with perceived disloyalty and leaks.64 Once-valued associates become villains and “idiots” overnight.

  The brilliant 2004 film Downfall is notable for its three-dimensional portrayal of Hitler. The climactic scene, where Hitler rages and curses at his subordinates for failing and accuses them of sabotaging him is all too true to life. Malignant narcissists see enemies and danger everywhere and will lash out at allies. By the end, Hitler was so racked by anxiety that he even wanted his toilet bowl’s water boiled and analyzed for traces of poison.65 Joseph Stalin’s purges—born from political paranoia—were just as lethal for his allies and followers. At a 1937 conference of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, Stalin’s people applauded him for eleven consecutive minutes, fearing that the first to stop would be killed or sent to prison. Finally, one man stopped, the director of a paper factory. “To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down,” writes Nobel Prize winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. That same night the director of the paper factory was arrested and sent to prison for ten years. “Authorities came up with some official reason for his sentence, but during his interrogation, he was told: Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!”66

  ENEMIES

  Another great constant for the narcissist is his or her obsession with perceived enemies. We have seen this over and over again with Trump—the mainstream media, Democrats, globalists, the deep state, immigrants, Muslims, and really, any critic. As former White House aide Cliff Sims reveals in his memoir, Team of Vipers, soon a
fter becoming president, Trump summoned him to help draw up a list of staffers he thought could not be trusted. “I was sitting there with the President of the United States basically compiling an enemies list—but these enemies were within his own administration. If it had been a horror movie, this would have been the moment when everyone suddenly realizes the call is coming from inside the house,” Sims wrote.67 It was only in retrospect that this struck Sims as remarkable. While in the White House, this bizarre cultlike behavior apparently seemed normal.

  Trump might have had reason to be suspicious—his White House was notoriously leaky. But he clearly took it to an extreme. This is generally true of malignant narcissists. There is always a powerful enemy to be vanquished—an urge that stems from both their paranoia and their need for attention. According to psychologist Craig Malkin, “The greatest danger… is that pathological narcissists can lose touch with reality in subtle ways that become extremely dangerous over time. When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they can remain special, despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious before it’s too late.”68

  Narcissists project their fears and anxieties outward. By externalizing their fears—often onto people—they believe they can destroy those negative emotions. They gain a feeling of safety from identifying and attacking enemies. To narcissists, admitting vulnerability, especially personal vulnerability, is far more terrifying than any foe.

  For the political cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, conspiracy theories and paranoia were defining traits. “To say that Lyndon was slightly paranoid would be like saying the Titanic had a bit of a leak,”69 according to Jim Bakker, a disgraced televangelist who shared a prison cell with LaRouche. Former cult insider Yves Messer has an excellent website, LaRoucheplanet.info, which details LaRouche’s obsession with international bankers, British royalty, Jews, and a long list of other enemies. LaRouche spent the latter part of his life ensconced in a fortified compound out of fear of assassination, believing that his ideas were so threatening to the established order that they put his life in danger, though there is no indication that there were any assassination attempts against him. In addition to the enormous amount of vitriol he directed at his ever-shifting political enemies, much of his abuse was directed at former members whom he saw as dangerous traitors.70

  Most distressingly, a cult leader’s paranoia and vindictiveness toward enemies can become a self-perpetuating cycle. Hubbard institutionalized his paranoia with his Fair Game policy, which was a blueprint for how to treat perceived enemies of Scientology—so-called Suppressive Persons, people who criticize Scientology, including myself. “I never forget it, always even the score,” Hubbard once wrote.71 The policy states that any Suppressive Person “may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist… [they] may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”72 While officially the church canceled the Fair Game policy in 1968 because of bad press, there is ample evidence that the practice continued. Hubbard’s vindictiveness would allow no less: “There are no good reporters. There are no good government or SP group agents. The longer you try to be nice, the worse off you will be. And the sooner one learns this, the happier he will be.”73

  Sadly, paranoia can drive malignant narcissists to harm their allies as well as their enemies. Jim Jones told his followers that they were all victims of a “profound conspiracy.”74 Fearing loss of control over his people—or possibly believing his worst paranoid fears—Jones chose to kill himself and, tragically, to bring his followers with him.

  A FINAL WORD

  What goes into the making of a malignant narcissist—how much is nature and how much nurture? Interestingly, malignant narcissists are at least seven times more likely to be men.75 They are also more likely to have biological relatives—siblings and other family members—with antisocial personality disorders, though it is not clear how much of that is due to the common familial environment. According to researchers Mila Goldner-Vukov and Laurie-Jo Moore, people with antisocial personality disorders may be more likely to raise children with malignant narcissism. “The attitude of parents of children who will develop malignant narcissism is controlling and sadistic. They demand that their children be tough, tolerate pain, show no emotion and learn to manipulate others. Parental figures are cold and spiteful but over-admiring of their children’s talents and charms.”76

  As we have seen, there is evidence that cult leaders and dictators may have experienced insecure or disorganized attachment in the first two years of their lives as a result of absent or authoritarian parenting. Such parenting can interrupt the bonding process, depriving a young child of the opportunity to feel safe and loved, and ultimately of developing a healthy sense of well-being. As they grow into adulthood, they may try to compensate for that lack of a healthy sense of self by seeking praise and accolades from devotees in the outside world—sometimes at all costs. It becomes almost a matter of survival.

  With his cold and distant—indeed absent—mother, and his hard-charging and authoritarian father, Trump appears to fit this pattern. Of course, having such parents is no guarantee that one will become a narcissist. It is merely one more factor in Trump’s life. Another would be his early and intense exposure to the teachings of Norman Vincent Peale, with his take-no-prisoners, the world is your oyster, harbor no doubts, think-it-and-it-will-happen ethos. I have counseled people who suffered debilitating delusions as a result of their involvement with Peale’s school of thought. While positive thinking can be beneficial, it has to be balanced by critical thinking, humility, and a social support system that is willing to say when a person is off base. The danger is when it veers off into magical thinking—that if you believe fully, the universe will manifest. If it doesn’t happen people often blame themselves—they aren’t believing or praying hard enough. Faith healings are a variant of this kind of thinking—and they can be deadly if a person forgoes medical treatment. Faith and prayer can be helpful when dealing with an illness, but seeing highly trained doctors is a wise choice.

  For what is most likely a combination of reasons, “Trump felt compelled to go to war with the world. It was a binary, zero-sum choice for him: You either dominated or you submitted. You either created and exploited fear, or you succumbed to it,” said Trump’s ghostwriter Tony Schwartz.77

  And yet narcissists are highly dependent—they can’t survive without other people to admire, serve, and prop them up. At the same time, Trump may address a need in his followers. As Barack Obama memorably claimed in a speech at the University of Illinois in September 2018, Trump is a “symptom not the cause” of the current political and cultural climate.78 The question is—what has made such a large swath of Americans so susceptible to Trump?

  CHAPTER FOUR America, a Country Wired for Manipulation

  On February 27, 2019, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland, Donald Trump stood before his audience in all his riffing glory. Ten minutes into the speech, he told them what they might already have suspected. “You know, I’m totally off script right now. This is how I got elected, by being off script.”1 Not that long ago, during the GOP primaries, many in the audience might have viewed him with suspicion, if not disdain—a brash and unseemly outsider trying to horn in on the Grand Old Party. Now his remark earned him one of many standing ovations. Trump was supposed to speak for forty-five minutes but he went on for two hours, his longest speech ever. Almost nobody got up to leave. They were rapt. Trump had them in the palm of his hand.

  Trump has not only taken over the Republican Party, he has transformed it into its own opposite: the party that used to be concerned about deficit spending but has racked up a trillion-dollar federal deficit since Trump took office. The party that was outraged when Bill Clinton lied about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky but turned a blind eye to—and maybe even believed—Trump’s thousands of lies, in
cluding about his alleged affairs with a porn star and a former Playboy playmate. The party that loved John McCain—the late great war hero and stalwart Republican senator who dared oppose Trump on health care—but said almost nothing when Trump insulted and denigrated him.

  How did this happen? How did people—politicians and ordinary citizens—fall in line to support a man who stood for everything they despised a few short years earlier? How did they lose their moral compass, override their conscience, and throw good judgment and common sense out the window?

  To find answers ultimately means looking at how the mind works. While its machinations are still a mystery, much progress has been made in understanding how we, as individuals, take in and process information, and also how our collective minds can be manipulated and controlled. We go through our days thinking we are rational beings, but we are much more susceptible to manipulation than we think. That may be truer now than ever before. The sheer amount of information coming our way and the speed with which we receive it—coupled with our fast-paced, overworked, overscheduled world—has created a perfect storm of vulnerability.

  Cults proliferate when a society is undergoing rapid change and particularly when there is a breakdown in trust between people and major institutions. The Great Recession of 2008 created economic hardships so severe that many people have not fully recovered. This is especially true in the American heartland, where Trump has many supporters. Many feel betrayed by government, religion, science, and big business. Every day the headlines are filled with news of clergy sexual abuse, political corruption, corporations caught lying and cheating, and pharmaceutical companies pushing drugs with terrible side effects, and in the case of opioids, creating a national crisis. Meanwhile, the mass media—TV and magazines as well as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter—are filled with news about the rich and famous, chronicling their every movement, and even their meals. Celebrities, often vacuous and defined by their access to money, are rushing in to fill the cultural void, capturing our attention and our loyalty, engaging the public through subtle and not-so-subtle influence techniques. Many people are drawn to them, vicariously experiencing their wealth and fame. We live in a celebrity culture, with a celebrity president. With social media, it has become possible for ordinary citizens to become celebrities in their own right, using some of the same influence techniques that people like Trump exploit.