Trump shares key traits with cult leaders

Time Magazine

In a piece for Psychology Today called ‘Dangerous cult leaders’, former FBI agent Joe Navarro lists out typical traits of a cult leader.

He is one of the FBI’s top profilers and a founding member of their elite Behavioral Analysis Unit who has studied people like Jim Jones (Jonestown, Guyana), David Koresh (Branch Davidians), Charles Manson, and other infamous cult leaders.

Navarro concluded: “what stands out about these individuals is that they were or are all pathologically narcissistic.”

He writes,

They all have or had an over-abundant belief that they were special, that they and they alone had the answers to problems, and that they had to be revered.

They demanded perfect loyalty from followers, they overvalued themselves and devalued those around them, they were intolerant of criticism, and above all they did not like being questioned or challenged.

And yet, in spite of these less than charming traits, they had no trouble attracting those who were willing to overlook these features.

Of this list, Trump would score at least 90/130 for having a narcissistic personality.

Add cult leader.

Joe Navarro, M.A. is 25-yr veteran of the FBI & has written about 50 Traits of a Cult Leader. Recognize any Trump traits? https://t.co/5AKLOdqhTP

— 🌷🐯 Hear-Me-Roar 🐯🌷 (@sara4SF) October 22, 2018

In a Raw Story interview earlier this month, Dr. John Zinner, the former head of the Unit on Family Therapy Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), confirmed that the president is suffering from narcissistic personality disorder:

Donald Trump has failed us because he is, as he has always been, incompetent, and he suffers from extremely severe mental disorders, which render him incapable of attending to any issue beyond his own personal need for adulation. The mental condition he suffers most from is formally known as a severe instance of narcissistic personality disorder.

Dr. Zinner said that the disorder “is the failure in childhood and beyond to develop an inner sense of worth or self-esteem,” and added that it “makes one’s worth entirely dependent upon admiration from others.”

Experts argue the case in a damning new documentary too

Flickr / Marvin Moose

A new documentary, #Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump, which releases on September 1, lines up interviews with mental health professionals who all argue that the president is not fit for the U.S. office, let alone another term.

The film pulls up instances of President Trump’s symptoms of the disorder. Clips of his comments like “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” are used to prove that point.

The inflation of his inaugural crowd numbers, his claims that he’s won championships he hasn’t even played, are all part of the damning film.

I see the resemblance… pic.twitter.com/8gd3qpcyaH

— Edward hersom (@Edwardhersom2) August 22, 2020

A former cult member draws parallels of Trump to his leader

Wikimedia

In an interview with Vox, cult expert Steven Hassan discussed his new book called The Cult of Trump. He was a former member of the “Moonies” cult in the ’70s, a branch of the Unification Church of the United States led by Sun Myung Moon.

Why does he think Trump’s followers are cult-like?

For one, he says, watching and listening to Trump reminded him of Sun Myung Moon himself.

He elaborates that both of them have a “Kind of God complex where they’re the only one with the answers, the only one who can fix things. Moon was going to create a theocracy and Trump was going to “drain the swamp.”

But what really made me think of Trump as a cult was the way the groups who supported him were behaving, especially religious groups who believed that God had chosen Trump or was using Trump. There are actual pro-Trump religious groups, like the New Apostolic Reformation, whose leaders were saying, “We’re of God. The rest of the world is of Satan, and we need to follow our chosen leaders who are connected to God.” There was this blind-faith aspect to the whole thing and an unwillingness to look at any inconvenient facts. That’s all very cult-like.

Excellent and spot on. I think more Christians need to be vocal and speak against this! If you believe God is a liar, which I suspect you don’t, then Trump is his guy. The Bible talks about The Great Deceiver. No? https://t.co/O6QBc5wQyw

— Steven Hassan (@CultExpert) August 26, 2020

MAGA supporters willing to sacrifice themselves and others?

Screenshot / YouTube

According to a Motherjones piece, cult experts are warning that Trumpism is starting to look very familiar.

When President Trump suggested reopening the country while the coronavirus was at its raging worst, some of his biggest backers sounded their support on cable TV.

Texas Lieutenant Governor and staunch Trump supporter, Dan Patrick said that “as a senior citizen” he was “all in” on “willing to take a chance on survival in exchange for keeping America that all America loves.”

He also said that lots of grandparents were willing to sacrifice themselves for the American economy.

Right-wing internet commentator Jesse Kelly tweeted: “If given the choice between dying and plunging the country I love into a Great Depression, I’d happily die.”

I dealt with suicidal cults before. I encountered people who are willing to die for their faith, ideology, race, etc. But, I never encountered anyone who is willing to die for someone else’s 401k. This is a whole new level of craziness. https://t.co/68PeKqMr2x

— Ali H. Soufan (@Ali_H_Soufan) March 24, 2020

They are also willing to turn a blind eye

Twitter / @SaintDonaldTrump

While religious conservatives have turned a blind eye to Trump’s past — everything from his infamous Access Hollywood tape where he brags about groping women to affair allegations with adult film star Stormy Daniels, there are some who believe that ‘God uses flawed people,’ like Trump.

if you’re a christian and you vote for trump surprise you’re actually a fake christian

— Sarah Beattie (@nachosarah) August 25, 2020

One of his supporters, Jasper Preston, an African American man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference explained to The Guardian why Christians support Trump:

It’s about his calling for his position. We didn’t want him to be Christlike; he’s human like you and me. He’s made morally and ethically wrong decisions in the past and so have I. When the Access Hollywood tape came out, I was the first to say that was wrong and he said that was wrong. God uses flawed people to get the job done. God has never used a perfect man because there is no perfect man: we are yet to have a perfect man as president.

‘My Party is a cult’

Flickr / The White House

At the Republican caucuses in Iowa earlier this year, Joe Walsh who was campaigning to be the 2020 Republican presidential nominee stated that the GOP — his party — is a cult.

My party is a cult. I’m a conservative Republican; Fox News won’t have me on. Conservative media will ignore me because they’re a cult with Trump. The Republican parties in each state: they are a cult for Trump. I didn’t sufficiently get all of that and that’s made this really hard.

Axios noted that it only took Trump his first 500 days to “hijack” the formerly conservative GOP. “The majority party in America is fully defined by his policies, his popularity with the base, his facts-be-damned mentality, his ability to control and quiet virtually all Republican elected officials,” they wrote.

In fact, with Republican candidates vying for office, it’s not about ideology or policy. It’s about who is most pro-Trump.

Charlie Sykes, a conservative political commentator told The Guardian:

In every state I’ve seen, Republican candidates for office feel they have to vie with each other for who is the most pro-Trump. Any dissent from Trumpism poses a threat to your viability within the Republican party. The political leadership is taking its cue from the base, and the base is all in for Donald Trump.

In 2018, The New York Times editorial board wrote that if the primaries did one thing, it’s that it “underscored the striking degree to which President Trump has transformed the Republican party from a political organization into a cult of personality”.