Summary of Steven Hassan's The Cult of Trump

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Trump’s first cabinet meeting was bizarre and unsettling. The country had already witnessed the almost daily onslaught of bizarre and contradictory statements and behavior coming from the Trump White House, but this should have been different.
#2 Trump’s cabinet members may not have been passionate followers when they first met Trump, but they were still tied to him due to the immense power they could potentially have.
#3 Cult leaders and regimes exert their power in a systematic fashion. They control information, and people learn to trust only the publications and news that come from the group itself. They create impossible standards of performance, and members feel guilty and ashamed if they don’t meet them.
#4 Trump’s supporters are typically those who are absolute, black-and-white, and thought-stopping in their thinking. They learn a new vocabulary that conforms to group ideology.

Sujets

• Général
• Political opportunity

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 10 avril 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669381587
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Steven Hassan's The Cult of Trump
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Trump’s first cabinet meeting was bizarre and unsettling. The country had already witnessed the almost daily onslaught of bizarre and contradictory statements and behavior coming from the Trump White House, but this should have been different.

#2

Trump’s cabinet members may not have been passionate followers when they first met Trump, but they were still tied to him due to the immense power they could potentially have.

#3

Cult leaders and regimes exert their power in a systematic fashion. They control information, and people learn to trust only the publications and news that come from the group itself. They create impossible standards of performance, and members feel guilty and ashamed if they don’t meet them.

#4

Trump’s supporters are typically those who are absolute, black-and-white, and thought-stopping in their thinking. They learn a new vocabulary that conforms to group ideology.

#5

After World War II, American intelligence agencies began to aggressively engage in mind control research. The CIA performed drug, electroshock, and hypnosis experiments on human subjects to develop new ways of extracting information and confessions from Soviet spies and other captives.

#6

During the late 1960s and 1970s, cults began to proliferate. Some of them, like the Charles Manson group, made headlines. The biggest cult story of the time was the 1978 massacre in Jonestown, Guyana, which resulted in the death of 908 followers of Jim Jones.

#7

The rise of cults can be attributed to a few other factors as well. Among the most fundamental is the breakdown of families and communities, as well as the growing sense that our society is in disarray.

#8

Trump’s cult-like behavior can be seen in how he runs his businesses and office. His family members are the first tier of trusted business advisors, and his cabinet and Republican members of Congress are the second. His fans and supporters are the lowest tier.

#9

Trump’s support comes from the Republican Party, the Christian right, libertarian groups, the National Rifle Association, and white supremacy groups. He has depended on advisors such as Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, and Stephen Miller to set an agenda.

#10

Trump has gotten millions of people to believe, support, and even adore him by using techniques that control almost every aspect of a person’s behavior, thoughts, and emotions.

#11

Trump’s Wall is most compelling because of what it will do - keep out murderers and rapists. Trump has mastered the art of inspiring fear of real and imagined threats, which is what cult leaders do best.

#12

The goal of cult indoctrination is to make a person dependent and obedient, creating a sort of cult self that suppresses the authentic self that a person is born with.

#13

Religious cults, like the Moonies, Heaven’s Gate, and more recently, the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, use religious dogma to justify their ends. They draw on occult lore.

#14

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.

#15

Some cults hold expensive workshops and seminars that provide participants with insight and enlightenment. These groups use basic mind control techniques to provide participants with peak experiences, which are usually hypnotically induced trances or states of euphoria.

#16

There are many different types of cults, from computer to science fiction and UFO cults. Heaven’s Gate falls into the last category but it was also a religious cult.

#17

Trump’s presidency was, in part, a personality cult. He used politics and religious right-wing ideology to sell himself and, by association, the Republican Party. He eliminated all sources of information other than that provided by the cult, and created an in-group of followers in contrast to an evil out-group.

#18

Trump has also taken the advice to repeat his lies over and over again, not just in the way he states and restates fabrications and falsehoods, but also in the way he tells self-serving, often inaccurate versions of his own life story.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Trump’s life story is that of a self-made man who has weathered many ups and downs by dint of his personal attributes. He has seized upon and created opportunities, but he has also been helped and even rescued many times.

#2

Fred Trump, Elizabeth’s husband, had a son named Donald in 1950. Fred built a huge mansion for his family, and in 1950, he moved his wife and son into it.

#3

Trump’s childhood was defined by his father, who was not an affectionate or praiseful parent. He was hypercritical and did not offer praise. Trump believed he could not be one without the other.

#4

Trump was often in detention as a child, and his initials became shorthand for punishment among his classmates. He would later describe his approach when someone tried to push him around: I push back a hell of a lot harder than I was pushed in the first place.

#5