When the Emperor Has No Clothes

And still the cult won't crack

I write this on the Fourth of July, Independence Day, when we of the United States are supposed to celebrate our foundational separation from Rule-by-King. So admittedly I’m not feeling patriotic and don’t give a hoot about hotdogs, fireworks or flags. I’ll take the stance, again, of sitting this one out before I hightail it to my treehouse.

The resounding question I ask most terrible days of this “President’s” unfathomable two terms is how. How did we get here and more importantly—with his approval rate in the golden toilet—how in the world are we still here?

What I’m waiting for at this point is for more of his followers to flee the compound. For someone, like my mom for instance (elderly well-meaning Christian church-goer with zero guns in Connecticut) who had no business voting for him in the first place or talking about her second amendment rights, to admit they are wrong, cut their losses and run. But they don’t. They can’t. It’s gone too deep.

There have been endless experts since his first coronation to link the Trumpacy not only to authoritarianism but, perhaps even more disturbingly, to cult psychology.

It seems easy to get lured into a cult, and almost impossible to get out.

There’s a TikTok kicking around now from Jayne, “political junkie, history teacher, disgusted American,” who breaks down in six succinct minutes the six defining points of the Cult of Personality that explain Trump’s unflagging popularity among his base. It’s certainly not his policy, of which we all know he has none.

@jayneconverse36/27/25 They’re not following Trump because of what he does. They’re following him because of how he makes them feel. Understanding it is the first step in breaking the spell. #cultpsychology #Authoritarianism #PoliticalPsychology #TrumpSupporters #fyp #CultOfPersonality

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In summary, Jayne says:

1. Rather than policy politics it’s identity. Hey, he’s throwing up his middle finger to the same people and systems we hate! New vocab term: “identity fusion.” You merge with your leader. An affront to him feels like an attack on you.

2. He offers revenge rather than solutions. (Again no policy, just anger). Trump amplifies the loss and isolation people feel, the fear and desperation. Look at this sad terrible scary dangerous broken America. We will go after who broke this, the enemy “Them,” and make them pay, whoever they are (the higher educated, the differently-colored or -sexual, the evil liberal, the lying media). This the stuff of authoritarianism.

3. Order/strength. Play savior, strong man. “I alone can fix it.” He needs to make us dependent on him. We need this anointed him to Make America Great Again. How? It’s just words. Action doesn’t matter.

4. The info bubble. “They don’t just believe lies, they live inside them.” The far right are fed only their own media in a closed intractable loop. Vocab term: “epistemic closure.” When you no longer accept any outside info.

5. Secret shame leads to doubling down. Maybe some are checking the receipts and wising up (slightly), but they likely can’t admit it to themselves or others after investing and losing so much. There’s shame in being wrong so they lean in instead of out.

6. Feeling seen. “They” are after you. You’re not crazy, they are. He gives them a sense of belonging in a secure enclave of sameness. Emotional manipulation is the game.

I often wonder how someone with such a shit personality could manage to create a Cult of Personality, but none of this has much to do with anything real. The worse his words are, somehow the more effective. I think people like my Connecticut church-goer must know better but after a lifetime on the right they can’t just go vote for a Democrat so what to do. Shared fear, shared hate, shared ignorance, shared language, secret private shame keeps them hovering there like fruitflies on their rotten banana.

“He just saw the cracks in our society and he weaponized them.”

Jayne’s call to action at the end is to offer not more shame from the other side of the crack but the opposite of weapons: an olive branch. Speak truth, but kindly. Offer real community, dignity and care. “Break the spell.”

Since the spell is a mere card tower constructed of words, albeit “the best words,” I thought it would be fun to line up the language of Trump that seems lifted right out famous cult leaders’ playbooks. There’s no shortage of this. It could go on forever.

• “I want to be your protector … You will no longer be abandoned, lonely, or scared. You will no longer be in danger,” was similar to how Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), spoke to the women and girls he controlled in his polygamous cult. He is currently serving a life sentence for two convictions of child sexual assault in 2011.

• “Nobody will be tougher on ISIS than me. Nobody,” and “I know more about offense and defense than [the generals] will ever understand, believe me. Believe me. Than they will ever understand,” echoes the “I am your true savior” language used by self-proclaimed Messiah figures like Sun Myung Moon (d. 2012), founder of the Unification Church whose followers are often referred to as the “Moonies.”

• “Make America Great Again,” resembles the apocalyptic narrative of some cults, where a destroyed world will be replaced by a utopian society once evil forces are defeated. Such as the Branch Davidians, under David Koresh, who thought the end times would occur at their compound in Waco, Texas, which they kind of did for seventy of his followers who died in the siege.

• “Sleepy Joe, Crazy Kamala, Tampon Tim,” and so on and on. Trump’s practice of insulting and demeaning opponents is similar to the bully pulpit tactics used by cult leaders from Jim Jones (d. 1978), mass suicide (“Jonestown”) leader of the Peoples Temple cult whose dissenters were labelled “evil” and “traitor,” to L. Ron Hubbard (d. 1986) of Scientology whose defectors are “wogs,” “squirrels,” “suppressives.”

The touchstone book firmly connecting Trump with all the many cult leaders comes from Steven Hassan, defected Moonie, who wrote The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control in 2019.

Let’s end with a round up of quotes from The Cult of Trump before we retreat to our hidey holes and call it a day:

• “[Cult] members learn a new vocabulary that is designed to constrict their thinking into absolute, black-and-white, thought-stopping clichés that conform to group ideology. (“Lock her up” and “Build the Wall” are Trumpian examples. Even his put-downs and nicknames—Crooked Hillary, Pocahontas for Elizabeth Warren—function to block other thoughts. Terms like “deep state” and “globalist” also act as triggers. They rouse emotion and direct attention.)”

• “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 [researcher Robert] 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.”

• “Nobody will be tougher on ISIS than me. Nobody,” he said during his campaign announcement speech on June 16, 2015. “There’s nobody bigger or better at the military than I am,” he stated a few days later. The following month came this memorably hypnotic line, one that echoes Moon’s language: “I know more about offense and defense than [the generals] will ever understand, believe me. Believe me. Than they will ever understand. Than they will ever understand.” It’s a classic example of Trump’s tried-and-true habit of lulling his audience through repetition. A few months later came another infamous claim: “I know more about ISIS [the Islamic State militant group] than the generals do. Believe me.”

• “It turns out the NAR [New Apostolic Reformation, a far right Christian supremacist sect]—with its millions of adherents—has become one of Trump’s biggest supporters. They are told, and many believe, that Trump was picked by God to lead the nation. They are Trump’s true believers. They view themselves as “spiritual warriors” who think they are helping Trump carry out his God-given mission.”

• “Jim Jones, who, as he was taking his last breaths, told his followers at Jonestown that it was all ‘the media’s fault — don’t believe them.’”

Ivo Kruusamägi, CC BY-SA 4.0

Indeed this Fourth of July parade of emperors have no clothes. They have words. And it’s the audience on the sidelines (“protected” yet most vulnerable) that need us to gently hand them the little care pack of sunscreen, sanitizer and earplugs.