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I am wanting to compare the Cult of Trump to the DLM cult and the disillusion of those beliefs. I am seeing a lot of magical thinking in Trump followers. What is it like to wake up from the cult?
I remember waking up from the DLM cult and I was SO angry! I felt as if my soul had been raped. I understand how hard it is to face a reality I resisted for decades.
Michael Cohen refers to Trump as a cult. He was fully immersed in the kool-aid. Now that the entire White House staff has been put at risk by his policies and are now seemingly in chaos, how will they personally sort this out.
https://www.yjc.ir/en/news/48439/trumps-secret-service-reportedly-frustrated-over-covid-19-risks
"White House Secret Service agents, particularly those working close to US President Donald Trump, have been complaining in private about coronavirus-related health risks they have been exposed to in recent months, the Washington Post revealed citing anonymous claims reportedly made in discussion groups and on message boards. According to the report, security staffers assigned to work for the President in the field - including the campaign rallies – have not been tested for SARS-CoV-2 since late August, despite working at highly populated, non-socially distanced and mostly maskless events."
I doubt many of his staff will speak out openly due to the financial and career risks they face. I am very curious to see how many will quietly quit, like KellyAnn Conway(now COVID+), and how many will have the courage to speak out. Also curious as to the Evangelical "Christians," will they ever wake up?
Please share your thoughts.
Karen
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I'd be surprised if people in the Cult of Trump will be able to snap out of it and be reasonable and logical thinkers.
But somehow in the worst of scenarios involving Trump they will have some kind of QAnon type response. Nah, QAnon? But, they will come up with phrases and memes that will allow them to keep their views and so they won't implode either.
Dang it! We're one America, damnit! 
Modified by eDrek at Sat, Oct 03, 2020, 14:45:50
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I just hope they aren't making a list of disloyal naysayers.
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those Evangelical Christians - they've really taken a grip in America haven't they. bit of a worry, that, and I suppose it's going to spread to the rest of the world, she says gloomily.
Yes, a Trump cult, holding hand with the evangelicals. When I heard about his getting the virus at first I thought oh well that might make things easier if Trump has to retire from the presidential race but actually I can't think of any good coming of any scenario, sorry. I'm just hoping some unknown factor comes into play that calms things down a bit.
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People disillusioned with Trump can vote him out of office, or try to, maybe they'll succeed maybe not. People disillusioned with cult leaders such as Prem Rawat can only walk away, they can't swap him for someone better.
So there's no comparison to be made on that all important basic level.
People who have chosen to get close to any source of power have to put up with the consequences if it all goes wrong; they take the rewards when it's going well, but can they complain when it doesn't ?
Comparing Trump to a cult leader is a way of avoiding and dealing with the awful reality that is a political system become corrupt & decaying.
That isn't to pick on the USA, the same is evident here in the UK & the EU....the West is in decline & I hate it, many don't, they cheer it on.
I don't expect evangelicals to change their opinions any time soon, but I'm not bothered. That they accept the separation of powers (maybe reluctantly) makes them just part of the furniture & not a fundamental problem.
There are people who want to burn down the house, but I'm not on their side.
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sorry Pat, don't quite follow that - what's the all important basic level? I mean you can swap Rawat for any number of other cult leaders can't you. and people did, swapped him for the TM group a lot. and then later on people left Rawat only to take up with Jesus or Buddha or the Dalai llama and I think the intensity of the experience of a Trump rally would equate to the early days with more excitement at DLM programs.
I agree the political system is corrupt and decaying that's the same here too, yes the West is in decline and I hate it too. But I'm far more bothered by the Evangelicals, I can spit chips on the subject of evangelism, I see them as the delivery trucks for the koolaid and do not think they are 'part of the furniture' - their insanity must be appeased by the highest in the land, Mr Trump Himself.
I don't want to burn the house down either. Preferably I'd rather not get burnt at all. I am scared of people. They are more and more unhinged and I think that is inevitably going to get worse with the coming generation. It's like there is a developing intolerance of the idea of an objective reality. Nowadays you can get into trouble just for mentioning it. ooh that's so old-fashioned, such binary thinking but the fact is we all have to live in it and I don't see people jumping off cliffs saying I can fly yet.
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sure you can call Trump supporters a 'cult' if you want but that doesn't make it so. Why not just a 'fanclub' or something like that. And to repeat, the 'all important basic level' is the ability to remove the cult leader from his position, if indeed Trump believers qualify as being members of a cult, which I don't consider they do.
I refuse to take part in the insanity which is engulfing America or even think about it too much, so I'm not going to side with partisan opinions.
I am scared of people. They are more and more unhinged and I think that
is inevitably going to get worse with the coming generation.
A little while ago I compared the present period in the US with that preceding the English civil war in the C17th, which was when people became unhinged for reasons which are now difficult to grasp, but were just as confusing to those alive at the time. Like now.
Money & power; who has it & how it's used for whose benefit was the real bone of contention. Again like now, & again the vast majority don't really understand how their political system works. Hence the confusion.
....we all have to live in it and I don't see people jumping off cliffs saying I can fly yet.
That's so 1967 & LSD it brings a tear of nostalgia to my eye. 
Related link: http://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/10/04/there-are-trillions-at-stake/
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I'm quite happy if you want to call Trump supporters a fan club or if you want to call them a cult - I'll agree with both. By definition, ie being Trump supporters, they can't change him for someone else. Sure he appealed to them through their ideologies, but appeal he did and he can take them down the garden path and round any mulberry bush he chooses.
ah you think we're more unhinged than normal but it could get better again? that's a nice thought, I guess you're right it's going to be a bit of an up and down affair through the centuries isn't it. But I guess I'm beginning to think that it's not just our age speaking, in general we really have reached a bit of a tipping point - where the rock (genes in meltdown) meets up with the hard place (environmental stress) and not much wiggle room left.
Got any blacker? she drawls (how very 80's is that )
oh yes, the article you linked to. yep. it's the same over here - every new minister goes off to some conference in Asia and then you see him on the news with the big dollars smile.
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Like Lesley, I don't see a good outcome any time soon.
Even if Trump dies or otherwise retires from public life, the koolaid factories and delivery network is established.
The political system is rotten, with far too much reliance on money, and on candidates who will simply push the right buttons. There's no depth, no nuance, no vision except delusionally bigging up America.
There's so much magical thinking, from the evangelicals and the right wing conspiracy nuts to the general denial of science, which is funny, as science is nothing more than looking for solid evidence of stuff. And then deeper, and I think more insidious as it is as fundamental as apple pie, there's this American thing where if you believe something strongly enough it'll come true. If you have faith, you can't fail. The hero is full of bullets and someone shouts 'you can do it' and he spits out the dust and fights back harder than he could before he was shot the first time. Wishful thinking gone mad.
I don't know how this attitude is going to be replaced with a bit of humility, a bit of stoicism, a bit of acceptance of our smallness and vulnerability.
I can't see how things will improve until attitudes change. America won't be humiliated but won't be stable without some humility getting in somehow.
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13, I (we) were all brought up with the American fight-through-it and overcome story line.
And now you're telling me (us) that as Americans we're off the rails.
I'm so in my mind. Where can I go? What can I think? What can I do?
It's an f-ing mess!
Hell, maybe I'm watching too much news on the TV.
Modified by eDrek at Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 13:05:52
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Maybe you just need a few more Muslims. Traveling in Muslim countries, insha'Allah used to annoy the hell out of me not believing in Allah and all, but actually, the fatalism, the recognition of our limitations, that attitude I now find refreshing and liberating.
Modified by 13 at Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 14:06:47
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yes John. you are right. maybe their sense of humour will come to the rescue.
it's the same everywhere. this unhinging from objective reality. but we still have to live in it. I saw this program yesterday. Australian Story. Breaking New Ground. It was about this man - Charles Massy, a farmer who has written a book about regenerative farming. The Call of the Reed Warbler, it's called and probably a good read, he came off well in interview. but anyway I was transfixed when he said about the impact it had on his mental health - doing it tough along with all the other farmers but it turned out that it didn't matter what he believed or thought about what he was doing it was what he was doing and it was degrading the landscape he was living in and when he changed his ways it made him more cheerful as his landscape improved with more trees and grasses and no more poisons.
and he reckons it's economically viable just by the money he saves on not buying the fertilisers and insecticides.
Modified by lesley at Sun, Oct 04, 2020, 13:17:14
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Yeah, I've just finished a book on regenerative farming, USA based. It's quite dependent on animals though, so I have difficulty setting how I could use what they've figured out in my own setup.
I guess here in France, it comes with its own animals. Just found definite evidence of wild boar, though not seem one yet, and several types of deer, polecats, foxes, Badgers and a huge variety of insects and reptiles. So just planting trees into the least interesting bits of meadow seem fine.
I'll make a mobile chicken unit for the allotment when I get back.
Interesting these regenerative farmers are making better money than the guys using all the chemicals.
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I think what you're looking at here is massively depleted land. I mean I knew that was happening, I knew modern agricultural practises are not sustainable long term but I didn't realise how much impact it has during drought periods - the difference between having native grasses or bare soil in the paddocks is the difference between straight back into production when the rains come or years of recovery. What this guy did after a bad drought in the 80's was sell off half his farm, that got him out of debt and then he bit the bullet and changed the way he did things - this is a family farm, it must have taken a lot to make those changes, and 30 something years on and he has a different landscape to look out on with corridors of native trees (no more locust plagues) and native grasses on a lot more paddock. He has two generations ahead of him keen to keep the farm going. The equation is very good with the good prices on organic produce and the chemicals were 80% of his hard costs. And now he is looking out into his world which is growing more beautiful instead of the aching bare paddocks. So things have turned out well for him but there is also this simple observation of the emotional impact his environment was having on him, how some simple sensible nothing new in it adjustments of how he farmed the land had been able to change it to getting better rather than getting worse, and that was enough to make him feel good again, something echoed through the other farmers interviewed.
I mean I understand these farmers are mere flies on the backs of the giants who stalk the land but it was very nice to see it was happening - vast tracts of pasture and arable land coming back from the brink so strongly.
one man from up North had simply swapped to spraying worm juice and compost from his tractor thingy with the big beams instead of fertiliser and insecticide!
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https://www.amazon.com/My-Experience-Pleasures-Miseries-Life/dp/B000IXW52A/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&;keywords=louis+bromfield+from+my+experience&qid=1601909866&sr=8-1
When I was a kid, we had a summer cabin near Louis Bromfield's Malibar Farm. This farm was established in the late 1930s and Bromfield, a famous novelist, used mostly organic and sustainable practices. We would buy produce from his farm stand.
The book is a series of essays spanning the time from his friends strongly urging him to leave France, to finding the land through the establishment and fulfillment of his dream.
He has a chapter where he talks about using cover crops to build 10" of soil in a year. It takes nature 1000 years to build one inch!
He got the neighboring farmers to adopt contour farming instead of straight rows and eliminated soil erosion.
My favorite 2 chapters are, "The World's Smartest Pig and the one where he hunts morel mushrooms.
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wow, what a nice looking book. I guess when you get a writing farmer it is going to be good to read. Charles Massy is the same, it isn't the farm that is his life's work, it is the book. They showed this big new shed he's had to build to house all his piles of research materials and that's where he writes now.
The thing that immediately struck me about the ideas of regenerative farming was it was stuff I already knew from childhood.
When I moved here I got a fair bit of raised eyebrows from my neighbours because of my piles of pruned branches but in recent times I have received a few compliments for them so I guess the idea of regenerative farming has been going around.
yes so I am watching the film of the farmer spraying worm juice and compost extract all prepared himself in big tanks and I am thinking why not just pile up the compost on the fields and let the worms do the work, wouldn't it be faster it's worked for me and then see the point comes up about the weed seed in compost, oh right and that liquid compost extract doesn't have any in it.
He is cropping, buying no chemicals and leaving the field in better condition than before and moving to the next one and from the air you can see where he's been is a major improvement to the land. He is being paid by other farmers now to come to their land.
I know the people who like pigs speak very highly of them, and I can see that and a piglet sure is cute but I am a bit unnerved, I like cows more. you can't go hunting for mushrooms with a cow though. 
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Yeah, both cults in peak frenzy when the round golden/orange leader starts to dance. Somehow it reminded me of the "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" Holi too.
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