~~~~~~~~𝗧𝗥𝗬𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗢 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗦𝗘𝗗𝗨𝗖𝗧𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗣𝗨𝗟𝗟 𝗢𝗙 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗨𝗟𝗧 𝗢𝗙 𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗔𝗟𝗜𝗧𝗬

 cult: a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing, a cult of personality

                      

Reverend Sun Yung Moon, David Koresh, Reverend Jim Jones, Donald Trump

The phrase "MAGA cultists" stings, but it's also ineffective.  It doesn't cause a person to recalculate,  but simply reinforces the belief system, the resolve to fight for the leader.

There are no talking points, no logic or reasoning, no anecdotal evidence powerful enough to penetrate the thinking of someone locked in a cult of personality.

Deprogramming, even with the aid of a mental health professional, can take years.

Donald Trump knew it back in 2015 and was brazen enough to actually say it: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? . . . It's, like, incredible."

Nothing fazed the MAGA crowd; not "Pussygate," not the obvious fraud of Trump University, Trump Charities or the Trump Organization, not the lies and misrepresentations spewing out of his mouth daily and certainly not the way he destroyed his 17 Republican challengers with childish insults.

While not a mental health professional, I've observed cults of personality in my 77 years of life; the Reverend Sun Myun Moon orchestrating every single aspect of the "Moonie's" lives, including their wedding day, the throng who followed Jim Jones to Guyana, eventually drinking the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid he served them to their death by mass suicide.

                                                             

Cult identity is not rational, but emotional.  Oh, some initial convincing takes place to be sure and words are used and "evidence" is presented, but, at some point, GroupThink, peer pressure, commitment to a cause, takes over and obedience, adherence, loyalty becomes part of the psyche. 

Are some more susceptible than others to being influenced by cults?  What exactly is brainwashing? Intelligent, educated people followed Jim Jones of the People's Temple into Guyana, drank the cyanide-laced liquid to their death and, in some cases, to the demise of their offspring.  It matters little what bullshit they believed, just why they were so vulnerable to lies and so easily lead.  

 

Mass suicide in Guyana