Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Avlon: GOP chooses to side with Taylor Greene's toxic nonsense" video.

  1. If Trump's supporters were capable of critical thinking, they would have known that he had a slim chance of winning reelection with his horrible approval ratings. In 4 years, Trump's approval rating never rose above 50%. He had the worst approval ratings of any president in modern history. So what does Trump do? He created the BIG LIE that the election was stolen from him, and his cultists swallowed the BIG LIE hook line and sinker. POLITICO, Gallup, and Quinnipiac University polls reported that Trump's last job approval rating is a personal low of 34%. He averaged a 41% job approval in office, a record low by four points. A Pew Research Center poll even had his final job approval rating as low as 29%. No president has ever won reelection with job approval ratings that low. And let's be clear, the only reason Trump won in 2016, was because millions of Americans stayed home and did not vote. Trump sowed the seeds of the BIG LIE even before election day. He told his followers that the only way he could lose the election, was if it was stolen from him. Because deep down, Trump knew that he was going to lose, so like the sociopath that he is, he poisoned the well, and sowed the seeds of anger, vengeance, and extremism.
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  2. Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who taught at Harvard Medical School, wrote a paper titled Cult Formation in the early 1980s. He delineated  primary characteristics, which are the most common features shared by destructive cults, destructive cults like Trumpism.. 1. A charismatic leader, who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose power. That is a living leader, who has no meaningful accountability and becomes the single most defining element of the group and its source of power and authority. 2. A process of indoctrination or education is in use that can be seen as coercive persuasion or thought reform commonly called "brainwashing". The culmination of this process can be seen by members of the group often doing things that are not in their own best interest, but consistently in the best interest of its leader. 3. The exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling members. Here are some warning signs of a potentially unsafe group or leader. • Absolute authoritarianism without meaningful accountability. • No tolerance for questions or critical inquiry. • No meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement. • Unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies and persecutions. • Former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative or even evil. • The group/leader is always right. • The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation, no other process of discovery is acceptable or credible. "This man is a genius at every level! Why can't we all be like him? He must be something special, and we are clearly not. Ergo, let's listen to him since he knows best." -- Trump supporters As we've all seen, when it comes to the warning signs and characteristics of a cult, Trump and his followers check most of the boxes..
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