Comments by "" (@DavidJ222) on "Crease in Biden's shirt sparked a conspiracy theory" video.
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Before Trump, the best modern-day example of a cult of personality comes to us from North Korea and Kim Jong-un, the despotic little dictator that Trump admires so much, and who he proudly declared his love for.
Kim Jong-un's cult of personality paints him as a man who can do anything. According to this propaganda, he can climb tall mountains, even though like Trump, he is horrendously obese, and in terrible physical shape. Like Trump, Kim Jong Un brags about being able to make strong and intelligent military decisions, despite neither one of them having a military background.
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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For the last four straight years, Trump, along with his surrogates, have adopted and used the most fiendish propaganda tactics on his followers. They have told so many lies, that Trump’s followers can no longer distinguish truth from fiction.
Goebbels in 1941 said, “There are so many lies that truth and swindle can scarcely be distinguished."
"It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition, and a psychological understanding of the people concerned, that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise."
-- Joseph Goebbels
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
-- Joseph Goebbels
Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
And ye shall know the TRUTH, and the TRUTH shall set you free...
"Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will."
-- Joseph Goebbels
It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise."
-- Joseph Goebbels
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