Column: Call Trumpism what it is: a cult
The comparisons have come hard and fast, at least since 2015. Trump is like Silvio Berlusconi, like Adolf Hitler, like Boris Johnson. A 2018 film called “The Trump Prophecy” took the evangelical route, comparing Trump to Cyrus the Great, the 6th century BC Persian monarch chosen by God to free Jewish captives in Babylon.

But maybe it’s time to stop searching for the exact analogy for Trump, be he Cyrus or Boris, Adolf or a Silvio. What demands analysis is less the arrogant 73-year-old mediocrity in the Oval Office, but the worshipful attitude so many Americans have toward him.
A lot of nut jobs have peddled lies to Americans before, and even styled themselves as messianic. But at no time in history have so many Americans been drawn to what’s looking increasingly like a cult. I don’t use the term recklessly.

When Steven Hassan, an expert in cults and an ex-Moonie (as in the Unification Church, founded by a Korean businessman, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon), published “The Cult of Trump” last spring, some reviewers objected to his use of the cult framework as incendiary and not all that useful.
Indeed, for Trump critics to call his admirers cult members might be just another salvo in our nasty political warfare. It’s similar to the Trump psychologizing over the years that often doubles as name-calling: He’s a baby, a psychopath, a stone-cold narcissist.

The discourse around cults partakes of some woolly theories. “Mind control” and “brainwashing” are shibboleths from the 1950s, when the coinages were used to describe what Chinese Communists did to convert freethinkers to their cause. The implicit suggestion is that unsavory ideas and ideologies can only win adherents using extreme and witchy measures.
All that put me off the notion of Trumpism as a cult. But then in August, Trump looked heavenward and called himself “the chosen one.”

Suddenly, among evangelicals, it wasn’t enough to make comparisons with Cyrus or even King David. He had to be the savior himself. The far-right radio host Wayne Allyn Root called Trump “the second coming of God.” Then former Energy Secretary Rick Perry straight up affirmed Trump’s craziness, telling him, “You are here in this time because God ordained you.”

As 2019 drew to a close, my doubts about Trumpism as a cult dissolved. And I’m not alone.
Republican lawyer George Conway reportedly described his wife, Trump’s presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway, as a member of a cult. Former GOP strategist John Weaver has used the term. Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s onetime communications director, concurs. Also news vet Dan Rather, conservative political scientist Norman Ornstein, science journalist Steve Silberman, pastor John Pavlovitz and academic and journalist Jared Yates Sexton.

What the cult diagnosis may lack in scholarly rigor, it makes up for in explanatory power. When polled, far too many Republicans come across as having abandoned their commitment to libertarianism, family values or simple logic in favor of Trump worship. They’re lost to paranoia and factually unmoored talking points, just the way Hassan was lost to Sun Myung Moon.

It can be heartbreaking when loved ones succumb to Trumpism. (It’s a double whammy when your grief is dismissed as liberal tears.) A true believer undergoes a “radical personal change,” as Hassan puts it. The person you once knew seems somehow ... not there.

Journalists Luke O’Neil and Edwin Lyngar, as well as Jen Senko in “The Brainwashing of My Dad,” have compiled stories of Americans who have gone over. O’Neil summarized the transformation this way: “A loved one … sat down in front of Fox News, found some kind of deep, addictive comfort in the anger and paranoia, and became a different person.”
Sounds about right.

Hassan — who remembers, during his Moonie days, shouting, “I don’t care if Moon is like Hitler. I’ve chosen to follow him, and I’ll follow him to the end” — broke free, and became an expert on cults and how to leave them. He has spent his career proving it’s possible.

To see Trumpism as a cult is not to refuse to engage with its effects, the crimes committed in its name or the way it has awakened and emboldened the cruelest and most destructive beliefs and practices in the American playbook. Instead, the cult framework should relieve the pressure many of us feel to call Trumpites back to themselves, to keep arguing with them. They are stuck in a bad relationship with a controlling figure.

Understanding Trump is a fool’s errand. He’s sui generis, and far too erratic and finally insubstantial to reward close attention. Trump zealots are another matter. They are part of the tradition of radical converts in American history who elected to forfeit their authentic personalities and principles rather than refine or strengthen them. We need to stay focused on how so many Americans came to this pass and took this destructive course. The Trump cult will define American politics for decades to come, even after its dear leader is gone.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/20...n-hassan-moonie

‘Narcissistic douche’ Trump mocked for begging Fox News host for approval: ‘Imagine being so desperate and needy’
President Donald Trump thanked a Fox News host who praised him, and social media users mocked him for seeking the broadcaster’s approval.

Greg Gutfeld, who hosts a self-titled program that airs late Friday and Saturday and also appears on Fox News programs such as “The Five,” praised Trump as a “game changer” and “once in a century kind of leader” in an appearance flagged Thursday night by the president’s social media director Dan Scavino.

Trump thanked Gutfeld on his own Twitter account Friday morning, and sought the broadcaster’s continued approval.
“Wow! Thank you Greg,” Trump tweeted. “Hope I live up to your expectations.” ...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/narciss...rate-and-needy/

Also trumski: "I could somebody on fifth Avenue..."

Donald Trump Is Starting To Fixate On Bernie Sanders
Trump's reelection campaign, after spending much of 2019 focused on other Democrats, keeps talking about Sanders in 2020.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/mir...ie-sanders-2020

Dann wird's ja wohl nicht mehr lange dauern bis dass es auch hier los geht. :-)

Major red flags found in Trump’s taxes — and now New York City wants a criminal investigation
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday that he had asked Manhattan’s district attorney to investigate discrepancies ProPublica and WNYC revealed last fall between what President Donald Trump’s company reported in filings to city tax officials and what it reported in loan filings. The discrepancies made his properties seem more profitable to a lender and less profitable to the city’s tax authorities.

After ProPublica published its findings, de Blasio said Friday, the city decided to examine the issues. That process resulted in one matter being turned over to the district attorney in November. De Blasio said he made the referral “because there is a possibility of a criminal act having been committed.” The referral related to Trump’s historic downtown skyscraper at 40 Wall Street, a city spokeswoman added. ...
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/major-r...-investigation/

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOATwGVWkAAY...=jpg&name=small

Donald Trump Is the Result of White Rage, Not Economic Anxiety
White rage got us here. While the economic anxiety of Trump supporters is often touted as the driving force behind the mogul’s electoral college victory, that rationale is just a ruse, a clever red herring. The median income of a Trump supporter is more than $70,000 per year, which is well above the national average, and a 2016 study noted that it would take African Americans 228 years to equal the wealth of whites in the U.S. Clearly, Trump’s pathway into the Oval Office is not really about white economic angst. Rather, Barack Obama’s election — and its powerful symbolism of black advancement — was the major trigger for the policy backlash that led to Donald Trump, and which has now put America’s national security at risk.

Republicans carved out this trench shortly after Obama’s 2008 victory. The GOP pushed through a number of laws at the state level to block as many of his voters, primarily African Americans, from the polls as possible. North Carolina targeted black voters with nearly “surgical precision.” Wisconsin Republicans were “giddy” about disfranchising African Americans, especially in Milwaukee. Florida’s GOP cut particular days of early voting to nullify the political participation of black churchgoers. Texas required certain types of government-issued photo IDs to vote and then ensured that nearly 1.6 million black and Latino citizens would have very limited access. Ohio skewed its early voting laws to diminish the turnout in the cities while also implementing a literacy test that officials applied only to those in urban counties.

The end result was that the Republicans had effectively shattered the black and Latino demographic firewall that could have prevented a Trump presidency. A Trump presidency, to be clear, that many in the Republican establishment rightfully feared because of the mogul’s demonstrated unfitness for office....

... In a horrific Faustian calculation, these Republican patriots put the nation at risk so that Trump could fulfill his dominant campaign promise. And, to be clear, it was not to make America great again, but to make access to America’s resources “whites only” again. The Klan recognized it, as did the white nationalists who gave Trump their full-throttled support. But, this wasn’t just a fantasy of the far right. The allure of a revived Jim Crow nation that proudly, willfully excludes and debases millions of nonwhites was so reaffirming and reassuring that everything else became secondary or tertiary. Everything else, including national security.

Despite his glaring lack of qualifications, patriots shoved Trump into the role of Commander in Chief — a man who had already maligned the U.S. military as a “disaster,” denigrated the generals dismantling ISIS, and disparaged POWs for being stupid enough to get caught. Patriots cheered on as Trump asked the Russian government to hack an American citizen who had led a national-security agency. Patriots acquiesced to a foreign policy that encouraged nuclear proliferation, oozed profound ignorance about the basic fundamentals of U.S. nuclear capability, and kept in play use of the ultimate weapon by a man who has difficulty even maintaining control on Twitter. ...

https://time.com/4573307/donald-trump-wh...nFvq0MhzkUvwczU

Trump says he deserves Nobel Peace Prize not Abiy Ahmed
"I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I'll tell you about that. I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: 'What, did I have something to do with it?' Yeah, but you know, that's the way it is. As long as we know, that's all that matters... I saved a big war, I've saved a couple of them."

A video clip of him talking to supporters at a campaign event in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday evening was shared on Twitter:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51...mFKHCmlggWgFCZk

Zitat von Hans Bergman im Beitrag #9034

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Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #9033

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Trump says he deserves Nobel Peace Prize not Abiy Ahmed
"I'm going to tell you about the Nobel Peace Prize, I'll tell you about that. I made a deal, I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country. I said: 'What, did I have something to do with it?' Yeah, but you know, that's the way it is. As long as we know, that's all that matters... I saved a big war, I've saved a couple of them."

A video clip of him talking to supporters at a campaign event in Toledo, Ohio, on Thursday evening was shared on Twitter:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51...mFKHCmlggWgFCZk

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Primitiver kann ein Mensch eigentlich doch gar nicht sein.
Ich bin überzeugt, da gab es einen Irrtum bei seiner Geburtsurkunde. Er heißt gar nicht Trump, sondern Plump.

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Zitat von Hans Bergman im Beitrag #9036

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Zitat von Willie im Beitrag #9035

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...Er hat eine viele Menschen abstossende Persoenlichkeit. Insbesondere Frauen fuehlen sich physisch abgestossen von seiner sabbernden Jabba the Hut Erscheinung. Verstaerkt wird das ganz noch durch seinen weit fortgeschrittenen malignanten Narzissmus.

Jedoch die Konserven lieben ihn. Die Evangelikalen vergoettern ihn gar als einen von Gott gesandten. He just can do no wrong. Und selbst manche hier im Forum stehen dem in nichts nach.
Eigentlich gehoert er aber ins Gefaengnis. Vielleicht auch in ein Heim. Auf jeden nicht ins Oval Office. Es ist eine tragische Situation.
Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass er nicht noch grosses Unheil anrichtet, bevor seine Zeit dort zu Ende geht.

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Ich bin auch anfällig für Beurteilung nach dem Äußeren. Das ist nicht gut. Ich versuche, es zu bekämpfen. Ich glaube, Trump als bescheidener aber erfolgreicher und anständiger Mensch könnte jedem sympathisch sein.
Aber seine Angeberei finde ich dermaßen abstoßend und, ja, einfach so primitiv, wie ich sie noch bei keiner anderen Person der Öffentlichkeit beobachtet habe.
Außer bei Liberace, der sie aber nur als Kunstform zelebriert hat. :-)

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOKnWreUUAIq...=jpg&name=small

Kyle Griffin@kylegriffin1
Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, told Gabe Sherman that he had recently asked Trump what his middle initial "J" stands for.

"Genius," Trump responded.
8:00 AM · Jan 11, 2020

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t...98d&oe=5E938C0A

Barack Obama lands first Oscar nomination
American Factory, a film which Obama distributed, is nominated for Best Documentary

https://consequenceofsound.net/2020/01/b...qi_IXtVFE84qG4o

Mal sehen wie lange es dauert bis aus den orangenen Ohren der Qualm aufsteigt.😂

Trump Takes Credit For Obamacare, Says Democrats Want to Repeal It
Since he began running for president, Donald Trump has been lying about health care in general, and protections for patients with preexisting conditions in particular. Trump’s long-standing lie is that he has a plan to help people with preexisting conditions afford insurance, or will shortly unveil such a plan. His most recent version of this lie goes even farther. Trump is now saying that he actually created the protection for preexisting conditions, and that Democrats are trying to take it away: ...

This is the literal polar opposite of reality....
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/t...-obamacare.html

Wahnsinn total. Und dennoch gibt es genuegend Kultisten, die es nur allzugerne glauben wollen.
Und natuerlich auch genuegend Verlogene, die sehr wohl genau wissen, dass es eine totale Luege ist, aber sie haben mit der Luegerei keine Probleme. Das ist die entirety der Repugnian Party heute. Konserven eben.

Trump asks New York judge to dismiss rape allegation case

...Roughly two dozen women have accused Trump of varying degrees of sexual misconduct, though the president denies all the allegations against him.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-bat...Zxc-kp777F_kmSs

Trump Campaign Adviser Pleads Guilty to Child Porn, Sex Trafficking
An informal adviser to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign who testified in the Mueller probe pleaded guilty Monday to charges of child sex trafficking and possessing child pornography.

George Nader, 60, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia’s Eastern District.
https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-cam...ex-trafficking/

Being Raised by Two Narcissists Taught Me How to Deal with Trump
Two years in, some people are still expecting one of his scandals to bring him down. I know better.

If you’ve watched the past three-plus years of the Donald Trump circus looking for some glimmer of hope he’ll get owned, some sign he’ll finally be proven to be an amoral con man and a fraud, I am here to disabuse you of that notion. Because no one with power or authority seems to understand how to deal with Trump’s unique brand of asshole behavior, it’s not likely he’ll ever be checked until the next election—if then.

Why am I so sure? I’m the child of two narcissists.

When you’re a child of narcissists, you get very good at noticing patterns in behavior. You learn to recognize the signs leading up to “meltdowns” (public tantrums over the tiniest of slights that are held up as great injustices), “dressings down” (forcing someone to listen to a complete accounting of all the ways they’re terrible), and “wagon fixing” (teaching someone a lesson for imagined slights by doling out an outsized punishment). You learn this because it is necessary for your survival, to keep out of the line of fire, or at least out of the shrapnel zone. Narcissists as parents are all about wielding control over people, and they don’t care what kind of asshole they have to be to do it.

Now, I’m not weighing in on the president’s mental health or trying to diagnose him with narcissism from afar—that's a controversial topic even among psychiatrists, and I’m no professional. But children of narcissists are hyperaware of asshole games being played because we’ve had the most experience with it, and often, we know how best to handle it.

If I can’t technically call Trump a narcissist, he sure looks like an asshole. And assholes will do what’s needed to elicit behaviors from the people around them to ensure they get what they want.

Most people without proximity to narcissism can be easily snowed by assholes. Assholes know how to finesse situations to their advantage. This doesn’t always mean by yelling or forcing people’s hands. A lot of times, it’s just about making their opponent feel like they don’t have any moves left. Consider the many vendors who have tried unsuccessfully to sue Trump over unpaid bills. He relied on their unwillingness to take him to court, or their lack of resources to see the fight through to the end. He was frequently right.

This is where the media comes in: Trump has finessed his situation (being the president) into a situation where media have no real moves left. The press needs eyeballs, and to can’t just ignore the guy in the White House, so they have to report on the circus.

Sometimes, coverage takes the form of fact-checks, but no one should hold out hope that that will prod Trump into admitting he was wrong or showing any kind of remorse. Children of narcissists will tell you that their biggest fantasy growing up was that their parent would somehow realize they were wrong, and make things right with their child. Ask any child of a narcissist if this ever happened (it didn’t).

Why doesn’t this work? Democrats, and even some Republicans, apologize all the time when caught out by the media. The answer comes down to a simple truth: Assholes are incapable of being shamed. ....

... The number-one most sobering realization you have when you are in therapy for narcissistic parents is that they will never change. But the best realization you get out of that is you can free yourself of their control over your emotions. Assholes usually don’t change, because there’s too much benefit to the way they do things. But the country does not have to feel beholden to the asshole.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3kga4...xiCsbMZigRFtm48

Ein exzellenter Artikel der sich in Gaenze zu lesen lohnt. Falls gewuenscht, kann ich den gerne auch uebersetzen.

Here are 10 startling revelations from the new Trump tell-all book ‘A Very Stable Genius’
Thanks to a new book written by Washington Post national investigative reporter Carol Leonnig and White House bureau chief Philip Rucker, who are both Pulitzer Prize winners, we now have a clearer picture regarding some of the concerns around President Trump’s mental and intellectual fitness for office — a picture that was provided to White House reporter Ashley Parker for a book review published at The Washington Post this Wednesday. The book, A Very Stable Genius, is set to be released on January 21. ...

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/01/here-ar...r2irxeIw4LdSY2o

Ein national embarrassment.

So, wer lügt? Elizabeth Warren, die behauptet, Sanders habe gesagt, eine Frau könne nicht gegen Trump gewinnen, oder Sanders, der dies verneint. Ich traue eher Bernie als Pocahontas mit ihrer Cherokee-Herkunft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cGZ2IKOZlM

Giuliani associate Parnas says Trump 'knew exactly what was going on'
An indicted associate of President Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said in an interview that Trump "knew exactly what was going on."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/giu...-going-n1116731