Our conversation, which has been lightly edited for length and clarity, follows. Readers can decide whether or not to buy the argument. Although he makes some interesting points, especially about how our conception of cults needs rethinking, Hassan’s argument about Trump strikes me as thin in some crucial places, and I pushed back during our exchange. If Trump is, in fact, a cult leader, I really wanted Hassan to explain how he’s different from other political figures. I reached out to Hassan to talk about what defines a cult and why he thinks Trump qualifies as a cult leader. The president, he writes, “employs many of the same techniques as prominent cult leaders and displays many of the same personality traits.” Hassan is convinced that Trump is more than just a manipulative, charismatic politician. Hassan has studied cults for years and is himself a former member of the “ Moonies” cult, an offshoot of the Unification Church of the United States led by Sun Myung Moon that made headlines in 1970s. At the same time, calling it a cult seems too easy, a way of avoiding a much scarier truth about our politics - namely, that Trump isn’t all that exceptional.Ī new book by cult expert Steven Hassan, called The Cult of Trump, is the first serious attempt to argue that Trumpism is a cult. On one hand, there is something cult-like about the hold Trump has over his supporters and the Republican Party. It’s a provocative claim that I’m not sure is entirely convincing. Even former Trump White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has likened Donald Trump supporters to a cult. And yet more and more people, like veteran Republican strategist John Weaver, are comfortable saying, “Yes.”įamed CBS anchor Dan Rather made the case most recently on the CNN show Reliable Sources. The question almost feels like a provocation.
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