Plague Trump

It’s not often that I’ll ever talk politics. Like religion, I consider the topic one deeply personal and never a gauge of the character or decency of the person.

However... Trump is a disease. I don’t mean this in a wholly political or personal sense. With great reservation, I set out to do unbiased research on the blind fervor behind his cult-like following. I say this because I know this line of research will be fraught with the sort of brainwashing and deeply cruel tactics that traumatized me as a child and teenager. However, I also know that, because I know the deeply subtle manipulations of psychopathy so well, I am also uniquely equipped to insulate myself against it and hash it out for people who don’t have defenses against the manipulation.

We can’t tackle what makes this cult-like plague possible without mention of QAnon. Thankfully, most reputable sites, rather than censoring this content and potentially forcing vulnerable people to seek more damaging outlets to know what it is, post warnings about the possibility of QAnon being akin to a terrorist or cult-like mentality if it continues to manipulate as it has. For those who don’t know, QAnon essentially is an idea that liberal Democrats are essentially a force of ‘evil’, a cabal of Satanists that run a widespread organization that deals in child trafficking and even cannibalism and ‘they’ are warriors of good, preparing for The Storm, where thousands of these evil elitists will be exposed and Trump himself will ‘save the world’ in doing so. Of course, these concepts, with vocabulary straight out of pure fantasy, simply welcome veteran conspiracy theorists, who attempt to combine their own outlandish rabbit holes into this ‘community’, so it’s really quite difficult to say what all QAnon ‘members’ (aka bakers) are actually buying into. There are all sorts, anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers, creationists and many other easily debunkable concepts run amok for them to pick and choose from.

Like cults, groups like these prey upon the fear, isolation and disenfranchisement of the ones they target. It would be easy to dismiss these people as gullible or stupid, but in so many cases, these people are simply vulnerable, in pain. However, the deeper they go, the less you can sympathize with them. The way they dehumanize opposing views, seek vengeance, and put others in harm with the delusion that they are the good guys saving the world is where the real harm comes in.

While you can’t truly give Trump the credit for this frightening manipulation, his own actions have easily enabled these vulnerable people to believe he is ‘on their side when no one else is’ and even speaking to them ‘in code’. That’s right; he’s not just an idiot who is terrible with words, he must be speaking this way intentionally so that the really ‘smart people’ are getting the real message.

Like cults, the idea is to hook people based on common fears, make them feel unique and like they belong. Rather than simply issuing the truth, QAnon makes it ‘a game’, a hunt through cryptic messages, codes, meta tags, and photos. Not only are you ‘uncovering the truth for yourself’ but you're contributing your own (paranoid and delusional) spin on it. This endless scavenger hunt is an exercise in madness, both further isolating you in a feverish chase of paranoia and even subtly shaming and guilting you into working harder to ‘save us all’. Your punishment and reward systems are so intertwined that you begin to crave the abuse as much as the paltry prizes. Like anything you end up spending time and resources on, it gets harder and harder to pull away and rationalize with the information because you don’t want to cope with how much you have wasted to get there.

To be honest, it’s an exhausting spiral of thought but I truly felt the need to give you the gist of this and how it applies to my own experience. You can easily find safe ways to explore cult mentality, vulnerability, QAnon and so on. 

The oddity of my own experience is that I joined a local FaceBook group for the town I just moved to. Someone had posted about wearing masks, which I found to be an intriguing opportunity to find if there were some more like-minded liberals here in a Trump-loving town. Although I was respectful, if not a little exasperated that I would have to explain science to adults, I happened to question why we should ‘thank Trump’ for a vaccine (that they would likely refuse anyway) when so often his ego-driven rallies were super spreader events.

What followed was veiled insults, bullying and intimidation so I blocked the two women doing so. However, no less than six other women actually jumped in and defended my arguments as factual and not personal attacks, even though they had devolved it into such.

The next day, I was surprised to see that I had been banned from the group, no explanation. However, it’s not hard to deduce that, although I hadn’t broken any rules, the admin either did so to prevent any zealots from retaliating against me or they themselves had an issue with liberals finding common ground here. Two very different possibilities, but since I was given no reason, the latter is more likely. Although liberals are clearly outnumbered here, it’s very apparent that keeping them divided serves the fear and paranoia of zealots better.

Everyone I have met and talked to here is kind and amazing. But the internet is a very different creature. I do very much hope that the plague of paranoia, fear, and authoritarian control that is Trump is squashed with Biden stepping in. We truly have to seriously address what vulnerabilities exist to make so many turn to hate, distrust and blind faith in a man so unworthy of it.

America is hurting. Healing is a hard road ahead but we have two plagues to address before we can build a better country for all Americans.