kernelsmith
Lesley Carhart 
I am not sure that people outside the US who have not had to deal with a similar party leader understand when we say, 'cult', we mean an actual, completely brainwashed cult. Not just racists. Not just people who like strong men or fascism, as exists globally today. An actual cult, where the members are willing to abandon their families and long-time friends, give away their belongings, and even resort to violence. Nothing, no matter how vile or rational, will get through to them except careful deprogramming. We have to contend with that. It can happen to you. Please be careful out there. #VoteBlue2024 #harriswalz2024 #voteblue2024protectdemocracy
nobody@hacks4pancakes Canada is sadly headed same way albeit slowly
@Rajiv I am sadly deeply aware. Please, please get ahead of it if you can.
Aphrodite (recharging)It’s disturbing how close the Tories got to winning in BC thanks in part to the fact that rural ridings are far less densely populated than urban ones.
And it’s disturbing that the party is run by freaking MAGA types.
The cancers of hate and bigotry are spreading thanks to the carcinogens of oligarchic control and psychological manipulation of commercial media.
Martin Seeger@hacks4pancakes Check for Germany: it's been a few (approaching 80) years, but (due to my own age) I have interviewed a lot of people who participated (mostly willingly) in such a cult.
You could easily find traces in the personality 50 years after the cult was kinetically terminated.
Rolf Steinort (314.8 ppm)@masek @hacks4pancakes And a lot of them kept that mind set. A lot of my older teachers still had it and seldom hid it.
Cassandrich@rstein @masek @hacks4pancakes The mistake was "good people" letting them continue to participate in society. And not just participate, but hold positions of esteem.
SuperIlu@hacks4pancakes Well, similar mechanism are at work in Germany. We are, maybe, 2-3y behind on how extreme it is, but same.
And you still have a reasonable alternative to vote for. In DE even the "left" parties either want to sell us to Putin or are so far left, they come back in on the right.
So called "social democrats" are dreaming of denying basic human right to asylum seekers and deporting them to camps.
I hope your election goes well, or else that will serve as a catalyst here.
@hacks4pancakes but regardless of our own problems: my thoughts are with you folks over there! All thumbs pressed!
Danny Palmer@hacks4pancakes Sometimes it feels like they've taken the 'Vote Brexit' playbook and turned it all the way up to 11.
2016 was a year, huh. 
Infosec V'ger@hacks4pancakes They literally had a golden Trump idol at CPAC one year. It is definitely a damn cult.
Jerry 🦙💝🦙@hacks4pancakes how you holding up?
@jerry at least a lot of my work is travel right now, so I am forced to be in a suit and working. Being in my house is dismal.
๒๏₪ 🐝 STIL NOTDED 🌻 
@hacks4pancakes unlike the Jan 6 insurrection where they were *mostly* concentrated in one location, I am worried about a distributed attack.
https://www.wired.com/story/constitutional-sheriffs-disrupt-election/
Rui Malheiro@hacks4pancakes I believe there is a cult around it, yes. I find it hard to believe there's more than 1 million of said cultists. However, there's no way there's 80 million of them. You do have a broken society that's the by-product of terminal #capitalism. It's not a cult, it's the economy.
@chromatic Important to note that Trump will make our capitalistic economic problems 10x worse.
firebreathingduck- Trump campaigned on something better than Obamacare/Affordable Care Act, and then couldn't get it past a Republican Congress in 2017 and 2018.
- Trump campaigned on shrinking the federal deficit, and then grew the deficit , with a Republican Congress, in the pre-COVID boom economy.
- Trump campaigned on growing domestic manufacturing jobs, and domestic manufacturing jobs started shrinking in 2019 before COVID.
- The cheap gas under Trump was during shelter-in-place, the rest of his Presidency had gas prices the way they are now.
- The inflation that's killing people started under Trump.
- Most important of all, Trump hasn't announced any substantial plans to reduce costs for average Americans. Elon Musk even said that Trump would make things harder for average Americans.
So while I absolutely agree, "it's the economy", anyone that's paying any attention at all would know that Trump has no concrete plan to fix any part of it. None. Zero.
𝓐𝓷𝓭𝔂𝓣𝓲𝓮𝓭𝔂𝓮 𓀤If it really were the economy, then "Build Back Better" should have sailed through Congress and been signed into law in 2021. If it really were the economy, Kamala Harris's economic proposals would have gotten more attention.
🐔's economic proposals consist of expelling brown people from the country and putting tariffs on everything.
🐔's economic policy is racism, just like his policies on everything else.
RiaResists@hacks4pancakes I became convinced of the #MAGACult in 2018. The first impeachment showed me what they are.
Raven667@RiaResists the Republicans have had so many off-ramps to the craziness that they refuse to take because they are power hungry cowards, including blocking both impeachments, esp McConnel preventing accountability for the Jan 6 coup attempt, which is unforgivable. It's not like Congress doesn't have the power to fix this, they could have prevented Trump from running and taken the temporary hit to the party to preserve the Republic, but they *refused*
@raven667 it’s infuriating.
Aral Balkan@hacks4pancakes Look at Erdoğan and the recent history of Turkey. It’s almost a mirror to what’s happening in the US. Same neoliberalism to fascism pipeline.
MarkusWET 
@aral Look at literally any rightwing demagogue. Same with the FPÖ here in Austria. Or AFD in Germany. Or
@hacks4pancakes
$basically_neonazi_party in $random_country.@hacks4pancakes
@hacks4pancakes As your next door neighbor, I understand the issue completely.
Kim Scheinberg@hacks4pancakes
A life-changing perspective for me was when a shrink described my abusive relationship as a a two-person cult.
Many people who can't imagine what a cult is like can more easily picture an abusive dynamic, whether they experienced it first hand or watched a close friend/family member go through it.
I have better luck helping people understand that Trump supporters are in an abusive relationship. Not all are in the same stage of the cycle, but most are paralyzed and can't leave.
Evert Pot@hacks4pancakes yes of course US is not unique in this regard, nor first
AIienated@hacks4pancakes The Conspirituality guys featured Steven Hassan on their podcast back when the following book was published. It is a pretty good read - https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Cult-of-Trump/Steven-Hassan/9781982127343
disky@hacks4pancakes I'm not trying to defend these people, but I think it's important to note that an effort like that could be corrupted, and also, if that thinking were applied differently, could be perceived as fascism itself. I'm guessing that doing our best to avoid these things was what you meant when you said "careful", but I just don't know how to avoid those kinds of pitfalls.
I'm afraid it's just going to take decades for these people to disappear.
Tux Γαλάτης 
@hacks4pancakes it's sad that it has to be a lesser of two evils game everywhere. It's even sadder that the smaller parties don't even get a voice in parliament in the US. I can't comprehend how Americans cope with this.
mav 
@hacks4pancakes it is a hard thing to explain to people who haven't experienced it first hand; we've had a couple of incidents here locally, in a bright red area, that have reminded many of us that even the standard issue Republicans are to the left of the MAGA faithful (which is objectively terrifying.)
Keep your friends close and check on them regularly.
maswan@hacks4pancakes
My personal realization of this came during his previous rule, when one of the cult members went full 1984 in a chat I saw. He "corrected" someone and told him that it was wrong to interpret what Trump said on a live broadcast as his statement, and you must read this breitbart link for what he actually meant..
"The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
hundenrajna1@hacks4pancakes Yes. We mustn’t forget Jan 6! Or those who cried a lot of disappointment as the military didn’t stop Biden becoming president. Crazy.
WndlB@hacks4pancakes You talking about like this? https://bsky.app/profile/bakoon.bsky.social/post/3l7q7elivvq2o
RRB@hacks4pancakes Like many of our problems, it started with Reagan courting the evangelical vote and the gun nuts. See the logical culmination:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-gun-church-waco-compound-b1856407.html
@hacks4pancakes I've been waiting for a mass suicide event for a while.
Sindarina, Edge Case Detective@hacks4pancakes Yeah, and for the deprogramming to work, you first need to create an environment in which the cult no longer gets to feed.
He needs to lose, and lose so badly that he never has another shot at it again, and that the torch can’t be picked up by someone else.
The spell needs to be broken 😒
Nicole ParsonsLike any other cult, de-programming is possible. Steven Hassan describes how.
BITE model: Behavior, Information, Thoughts, Emotions
Trumpism: Violence/Coercion, Fox News, Bigotry, Hate & Fear
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Cult-of-Trump/Steven-Hassan/9781982127343
“So Many Great, Educated, Functional People Were Brainwashed”: Can Trump’s Cult of Followers Be Deprogrammed?
As the president’s conspiracy theories start to unspool with his departure from office, cult expert Steven Hassan, a former Moonie and the author of The Cult of Trump, believes there’s hope—if the way Americans consume information undergoes a radical change.
Be_Outside@hacks4pancakes
we have extremist christians in Canada too, who have also taken over politics in many places, and education... and anything else they can get their hands on.
Not ACTUAL Christians- of course- as in "followers of christ", but the ones who do the opposite of that, who think everyone else should believe in the same bullshit that they believe.
FULL ON cult. Best to keep it OUT of politics.
It's why I NEVER vote conservative in Canada.
we have extremist christians in Canada too, who have also taken over politics in many places, and education... and anything else they can get their hands on.
Not ACTUAL Christians- of course- as in "followers of christ", but the ones who do the opposite of that, who think everyone else should believe in the same bullshit that they believe.
FULL ON cult. Best to keep it OUT of politics.
It's why I NEVER vote conservative in Canada.
John Gordon@hacks4pancakes @SpaceLifeForm I remember the 70s cults. They were impressive (most are still around, just smaller). We were due for a replay.
Definitely
The fastest way to get people out of a cult, is to crush the cult. Make it collapse.
Eric McCorkle@hacks4pancakes a buddy from undergrad lost his whole birth family to it. He's not the only one, sadly.
Daniele10@hacks4pancakes I feel very sorry for people who have brainwashed Trump supporters in their family.
WallOffTrump@hacks4pancakes
One thing Americans forget is that that your government is the Government of the American Empire. Now, sadly, the Government of the Russo-American Empire.
I’m trying to think how the world’s remaining democracies construct our Declaration of Independence from that Empire.
One thing Americans forget is that that your government is the Government of the American Empire. Now, sadly, the Government of the Russo-American Empire.
I’m trying to think how the world’s remaining democracies construct our Declaration of Independence from that Empire.
Samantha@hacks4pancakes I blame Fox News.
RustyRing@hacks4pancakes These people have a whole weird LSD trip world view, the precise equivalent of Scientology. OP is completely correct: this thing left a simple political stance in the rear view mirror eight years ago.
Emanuele Balla@hacks4pancakes It's mostly a tongue-in-cheek kinda joke, but I keep saying that US looked at Italy's Berlusconi years and went "hold my beer"
usr_NeXT@hacks4pancakes This is both true and unhelpful. What’s an idiot to do?
@hacks4pancakes Audience says: #vote
Kiran J. Holla@hacks4pancakes Same in India I am afraid.
@kiranjholla absolutely.