An Apocalypse of One: Of Cult Leaders, Messianic Delusion, and Radicalization. The “Shared Psychosis” of Messianic Trump Syndrome...
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The “Shared Psychosis” of Messianic Trump Syndrome...
I submit that it is a mass messiah complex, a term from psychology normally reserved for individuals and also expressed as a Christ complex, a savior complex or god complex.
As a state of mind, an individual holds a belief that they are destined to become a savior today or in the near future.
Clearly Donald Trump holds such a belief.
“I am the chosen one,” Donald Trump declared to reporters on the White House lawn, looking toward the heavens.
The messiah complex is most often reported in patients suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. When a messiah complex is manifested within a religious individual after a visit to Jerusalem, it may be identified as a psychosis known as Jerusalem syndrome.
Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (executed by the Nazis in 1945) argued that stupid people are more dangerous than evil ones. This is because while we can protest against or fight evil people, against stupid ones we are defenseless as all attempts at reason fall on deaf ears.
A delusion of grandeur is a false belief in one’s superiority or identity, which contradicts reality. Learn about different types and causes.
A delusion of grandeur, also known as grandiose delusion, is seen in patients with other mental health conditions such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Patients with delusions of grandeur believe that they are wonderful, successful, more important than others, or even miraculous. They make assumptions that they have exceptional talents, possessions, or powers despite lack of evidence supporting these beliefs.
A delusion of grandeur is more than just having exceptionally high self-esteem or an overblown feeling of self-importance. It represents a great divergence from reality. Despite contradicting facts, a patient with a delusion of grandeur may continue to believe in the illusion.
Former President Donald Trump is now at the “go to any lengths necessary” stage of his public career to get attention. To wit? He just posted a satirical version of Paul Harvey’s famous “So God Made a Farmer” video in which HE is the subject.
And yes, it’s just as creepy and a messianic bit of messaging that will cause many to cringe but others to fall to their knees in supplication.
The former president shared the video on his Truth Social account and was included in a slew of “joking but not joking” and over-the-top political videos for which Trump is known.
Trump Promotes Messiah Complex With Low IQ, Religious Voters
The messiah complex is most often reported in patients suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. When a messiah complex is manifested within a religious individual after a visit to Jerusalem, it may be identified as a psychosis known as Jerusalem syndrome.
Cognitive Sophistication, Religion, and the Trump Vote
Structural equation models are estimated to examine the interrelationships between cognitive ability, education, religious commitments, political orienta- tions, and the Trump vote. Results. Cognitive sophistication was found to have a positive effect on voting, but a negative effect on choosing Trump.
The authors have analyzed the religious figures Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and St. Paul from a behavioral, neurologic, and neuropsychiatric perspective to determine whether new insights can be achieved about the nature of their revelations.
Analysis reveals that these individuals had experiences that resemble those now defined as psychotic symptoms, suggesting that their experiences may have been manifestations of primary or mood disorder-associated psychotic disorders. The rationale for this proposal is discussed in each case with a differential diagnosis.
Limitations inherent to a retrospective diagnostic examination are assessed. Social models of psychopathology and group dynamics are proposed as explanations for how followers were attracted and new belief systems emerged and were perpetuated.
The authors suggest a new DSM diagnostic subcategory as a way to distinguish this type of psychiatric presentation.
These findings support the possibility that persons with primary and mood disorder-associated psychotic symptoms have had a monumental influence on the shaping of Western civilization.
It is hoped that these findings will translate into increased compassion and understanding for persons living with mental illness.
Many Trump supporters believe God has chosen him to rule.
MAGA Pastors: Trump Was Indicted for Your Sins.
Many prophesied that he would win re-election in 2020, and their followers believed them. In a survey conducted by Mr Djupe shortly before the election, three in ten Americans believed Mr Trump “was anointed by God to become president”
In 2020, 34 percent of Republicans and independents who lean to the right surveyed by Pew Research Center agreed that it was "probably" or "definitely true" that powerful people intentionally planned the COVID-19 outbreak. Eighteen percent of Democrats and left-leaners agreed, too. That same year, results from a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist survey found that approximately three-quarters of Republicans did not trust the 2020 presidential election results.
It should go without saying that these kinds of beliefs are fantasy, not rooted in any rational fact or evidence. Hence, someone observing from afar the rise in conspiratorial beliefs and pseudoscience might characterize a vast swath of the American public as delusional. From the COVID-truther movement to people believing the 2020 presidential election was rigged, it appears that the body politic is — to put it mildly — no longer on the same page.
Given the perturbed psychological state of so many Americans, it is worth asking if something is happening — psychologically speaking — that is causing many Americans to live in very different realities.
Psychologists say yes; and, moreover, that what is happening was actually predicted long ago by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Indeed, Jung once wrote that the demise of society wouldn't be a physical threat, but instead mass delusion — a collective psychosis of sorts.
"Carl Jung noted that 'the wolf inside' man was far more a threat to human existence than external forces," Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and author of "Joy From Fear," told Salon. "When mental forces become so toxic as to harm our overall well-being on an individual and collective level a 'psychic epidemic' can result."
Indeed, Jung himself warned that modern society was prone to collapse due to a pandemic of "delusional ideas."
"Greater than all physical dangers are the tremendous effects of delusional ideas, which are yet denied all reality by our world-blinded consciousness," Jung wrote. "Our much vaunted reason and our boundlessly overestimated will are sometimes utterly powerless in the face of 'unreal' thoughts."
Notably, Jung believed that the United States was particularly prone to society-breaking delusions.
"Anything new should always be questioned and tested with caution, for it may very easily turn out to be only a new disease; that is why true progress is impossible without mature judgment," Jung wrote. "The man who is unconscious of the historical context and lets slip his link with the past is in constant danger of succumbing to the crazes and delusions engendered by all novelties."
The book "When Prophecy Fails" is a classic work of social psychology that examines a UFO doomsday cult waiting for the end of the world. Of course, the special day arrives, and the world does not end. How do the cult members respond to this failure? By becoming more convinced that the prophecy is correct.
Donald Trump is at the center of a similar pseudo-religious cult prophecy as well. His most loyal followers truly believe him to be a type of divine, messianic, and all-powerful leader. In reality, there is nothing divine or messianic about Donald Trump. He is a mere mortal who has been credibly accused of many serious crimes. Nevertheless, right-wing Christian evangelicals and Christofascists (to the degree those two groups are distinct and separate from one another) have rationalized their support of Donald Trump (and Trumpism) through the biblical myth of Cyrus. The belief is that God uses a wicked man as a tool of divine destiny and will.
Donald Trump is not a practicing Christian; moreover, he looks very uncomfortable in church and at other religious gatherings. In reality, Donald Trump is a pathological malignant narcissist and compulsive liar who is the God of his own personal religion and self-contained universe. Trump views right-wing Christians in a transactional way. They are a tool to help him get and keep more power.
Still, white right-wing Christian evangelicals' faith in Trump the prophetic figure was rewarded grandly. While president, Trump enacted a range of policies that furthered the creation of a white Christofascist theocracy in America. The white right views him as a revolutionary leader, a force of destiny and history, a Destructor who will force a new age where diversity, pluralism and globalism are destroyed and replaced by a White Christian empire where white men rule unopposed over all things. The QAnon conspiracy cult with its apocalyptic obsession over Trump's retributive act of destruction known as "the Storm" is one example.
The inherent nature of cults, prophecies and divine (paranormal) predictions is that they do not obey the rules of rationality, empiricism, or reason. As such, these prophecies and other such acts of magical thinking can be twisted to fit any scenario or desired outcome.
To that point, at his recent 2024 presidential campaign rally in Waco (which was attended by more than 10,000 followers), Trump spoke of being a victim of a conspiracy, and a man who is being persecuted as part of a witch hunt. Trump of course, channeling Hitler or some other great tyrant, promised to be a force of retribution and revenge who will engage in a "final battle" against his and the MAGA movement's so-called enemies.
The BBC described Trump's Waco rally in the following way: "Thousands of the former president's supporters wandered through Trump merchandise tents, where they bought t-shirts emblazoned with "God, guns and Trump" and "Trump won."
Through this logic, any attempt to hold Trump accountable under the rule of law is translated into being an attack on the members of his MAGA movement and personality cult.
The timing and choice of Waco to hold Trump's first major 2024 presidential campaign rally was not a mistake or coincidence: that city is a type of holy ground for the white right and larger American antigovernment movement because of its connection to the tragic 1993 raid by law enforcement on the Branch Davidian compound that resulted in the deaths of more than 80 people. By hosting his rally in Waco, Trump presented himself as a type of cult leader and martyr figure who is willing to die and kill for his followers.
The Branch Davidians are said to consider the former president as 'the battering ram that God is using to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.'
The FBI's raid on the group's compound, Mount Carmel, which the Branch Davidians view as a government overstep, is similar to what they claim happened to Trump.
The former president, 76, is set to hold a rally in Waco this afternoon, coinciding with 30th anniversary of the FBI raid on Branch Davidians formerly led by David Koresh.
Trump's holding of a rally in Waco is 'a statement — that he was sieged by the F.B.I. at Mar-a-Lago and that they were accusing him of different things that aren't really true, just like David Koresh was accused by the F.B.I. when they sieged him,' Koresh's successor, Pastor Charles Pace, told the New York Times.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump peacefully surrendered to law enforcement authorities and was arraigned in a Manhattan courthouse for alleged crimes connected to hush-money payments he made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump is now the first former president to be indicted on criminal charges in the country's history.
Trump's followers – at his encouragement – have taken his indictment (and now arrest) as "proof" that he is being "persecuted" like Jesus Christ or some other type of divine mythological figure.
In a recent feature at Vice, reporter Tess Owen provides these details:
On Tuesday, Donald Trump peacefully surrendered to law enforcement authorities and was arraigned in a Manhattan courthouse for alleged crimes connected to hush-money payments he made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump is now the first former president to be indicted on criminal charges in the country's history.
Trump's followers – at his encouragement – have taken his indictment (and now arrest) as "proof" that he is being "persecuted" like Jesus Christ or some other type of divine mythological figure.
In a recent feature at Vice, reporter Tess Owen provides these details:
On Tuesday afternoon, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene held a poorly attended rally in support of Trump outside of the Manhattan courthouse where the disgraced former president was being arraigned. During an interview before the event – which Greene retreated from after being heckled by a much larger group of counter-protesters – she also elevated Trump to the level of Jesus Christ.
"Trump is joining some of the most incredible people in history being arrested today. Nelson Mandela was arrested, served time in prison. Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government."
Rolling Stone reports how the disgraced former president wanted a high-profile surrender for purposes of propaganda and political theater, during which he would show the world how he is a "Jesus Christ"-like figure:
The Secret Service had argued in favor of holding the proceedings outside of court business hours, at night with minimal cameras and less risk. But Trump, a source close to his legal team says, wants to create the type of scene that he believes will galvanize his supporters.
"It's kind of a Jesus Christ thing. He is saying, 'I'm absorbing all this pain from all around from everywhere so you don't have to,' " says the source. Describing the message Trump hopes to send his supporters, the source says: " 'If they can do this to me they can do this to you,' and that's a powerful message."
The elevation of Donald Trump to the level of god or prophet or some other tool of destiny by his followers and enablers represents a much larger trend among the American right-wing, "conservative movement" and other neofascists and malign actors. Today's Republican Party and "conservative" movement have abandoned any pretense of normal politics and instead have fully committed themselves to anti-rationality, anti-intellectualism, a rejection of learned real expertise, religious fundamentalism, conspiracism, "alternative facts" and the "Big Lie." This is a type of religious politics that is antithetical to real democracy.
Trump's indictment and arrest may not result in massive and immediate violence by his followers, but the danger should not be minimized.
Public opinion and other research show that millions of Trump followers are radicalized and support (and a not insignificant number of which are willing to participate in) acts of violence on Donald Trump's behalf in the name of a MAGA holy war if he were to issue such a declaration. As seen on Jan. 6 and beyond, such people are capable of doing anything to get and keep corrupt power. Why? Because they are engaged in a holy war by their "God."
Religious Insanity in America: The Official Nineteenth-Century Theory
Throughout much of the nineteenth century, psychiatrists and ordinary citizens agreed that one of the chief causes of mental illness was religious excitement. Discovery of hitherto untouched data from the 1860 census, giving supposed cause of insanity for 2,258 inmates of 17 asylums, provides the opportunity for exploring the alleged role of religion in producing insanity. Enshrined in publications of the U.S. government and in the chief psychiatric texts as part of the official theory of madness, the idea of religious insanity may have served a number of functions for the new profession of psychiatry, as well as offering afflicted families an optimistic interpretation of mental problems. A mixture of medical, moral and religious ideas, the dominant psychiatric theory cast opposition to high-tension, sectarian religion in an apparently scientific context.
Donald Trump has built a cult around himself. This is dangerous to America and dangerous to democracy.
Cults of personality in governance are broadly incompatible with democracy. They usually erupt in dictatorships where the Great Leader’s face and sayings are splashed all over public places. Think Mao’s China, Stalin’s USSR, Hitler’s Germany, Kim’s North Korea.
On a smaller scale and in a different context, we see how destructive such personality cults can be with the deaths around Jim Jones’ Jonestown, David Koresh’s Branch Davidians, and Charles Manson’s Family.
Evangelicals Are Now Rejecting 'Liberal' Teachings of Jesus
An evangelical leader is warning that conservative Christians are now rejecting the teachings of Jesus as "liberal talking points."
Russell Moore, former top official for the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) who is now the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today, said during an interview aired on NPR's All Things Considered this week that Christianity is in a "crisis" due to the current state of right-wing politics.
Moore has found himself at odds with other evangelical leaders due to his frequent criticism of former President Donald Trump. He resigned his position with the SBC in 2021 following friction over his views on Trump and a sex abuse crisis among Southern Baptist clergy.
In his NPR interview, Moore suggested that Trump had transformed the political landscape in the U.S. to the point where some Christian conservatives are openly denouncing a central doctrine of their religion as being too "weak" and "liberal" for their liking.
GOD EMPEROR TRUMP: DEFENDING WESTERN CIVILIZATION AGAINST NEO-MARXISM AND MILITANT ISLAM
ROBERT M. PRICE
ABSTRACT. As we await the Second Coming of President Donald Trump, it is important to understand that his conservative Evangelical supporters view him not as a new Christ but as a new Constantine, a guardian of Western Civilization in a crucial period when we face threatened conquest by foreign enemies and infiltrators, Postmodern Neo-Marxism, and Militant Islam Thus he should be seen also as a new Charles Martel. He need not be a Bible-reading pietist to fulfill these roles, so Christians need not be ashamed of him if he isn’t.
Americans behind bars tell us why they love Trump.
Inside prison, reasons for supporting Trump vary. Some of the reasons reflect the particular circumstances of prison life: Most prisoners share a cell, making it difficult to tune out conservative cellmates or right-wing media, or to even control which channel is on. Prisons are also notoriously segregated and can be a breeding ground for white nationalists.
The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists
Forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee explains the outgoing president’s pathological appeal and how to wean people from it
The violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Building last week, incited by President Donald Trump, serves as the grimmest moment in one of the darkest chapters in the nation’s history. Yet the rioters’ actions—and Trump’s own role in, and response to, them—come as little surprise to many, particularly those who have been studying the president’s mental fitness and the psychology of his most ardent followers since he took office.
One such person is Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist and president of the World Mental Health Coalition.* Lee led a group of psychiatrists, psychologists and other specialists who questioned Trump’s mental fitness for office in a book that she edited called The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. In doing so, Lee and her colleagues strongly rejected the American Psychiatric Association’s modification of a 1970s-era guideline, known as the Goldwater rule, that discouraged psychiatrists from giving a professional opinion about public figures who they have not examined in person. “Whenever the Goldwater rule is mentioned, we should refer back to the Declaration of Geneva, which mandates that physicians speak up against destructive governments,” Lee says. “This declaration was created in response to the experience of Nazism.”
Messianic Trump Syndrome: The “Shared Psychosis” of Trumpianity
“I am your voice.”
“I am your warrior.”
“I am the chosen one.”
“I am your retribution.”
“I’m being indicted for you.”
The “I am” statements keep coming from the self-proclaimed messiah who in reality is a malignant narcissist, pathological liar, sexual predator, career conman and America’s biggest criminal—and a man that millions of white American Christians actually believe is their messiah. His dark charisma is so appealing to so many that for much of white American Christianity today, being a follower of anti-Christ Trump is their very identity.
Millions, dismissing Jesus’ inclusive, compassionate and peaceful life and teachings, hang on their extremist political messiah’s every word. So widespread is Trump’s messianic following that some mesmerized adherents of Trumpianity have been known to praise their savior’s divinity on billboards and in books.
There is a backstory to this madness: Much of white American Christianity—from enslaving Black people to racial apartheid to violent resistance to human rights—has long marinated in white pride and an overriding lust for power. Anti-Christ Donald Trump is the historical dark side of white American Christianity on steroids: unquenchable authoritarianism with an endless capacity to punish anyone who stands in his way of obtaining ultimate power.
Today, a seemingly endless army of white Christian extremist organizations are hard at work rallying a Trumpian army to the cause of overthrowing our democracy and implementing a theocracy with Trump as king. Having discarded Jesus of the gospels, they retain “Christian” language in service of their new savior. One of these organizations—the Family Leadership Summit, representative of the many—speaks for Trumpianity at large in falsely claiming to “embrace Christian values and a God-honoring vision for America.”
How extremist are the alleged “Christian values” and “God-honoring vision” of Trumpianity? They place lies over truth, corruption over justice, hatred over love, cruelty over mercy, violence over peace, death over life.
As messiah of this extremist political religion, Trump has: lied tens of thousands of times to cover up truth; brazenly committed crimes rather than obey the law (91 felony charges and counting at this moment); endlessly pretended that hatred and persecution of people of color, women, LGBTQ+ persons and liberals is love; routinely called for cruelty against persons who do not bow down to his wishes; bragged that he could personally murder someone and get away with it; and called on his followers to harm and even kill others at his will, most notably on January 6.
A Complete Psychological Analysis of Trump's Support
Science can help us make sense of the president's political invincibility.
KEY POINTS
A 2016 study found that “…the racial and ethnic isolation of Whites at the zip-code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support.”
A 2017 study found a direct link between national collective narcissism and support for Donald Trump.
A 2016 survey of 406 US adults found that those who scored high on both SDO and authoritarianism were more likely to vote for Trump.
Whether we want to or not, we must try to understand the Donald Trump phenomenon, as it has completely swept the nation and also fiercely divided it. What is most baffling about it all is Trump’s apparent political invincibility. As he himself said even before he won the presidential election, “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” Unfortunately for the American people, this wild-sounding claim appears to be truer than not. It should also motivate us to explore the science underlying such peculiar human behavior, so we can learn from it, and potentially inoculate against it.
In all fairness, we should recognize that lying is sadly not uncommon for politicians on both sides of the political aisle, but the frequency and magnitude of the current president’s lies should have us all wondering why they haven’t destroyed his political career, and instead perhaps strengthened it. Similarly, we should be asking why his inflammatory rhetoric and numerous scandals haven’t sunk him. We are talking about a man who was caught on tape saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p*ssy.” Politically surviving that video is not normal, or anything close to it, and such a revelation would likely have been the end of Barack Obama or George Bush had it surfaced weeks before the election.
While dozens of psychologists have analyzed Trump, to explain the man’s political invincibility, it is more important to understand the minds of his staunch supporters. While various popular articles have illuminated a multitude of reasons for his unwavering support, there appears to be no comprehensive analysis that contains all of them. Since there seems to be a real demand for this information, I have tried to provide that analysis below.
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Belief in conspiracy theories: Basic principles of an emerging research domain. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6282974/ https://www.apa.org/news/podcasts/speaking-of-psychology/conspiracy-theories https://www.adamstaten.com/blog/2021/2/7/low-iq-and-conspiracy-theories-a-hand-in-glove-relationship https://www.psypost.org/2022/05/trump-supporters-use-less-cognitively-complex-language-and-more-simplistic-modes-of-thinking-than-biden-supporters-study-finds-63068 https://www.newamericanjournal.net/2020/08/trump-promotes-messiah-complex-with-low-iq-religious-voters/ https://www.civic-renaissance.com/p/when-does-an-intellectual-failing https://youtu.be/ww47bR86wSc Conspiracy theories are a mental health crisis No one's talking about the complex relationship between disinformation and mental health. That changes now. https://mashable.com/article/mental-health-disinformation-conspiracy-theories-depression Inside the Brain of a Psychopath ht...
HAS THERE EVER BEEN A TIME IN AMERICA'S HISTORY WHEN THERE WASN'T A BUNCH OF RICH PRICKS TRYING TO END THE CONSTITUTION AND TAKE OVER? “Gangsters of Capitalism”: Jonathan Katz on the Parallels Between Jan. 6 and 1934 Anti-FDR Coup Plot We speak to award-winning journalist Jonathan Katz about his new book “Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire.” The book follows the life of the Marines officer Smedley Butler and the trail of U.S. imperialism from Cuba and the Philippines to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Panama. The book also describes an effort by banking and business leaders to topple Franklin D. Roosevelt’s government in 1934 in order to establish a fascist dictatorship. The plot was exposed by Butler, who famously declared, “War is a racket.” The far-right conspiracy to overthrow liberal democracy has historical parallels to the recent January 6 insurrection, says Katz. https://www.dem...
Woman had alleged Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein raped her in 1994. A conference had been scheduled for December 2016. A woman who had accused Donald Trump of raping her when she was a 13-year-old dropped her lawsuit against the Republican nominee on Friday. One of the accuser’s attorneys, Thomas Meagher, filed a one-page voluntary dismissal in district court in New York late on Friday. Neither he nor a second attorney listed immediately responded to questions about the document. The woman, who had filed suit earlier this year under the pseudonym Jane Doe, had alleged that Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein had raped her in 1994, when she was a 13-year-old aspiring model. Trump’s accuser asserted that while she was exploring a modeling career in 1994, she attended a series of parties at the Manhattan home of prominent investor Jeffrey Epstein. She alleges that during those parties the real estate mogul tied her to a bed and raped her. She also claimed Epste...
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