Donald Trump cult is a derangement syndrome and his victims are white bigots

Good Grief! 

Column: Understanding the 'cult' of Donald Trump

Echo opinion essay by David Ferris published in the Beaumont Enterprise, a Texas newspaper:

How can millions of Americans again fall for former president Donald Trump’s grifting rip-offs? In his latest fake campaign, Trump warns that chaos will break out if criminal prosecutions prevent him from retaking the White House. The self-absorbed conniver is unleashing long-held furies and charging up his deranged supporters. Can you imagine any other U.S. president inciting the January 6 attempted coup and then praising those who attacked the Capitol?


Psychologist Dan McAdams’s “The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump” provides answers to Trump’s ability to command so many Americans. This important book reveals sordid details about Trump’s life that help explain his power over purposefully ignorant Americans.

McAdams explains Trump’s total strangeness, his constant spinning of invented tales and his lack of empathy for anyone other than himself. He lives unmolested by the rumblings of a soul, proudly displays his severe narcissistic personality disorder, and is obsessed with his invented public image and his attempt to be a larger-than-life celebrity. The analysis also explains Trump’s fixation with money and his exploitation of the select few who can help him make more of it.

To Trump, there is no difference between bogus and actual. He is a genuine charlatan with no narrative arc to his life story. Outlandish behavior, incendiary tweets and constant violation of norms create his preferred state of confused lawlessness. Trump’s dangerous antics helped embolden the equally dangerous, mentally unstable George Santos, who was expelled from the U.S. House for ethics violations. Both Santos and Trump illustrate the unhinged behavior of a pathological liar diagnosed with pseudologia fantastica.

Trump’s deranged behavior produces the conditions that support the rise of an authoritarian strongman, and his silly supporters look to their glorious leader for protection and victory. They mindlessly identify themselves as besieged, and Trump’s tyrannical, hysterical hype easily dupes them.

Trump has no political ideology of his own, nor any religious conviction. His concocted, opportunistic spiritual ramblings bamboozle simple-minded evangelicals, even though he has been found liable for sexually abusing a woman, and he has openly admitted sexually assaulting women. He has no morals, principles or ethics. His only motivation is his insatiable greed. 💰🤑He appeals to blue-collar white bigots, white nationalists and xenophobes who feel emasculated by globalism, the nation’s elites and enemies abroad, and are afraid of losing their white majority seat at the table.

He is a totally self-obsessed chiseler who must always attract attention. He gets his support from the poorly educated by constantly disparaging experts and proudly boasting about not reading books or much else. He writes off superior knowledge and expertise as snobbish, and he helped spread idiotic conspiracies surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines.

Trump’s constant insults, mockery and aggression hide his lack of intelligence and protect his weak self-image. 

Moreover, Trump's dictatorial fantasies are openly revealed during his desperate attempt to stay out of jail by winning back the presidency so he can continue to violate the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Cults demand unquestioned loyalty to a perceived leader and create the false belief that morality is determined and dictated by the cult leader. One of the telltale signs of a cult is the unwillingness of its members even to consider criticism of their leader. Understanding the underlying psychology of belief systems and group involvement helps explain why so many willfully ignorant Americans choose to ignore the truth and follow their cult leader.

Sadly, today’s cards are stacked against us. We must support intelligent grownups who strive to reveal the truth about the con man behind the curtain who represents the most significant threat to democracy in our nation’s history. Remember, in the 2020, U.S. presidential election, 81,283,501 Americans voted against this Mockingjay loser.