Beauty is Imperfection

While I’m not an expert on cults, I’ve spoken to ex-members of a cult in the past as a journalist. I won’t name the sect, but I did note in both cases that the spell of the cult leader was broken only when the members finally saw he was fallible. In that particular case, the leader died of old age, and when he didn’t take them all to heaven they stopped believing.

When you see so many people taking Donald Trump’s lies as their own (and start lying for him), the parallels should become clear. And the only way for them to stop being his co-dependents and stop enabling his crimes (yes, obstruction of justice and bribery are crimes) is that they have to see him fail. That means the American majority, who are not Trump supporters, if they are to win back friends and family members from the pits of depravity they are digging, must vote Trump out so his supporters can watch him lose. After that, they will be less likely to keep investing their feelings of personal pride and belonging in an abusive person–and stop feeling the need to protect an abuser they’ve wrapped their identities around.

Here’s a link from How Stuff Works about how cults work, specifically, how to leave one.