Saturday, August 16, 2025

PEOPLE DON'T JOIN CULTS WHEN THEY'RE HAPPY AND SECURE

 "Religion that God our father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." -James 1:27

It may look like I’m proof texting. But your WOFF leaders are notorious for taking one passage out of context and build a whole theology around it.

Herein lies the the theme for today’s paper:

In my last WW paper I asked if WOFF is a CULT OF PERSONALITY?

Let’s try to answer this with another example:

JW and select WOFF leadership and followers fiercely supporting the Trump ideology through donations and volunteer work.

Trump doesn't offer policies. He offers identity. He's not popular because of what he does, but because of what he represents.

To many of his followers, he's the walking, talking middle finger to a system they believe has failed them. They see him as their guy, not because he's honest, not because he helps them, but because he talks like them, rages like them, and punches the people they've been told to blame for everything.

In psychology, this is called identity fusion. It's when your personal identity becomes fused with your group or leader. That's why criticism of Trump feels like a personal attack to his supporters.

It's not just he's being criticized. It's YOU’RE being criticized. Second, he offers revenge, not solutions. He doesn't promise to fix health care or raise wages or protect your rights. He promises to go after immigrants, the press, black activists, LGBTQ people, liberals, college students, elites, anyone outside HIS tribe.

This is classic authoritarianism. Give people a sense of law. Tell them who stole it. Then promise to make them pay. And to some people, that rage, that promise of vengeance is more emotionally satisfying than actual policy, which is HOW it’s intended to work.

It doesn't fix their problems, but it feels like power. Next, people crave order and Trump promises strength. When institutions fail, when you don't trust the media, the courts, elections, schools, you start to look for a savior, someone who says, only I can fix it.

That's why Trump acts like a strong man. He creates the crisis, then sells himself as the only one tough enough to stop it. He's done that over and over and over again. He's not leading a movement. He's leading a dependency. This is classic narcissistic behavior. 

Paying attention Jane?

And, his followers are trapped in an information bubble. They don't just believe lies. They live inside them. Fox News?, MAGA influencers, far-right churches (like WOFF), Trump's own app, Truth Social, it's a closed-loop ecosystem that tells them every day, the elites hate you, the media lies, only Trump tells the truth. 

Again, sound familiar, Jane?

This is called epistemic closure. When you no longer accept any outside information, it's cult logic. If Trump says it, it's true. If the world says otherwise, the world is lying. Finally, shame is too powerful. 

(Jane again)

So they double down, just like Trump does. Some Trump supporters know deep down they've been conned. They've seen the cruelty, the corruption, the chaos, but they've already invested years of their identity into defending him. Hence, the motivational reasoning.

To walk away now would mean confronting shame, losing their community, admitting they were wrong. And that's terrifying to them. So instead, they dig in deeper. And finally, Trump makes them feel seen. Oh no. You can’t be made to look bad! While quietly others (many others) are laughing at you.

He tells them, they're not after me, they're after YOU. I'm just in the way. That line is emotional manipulation, but it works. Because for millions of people who feel ignored, dismissed, mocked by elites, Trump says, you matter.

You're not crazy. THEY are. He gives them belonging. And in a country where loneliness is rising and inequality is everywhere, belonging is everything. So when people ask, why do people love him? Why would they follow him off a cliff?

Hey, JW says I speak to the wicked. But it’s OK that DT has the wicked on speed dial. But THAT'S OK?

It's not just politics, it's psychology, it's identity, and it's fear. This is deliberate. Trump didn't create the cult. He just saw the cracks in our society and he weaponized them. Just like your fearless (although she should be) leader and hubby with the alligator slippers.

But here's the thing.....

Not everyone in this cult is unreachable. Yes, some are too far gone, but others are on the edge, quiet, doubting, hurting. We don't get them back with facts. We get them back by offering something Trump never will, real community, real care, and real solutions.

Because people don't join cults when they're happy and secure. They join when they're scared, isolated, and desperate for meaning. So here's your call to action. Keep speaking truth, keep exposing the con, and when you can, offer people a way out that doesn't begin with shame, but with dignity.

This fight isn't just about defeating Trump. It's about breaking the spell and building something better in its place. That's how we get them in. That's how we get them to abandon him.

It’s bad enough that you are living your life under someone else’s control and rules.  

It’s REALLY bad to have your micro dictator have you worship THEIR dictator on your time and expense. 

 

There's no excuse as a Christian for participating in a movement that uses dehumanizing rhetoric against human beings and glorifies their mistreatment at the hands of masked government agents.
 
The scripture: "Keep oneself from being polluted by the world". MAGA "christians" claim to be acting as Christians in their politics, but they reject the clear commands of scripture about how to be a Christian, to care for the poor and the oppressed. And they even delight in acts of cruelty to the stranger among us. But when it comes to the thing that we're told to do ourselves to keep ourselves from being "polluted" by the world they try to weaponize that against anyone who commits the sins that they've decided are the big ones. But if we think about lying or cruelty, abuse, demonization, selfishness, greed, gluttony, pride, envy, wrath, all of those are fine and they even reward politicians who glory in those sins. But they band together as a voting block to try to keep a small minority of people from "polluting" the nation in a few very specific ways.
Meanwhile, they embrace the worldliest man any of us have seen as president. And they embrace the world's tactics, power over the other. Dishonesty, cruelty, selfishness. And they call that Christian. The people behind the MAGA movement, people like Donald Trump have learned to leverage worldly Christian grievances, to get worldly Christians to fight worldly culture wars instead of doing the hard work of living as an actual follower of Jesus in this world. 

What's WORSE is for millions of people to call themselves Christians and to explicitly say that they're voting as Christians, but then to reject the most important thing God tells them explicitly to do as Christians. If you're involved in politics for religious reasons, God tells you what your religious priorities are: 

Care for the orphan and the widow. 

Is this in MY OPINION? Look at the facts I just pointed out.

-WOFFWATCHER 

 

Remembering John Huddle 


No comments:

Post a Comment