Article "Fico, Trump. Who’s Next?" Part 1

The anti-cult trace: a long-standing disinformation campaign
Donald Trump
For a long time, Donald Trump has been the target of an intensive disinformation campaign. Central to this campaign has been the repeated use of the label “cult,” as well as the 2019 book “The Cult of Trump” by Steven Hassan, a leader in the American anti-cult movement and a deprogrammer. In his book, anti-cultist Hassan employs the Nazi method of “guilt by association” and the method of dehumanization. He compares then-President Donald Trump to figures like Jim Jones, David Koresh, L. Ron Hubbard, and Sun Myung Moon, claiming that Trump’s presidency bears many similarities to a destructive cult. Significantly, the names used for comparison were previously stigmatized by anti-cult organizations, which also employed dehumanization, labeling with terms like “sect” or “cult,” and conducting long-term discrediting information campaigns against them.

Today, Steven Hassan is referred to as a “mind control expert.” In the past, he was known as a member of the criminal organization CAN (Cult Awareness Network), which engaged in the forced deprogramming of individuals through kidnapping, detention, and the use of physical, psychological, and often sexual violence. Despite direct evidence of his criminal and inhumane activities, American media now provide him with a platform to continue his work. This allows him to dehumanize specific organizations, groups, and individuals by labeling them as a “cult.”