Author Steve Hassan was once a member of the Unification Church, also known as “The Moonies” to those of us who vividly recall the 1970s and 1980s. It was a very large cult and in New York I’d frequently see members at subway stations and airports. Hassan managed to escape the cult thanks to breaking his leg and family dedicated to bringing him back home. He went on to study psychology and specialize in helping others extract themselves or family or friends from the grips of cults. In other words, he’s about as much an expert on cults as you will find.

Which is why, when Hassan looks at the tectics used by right-wing media and Trump himself, he can honestly say what many of us have suspected for some time: it’s a cult. The Cult of Trump was recommended by someone in my reading group as a way of trying to understand people who I thought I knew as kind people who now accept the murder of citizens in the street as “a cost of doing business” so to speak. I don’t understand the cognitive dissonance of calling yourself “pro-life” and ignoring that there are children and babies dying in our modern-day concentration camps we are throwing so-called “illegals” into.

The Cult of Trump was first published in 2019, so long before the disaster COVID brought to the country, as well as his trying to overturn the 2020 election, although Hassan predicts that in this book. It was also before the unbelievable events that put Trump back into office, the validity of which is still doubtful to many of us. Reading this, I don’t think there is anything Trump woudn’t do in an act of self-preservation.

Most of The Cult of Trump focuses on what cults are and how Donald Trump acts the same way a cult leader does. I learned a lot from this. I’ve known a number of narcissists, unfortunately, and always thought they weren’t smart enough to be that manipulative. Hassan shows how the ability to get people to fall all over themselves trying to ingratiate themselves with the cult leader happens. There are a few people who have managed to escape the cult of Trump, including lawyer Michael Cohen who once said he’d take a bullet for Trump. He has testified as to the sway Trump had over him and that looking back he can’t believe he said and did some of the things he did.

The audiobook is narrated by the author. I had started the book several months ago and it had to go back to the library before I could finish it. I started from the beginning again once my turn to borrow it came up and listened to it at 1.25 speed. I felt this worked better as Hassan’s voice is a bit like something droning on and lulled me into closing my eyes at times. The material in The Cult of Trump is too important to miss.

Hassan does a great job comparing what’s happening with Trump and his followers to various cults. Although Hassan’s experience is with the Moonies, he seems to have the opinion that Trump and his followers are more like Jim Jones and the People’s Temple. This is where he raises the concerns about what Trump would do if he lost an election. We all saw what happened on January 6th, and I believe that if he faces being removed through an election or impeachment, it’s going to get violent again, especially after reading this.

In the middle of the book, Hassan veers off into just being anti-Trump and detailing why he’s just a bad person. While I agree with these sentiments, I was looking at The Cult of Trump to tell me how and why people have embraced him like a cult leader. When Hassan’s on topic, the book is great. He shows how right-wing Christians talked themselves into following Trump and backing him as the means to an end, the “end” being changing us from a democracy to Christian Nationalism.

Hassan also talks about what to do if you have a family member or close friend who has uncharacteristically embraced all things Trump. After listening to him, I think they key is that their personality changes. There are people I know who have embraced all things Trump and it doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think there’s much hope for them. Otherwise, I think he has some great tactics to try and get people to think about what they are actually saying, rather than just repeating what right-wing media has told them to think.

I feel The Cult of Trump is an important book. However, the people who most need to read this won’t pick it up. I don’t see any way of convincing people that they are in a cult when they brush aside so much that’s being said and done that’s obviously wrong. We now have Trump and his family actively engaging in insider trading and looting the US Treasury and they don’t blink an eye at it. Hassan doesn’t even bring up the accusations of rape and pedophilia that Trump’s followers ignore. He doesn’t have to. It’s bad enough without all of that.