Do you ever wonder if you are part of a cult? Are you concerned that your leader, your supreme leader, could possibly be a grifting scam artist? How can you identify the signs of being a cultist? Well, look no further. At The Storm. By Norm we are here to help. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all cults and their leaders, but it is our hope that the following examples will help you decide if you are, in fact, stuck in a cult. Which is the first step to getting out.
All cults have a charismatic leader whose overriding talent is to create an aura of messianic infallibility. He can do no wrong in the eyes of his followers. If you feel this way about your leader, this is a sign that something is amiss. In order to understand this better, let’s delve into several (of many) specific examples of cultist behavior.
We’ll go back to when your leader was a rich, middle-aged (more or less) businessman. He had time on his hands and money to spend. He, for whatever reason, decides to get into the beauty pageant game. Hypothetically, let’s say he becomes the owner of the Miss Teen USA Pageant. As the owner, he believes this entitles him to do whatever the hell he wants with it. Including barging into the dressing room where the young contestants are getting ready and are in various stages of undress. Young, teenaged girls. In various stages of undress. In front of this leering, rich, middle-aged (more or less) businessman. And then he brags about it afterwards. This is the person who is now your supreme leader. So, if you believe he did nothing wrong by leering at these young teenaged girls in various stages of undress; if you believe he had every right, as the owner, to barge into that dressing room; if you believe that the owner of the pagaent, your supreme leader, engaged in a perfectly reasonable activity and not a totally shocking creepfest, then the verdict is in. You are in a cult.
Need more proof? Okay, how about this? Your supreme leader loves him some ruthless dictators. For illustration purposes, let’s choose a random bloodthirsty foreign leader, say, Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman. Your guy is constantly praising Putin, fawning over him like a schoolgirl meeting her favorite boy band singer. You are aware of allegations that the Russians interfered in our elections, only one of our most important and sacred institutions, and the lifeblood of the greatest democracy the world has ever known. You do not believe those allegations, however, because your supreme leader has said that his good buddy Vlad told him the allegations were untrue. Despite the mounds of evidence uncovered by our own red, white, and blue intelligence agencies. To be fair, while it is clear that the Russians made a multi-pronged effort to interfere in our Presidential Election, it is less clear that they worked in concert with your guy’s campaign. Nevertheless, the Russians did meddle in the election, but if you believe the Russian warmonger Vladimir Putin over our loyal American intelligence operatives because of what your supreme leader says, your status as a card-carrying member of a cult is confirmed.
Here’s another hypothetical. By some fantastic miracle, or sick cosmic joke, your guy gets himself elected to the Presidency of the United States of America. Now he really is the supreme leader. But, he has the misfortune of being president when the horrific, deadly covid-19 pandemic sweeps the globe. The greatest test of a leader’s courage and intelligence and competency is when something goes horribly wrong. How a leader responds during times of crisis determines true greatness. Does your guy meet the challenge? Does he speak to the nation to lay out his plan to get us through this? Does he encourage us to follow the scientists, to do what we need to do to survive this terrible situation? Uh, no. What your supreme leader does is downplay the pandemic’s severity from the beginning. He says it will be over by Easter. He casts doubt on the recommendations of the scientists. He intimates that mask wearing is a sign of weakness. He touts an anti-parasitic drug, first used by veterinarians to de-worm horses, as an effective treatment, with zero credible evidence. He suggests that maybe disinfectant can be injected into our bodies to kill this deadly virus, again without the backing of any science whatsoever. Many covid-related deaths could have been prevented with even a minimal amount of competence and compassion from the President of the United States. So, if you think your supreme leader did a great job of handling this deadly pandemic, or if you believe the whole pandemic thing was simply a big hoax designed to harm your guy politically, then get your head out of your ass. You are in a cult.
Still not sure? In this one, once again your supreme leader is President of the United States. He runs for re-election against an even older white guy who just might be past his prime. And, he loses. The other guy got the most actual votes and the most Electoral College votes. Game over. The American people have spoken loud and clear - they want someone else to be President. Okay. So, what does your supreme leader do? Concede in a gracious, statesman-like manner? Offer his best wishes and whatever help he can provide in a peaceful transition of power? Yeah, right. Instead, your guy whines and complains about the election being rigged against him. Without even the tiniest shred of evidence, he is willing to flush our democracy right down the crapper, the sole purpose being that his fragile, sniveling, baby-man ego cannot possibly accept the fact that he is a loser. And, he’s the worst kind of loser - one who is whiny in the extreme, and unable to accept reality. He initiates pointless pathetic lawsuit after pointless pathetic lawsuit challenging various election processes, none of which were successful and would have been laughed out of court if anyone in the judiciary had a sense of humor.
Then, to top it off, he incites the most feeble-minded of his followers to march to the US Capitol to disrupt the Congress, which is doing its sworn duty to officially certify the results of the Presidential Election. Unsurprisingly, a major riot ensues, damage to our Capitol building is done, and most tragically, lives are lost. And, while this outrage is being perpetrated, your supreme leader is not trying to call off the mouth-breathing knuckle draggers who are rioting in support of him, no no no, he does not do that. He watches on TV, in what one could guess was a narcissistic pleasure coma of orgiastic proportions. One could imagine him thinking to himself, “These people are tearing down the Capitol and shitting all over our democracy for ME!” Now, come on. It has to be painfully obvious at this point. If you think your guy did nothing wrong leading up to and after the election, that somehow he was cheated out of the Presidency despite absolutely no evidence at all, that he had not only the right but the duty to stand up to the unknown and unseen nefarious forces that screwed him out of another four years in the White House; if you still believe that your guy is a very stable genius and is a great man who has done nothing wrong and is infallible and still worthy of your absolute and undying loyalty, then you are fucking hopeless. You are in a cult.
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