Once upon at time, I made a decision to keep politics separate from this blog. I likened “School” spin to the spin of one the dominant political parties. A reader took offense and I decided that, since this blog is about cults, which recruits Democrats, Independents and Republicans equally, it wasn’t worth treading on landmines.

However, this presidential election is so over the top, that I’ve decided to break my own rules. Why ? Because every time Trump opens his mouth, he displays the characteristics of a sociopathic, narcissistic, cult leader. Let me count the ways:

1. Cult leaders lie. Cults are built on deception, just like Trump’s campaign. You know when Trump is lying, because his lips are moving. But he characterizes HRC as “a liar”.
2.  Cult leaders do and say heinous and abusive things and then project their sociopathic behavior on to others, most typically an opponent. For example, after years of, championing the ridiculous and racist birther movement, Trump declares: Obama is an American citizen, period. And that HRC is (of course) responsible for the birther bullshit — as if we didn’t notice Mr. Trump offering Obama the produce your birth certificate and I’ll make a big donation to some charity deal (funny, b/c Drumph never really follows up on promised donations, but that’s another post, for another day).
3. Cult leaders are great at deceptive marketing, pitching one thing and delivering the opposite, for selfish financial gain: as is well known and documented, a fair number of ex-Trump University  students are suing the school for fraud. Additionally, Trump is well known for hiring and then bilking contractors. Of course, Trump accuses HRC of being “crooked”. It’s a catch-phrase of his campaign.
4. Cult leaders feel that societal laws and expectations of decency don’t apply to them. In fact when confronted on various and frequent infractions of law and decency, cult leaders can’t compute them – the presiding notion being: what do those lowly things have to do with evolved, entitled beings, like me. They feel that they are royalty and should be treated as such, by everyone. Trump regularly disparages, insults and degrades minorities and women. Then, when confronted, he denies what he’s done; saying things like “that was a joke”, or “I never said that.” In fact, at times he pouts like a child when people expose his heinousness — saying “it’s not nice”.

   
   

   When Megyn Kelly confronted him on calling women “disgusting” and “fat pigs” — i.e. doing her job as  a reporter — she was ” … not nice” (poor little Donald). In fact, Drumph went on to say that she was ” … bleeding out of her … where-ever” … Oh, yea, but that was a joke.

   When asked about federal discrimination lawsuits over housing during the debate, Trump’s only response was that he was proud of himself for 1) having properties in both New Jersey and Palm beach; 2) not admitting to discriminating against blacks, in NJ, 3) in Palm Beach (where people are “very rich”), holding back from discriminating, when he could have —  I love irony and this is classic: only a racist would tout those things — clearly racists attitudes — as “accomplishments”. It’s apparent that he sees nothing wrong with discrimination. He’s, in fact, proud of himself for not discriminating.

   Lets move on to women, because no where is this more screamingly apparent than his behavior and attitude towards women: Trump’s true color were exposed yesterday when someone released a tape of him bragging about grabbing “pussy”. Add this to a growing list — fat shaming; the slut shaming; cheating on spouses; calling his own daughter “hot” and seeing nothing wrong with “wanting to date her”. And of course the newest revelation: it’s o.k. for Howard Stern to call his daughter, Ivanka, a “nice piece of ass” – or whatever it was. But, of course, this is just “locker room banter” – humor. How many ways can I say this: Trump is an asshole.

5. Part two of the laws of society don’t apply to me: Trump feels entitled to withhold his tax returns from the public. Therefore when the New York Times does its job as a newspaper and releases his taxes, he spins it as a conspiracy theory against him — a “rigged system” (of course, the rigged tax system has been treating him very well, as we all learned, but that’s another post). Trump feels threatened by facts, therefore will only debate HRC if his statements are not fact checked by the moderator. Ummm. Where to begin … I have never heard a presidential candidate argue against facts and fact checking. Why won’t Drumph release his tax records? What is he hiding? I guess Trump knows that the facts will work against his viability as a candidate.
6. Cult leaders reduce complications of human nature down to catchphrases. They then repeat the catch phrases endlessly, as though repeating them makes them irrefutably true. Trump’s economic plan: America never wins anymore. Blame everything on TPP (don’t mention corporate greed); cut taxes for rich people and get rid of regulation (it worked so well in 2008); Trump’s immigration plan: build a wall; send Mexico the bill (not gonna happen and everyone — I mean everyone — knows it); ban Muslims from entering the country (… freedom of religion, anyone?)  Trump’s National Security plan: send more American troops to Iraq and Syria; Russia won’t go into the Ukraine (oops, because Russia is already in the Ukraine) … for everything else: Obama and by proxy HRC have “ruined this country … just visit the mid-West … you’ll see”. That’s pretty much it.
7. Cult leaders have surrogates that take on their voice, characteristics and behaviors. We saw Pence use Trump bullet points quite calmly in the recent VP debate — he couldn’t defend his boss, but he could further the message: the country is imploding! Immigrants are dangerous! HRC hid emails! Pence managed to spout out bullshit, while looking presidential (which, apparently, didn’t bode well with his boss, who doesn’t like it when surrogates look better than him). Bill Maher had one of Trump’s economic advisors on his panel recently. Just like his boss, the dude couldn’t let anyone else on the panel finish a sentence, especially the women. He would interrupt as soon as someone was exposing Trump’s BS, to spin it back to Trump bullet points: the country is imploding; our economy has been ruined by Obama; black Americans are living in war zones; blah, blah, blah.
8. Cult leaders have adoring followers who take on this fantasy world and defend it, no matter what. Trumpeters know he’s lying when he says he’s gonna build a wall. They support him for tweeting insults between 3:30-5:30 a.m, aimed at a former Miss Universe, like the junior high school bully who has been up all night stewing over a recent humiliation, and can’t stop himself from behaving in a manner undignified –at best– for anyone, let alone someone over the age of 9; let alone someone running for president, saying “He has a right to defend himself.” They seem o.k. to elect a president with the maturity level of a pre-teen boy, the bully on the block.
9. Cult leaders live in a self-fabricated fantasy world and then expect everyone to cater and prop up that fantasy.

Trust me, propping up Trump’s fantasy will not “Make America Great Again”. It won’t help you. It won’t help me. But he’s sure to make America work for him, just look at what he gains to benefit from his tax plan.

All of this is to say – please don’t stay home this November: women, African Americans, Latinos, let’s please keep the orange narcissist out of the White House.