Welcome to this brand-new episode of Light ‘Em Up!
We’ve had our cake and ate it too (and it was delicious) celebrating achieving our 100th episode!
Now it is time to get back to work. Thank you to all of our previous guests, listeners and fans who contacted us, sharing warm, caring and nice thoughts about the show.
We are truly here for you and because of you!
On this fact-finding, incendiary and investigative episode of Light ‘Em Up, we’ll interrogate the question:
— Why does someone join a cult?
Is it because of their:
— desire for belonging,
— search for purpose or
— emotional vulnerability …
Some of these, none of these or ALL of these and more?
Is the MAGA movement a cult? What does MAGA mean to America? And we examine charismatic leadership.
— What makes a person charismatic to where countless people revere, worship, follow them, perhaps ultimately giving their lives for what THEY believed in?
We’ll explore all of this through the intersection of violent extremism and the radicalization process with a little Greek history lesson sprinkled into the mix — as we continue our quest to use data to improve democracy!
Cults, like gangs, fall in the realm of deviance, and both types of groups encourage members to become situationally dependent on the "group identity."
Both gangs and cults recruit members based on the human need to be accepted and a part of a group that will affirm personal significance.
The fact pattern shows it clearly: Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist-violent-extremism has increased in the United States.
According to the American Psychological Association’s Dictionary of Psychology, a cult is “a religious or quasi-religious group characterized by unusual or atypical beliefs, seclusion from the outside world, and an authoritarian structure. Cults tend to be highly cohesive, well organized, secretive, and hostile to nonmembers.”
Hardened through years of social upheaval, conspiracy rhetoric, and loyalty tests, the voting bloc known as the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, has evolved into a subculture marked by deep emotional identification with Donald Trump, and his:
— rejection of institutional legitimacy, and
— a worldview shaped less by shared policy preferences than by a shared sense of grievance and defiance.
At the heart of the MAGA movement lies a narrative of persecution and betrayal.
For many Trump supporters, their embrace of the 34-times-convicted felon, despite his endless stream of observable falsehoods and incendiary rhetoric, is not rooted in traditional (Ronald) Reagan-like conservatism but in a belief that he alone articulates their alienation. They seem to need a Superhero.
He is their “revenge”. He has said as much, as well. MAGA members feel violated and offended by everyone that isn’t them.
This sentiment is frequently reflected in the language of victimhood:
Are MAGA members perpetually victims?
In 2024, Trump was not merely a candidate, but a martyr under siege by “corrupt elites” … according to him and his “Klan” of followers and supporters.
We’re calling on you to employ your critical thinking skills throughout this entire episode as we examine in depth behavior that explains the step-by-step process in becoming a tyrant and behaviors that would normally repulse traditional voters, which is celebrated by MAGA supporters as authenticity.
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