The 7 Sacraments of a Dictator

1. Born and Baptized to Terrorize

The narcissist is born and mistreated as a child, and they spend the rest of their lives trying to heal from it. The mistreatment could be physical abuse, humiliation, excessive adoration or criticism, but always a lack of healthy parental nurturing. They grow up wanting the adulation of everyone around them and will go to great lengths to get it. The greater the number, the more soothing it is to him. This personality drives how they interact with people.

2. Confirmation of a Beaten Down Mentality

As a child, he was beaten down physically or emotionally, and dammit, that’s what others are going to feel. They learned their hard lesson and now others shall, too. His followers know the feeling and the rhetoric, so the narcissist is a magnet. He has the guts to “speak his mind.” That familiar voice of the beaten down is not always spoken, so the beaten down gravitates toward the one who does. 

The formula is simple: Talk like them and they will follow. The masses don’t want to think, they’d rather hand over their trust to someone like them. That is the core of Identity Politics. Who you are is where you put your vote. Ever notice how reason does not sway a follower? Ditto for a survivalist. That’s because you are not addressing their identity. Their identity comes first, and the cult is a manifestation of their identity.

What states beat their children the most? As of 2024, twelve states practice corporal punishment in public schools despite research findings show spanking is largely ineffective as discipline and can cause further damage. Those states are ardent Republican states: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.

3. The Eucharist of Identity Politics

Followers won’t question the source if the message was to their liking. Note that “to their liking” means “I want someone to pay for my pain even if it’s wrong.” That’s why racism works. 

Racism works because it’s a Golden Ticket for doing nothing. Race is a hierarchy with definitions from inferior to the highest of chosen ones. The hierarchy justifies the ownership of slaves and other atrocities of humanity. 

The cult Daddy will call out villains easily identifiable by race or ideology. This common hate promotes a confrontational mentality, but it is a clever misdirection ploy designed to create a bond through a common hatred.

4. Carrying Out Control as Reconciliation/Penance

The cult leader’s formula is to identify the followers’ plight—real or imagined. That’s the goal. The same goes for politics at its worst. Then, he creates fear of impending doom, detailing the goal to survive, and laying out the groundwork required to solve it. The cult (or party) is a vehicle, a sandbox, if you will, for the narcissist to play out his fantasies. 

Politics is designed to accumulate power to determine laws and money. For example, if tax money should go to hospitals, roads, or libraries based on what best represents their delegates. In a democracy, they answer the question, “Which serves the people the best?” 

However, for a narcissist, the equation is backwards. A narcissist needs approval, as often as possible. They look at politics to soothe their pain, and controlling people is the ointment to their wounds. The narcissist learns how to get approval since that’s how they roll. The man-child who wants a military parade so he can feel good about himself does not think about how he can help others. They have an insatiable desire to dominate, humiliate, and control because it feels good. If they want to send troops into a city to teach everyone a lesson, then LORDY, they will make up a reason. 

Degrading a race of people makes them feel superior. The facts they spew as supporting evidence are simply a flag saying, “No one loved me, so why should I love anyone?” He wants you to bow and kneel to him to alleviate his inner pain. No matter what job he has, or where he is, his ego needs to be fed, And, if you are within earshot, you are his game. 

He will pull you in with a handshake which is a metaphor for gaining your acceptance. He must control you, again and again, so he can get your approval.

A narcissist uses politics to feed their hungry ego. The same is true for a cult in very similar ways. Cult tactics are nothing new. They have been employed by political parties over generations.

Let’s break down how a cult works. You’ll see the parallels.

5. Isolation As Reality Shaping As Holy Orders

To create the illusion of a legitimate and effective leader, the Daddy figure isolates followers from outside sources. Because outsiders will dilute his power, he wants total and complete dependence.  You are his clergy, and his disciple. The process includes the deconstruction of identity and feeding false information. He’ll tell you he has all the answers, and only he understands their problems. This is a preemptive trick that cleverly serves as a declaration of his superior “chosen one” intelligence. ‘By golly, I’m the genius and a savior you’re looking for!  I am your retribution!’ When called a fake, he will say the other guy is stupid, evil, or deranged. 

6. Marrying Thoughts To Make The Incredible Credible

By making his followers feel seen where he appears to understand their feelings of inferiority and vulnerability, Daddy gains their trust and can give opinions expanding the zone to the far borders of logic and common sense. The constant assault on the follower’s rationale, like an abusive spouse, will find their objective thought having been subverted, allowing them to accept proven lies. This process can be seen as a path of least resistance as it becomes easier to follow and believe than to resist and challenge. 

The repetition of lies is a communication ploy that gives the message an illusion of truth. When the cult is ingrained in the followers, all the manipulator has to do is keep his lips moving and they will follow. Facts don’t matter, because identity is everything.  Politics and cults make strange bedfellows.  

7. Anointing Faith as a Subversive Tool Of The Sick

What we see today in the Republican Party is the greatest extent of cult tactics that we’ve ever seen in this country. The party uses the church as a stamp of approval, to indoctrinate and overpower. By adopting divinity as the basis of its belief system, a cult or party leverages powerful imagery and beliefs that make up this country’s identity and history, even driving one to sacrifice their own life for the cause, like Ashli Babbit, Kevin Greeson, Benjamin Philips, and many others who have given their finances, efforts, and even their lives to the MAGA effort for nothing in return. 

Now, followers feel their eternal life depends on their commitment to the party. In not so extreme cases, followers believe they are fighting for God; that their calling will ensure them a place in Heaven. In their minds, the party excuses the behavior of their leader including pedophilia and murder.

At the January 6^th insurrection, the crowd chanted, “Trump is President, Christ is King,” evidently revealing their belief in the alignment of party and church. Historian and best-selling author, Geoffrey Blainey, wrote, “Nazism itself was a religion, a pagan religion, and Hitler was its high priest.”  Seeing firsthand what damage a cult can do, Germany has a federal office to guard against cult behavior, and alert authorities of potential leaders who would tear their government down for a God who needs a private jet. 

Faith works especially when we realize how much we lack control of our lives, but for the manipulator, the goal is to leverage familiar practices to control the follower. The manipulating leader will get the follower to reject logic and objective reasoning which can cause diabolical results. When the mind clicks over from normal faith to a faith where all evidence is ignored and the person is being controlled and exploited, then it’s a dangerous cult. 

A free democracy entitles its citizens with the right to be free from coercion or psychological manipulation. This is why we have free speech, freedom of religion, and the free press.

This is why censorship is frowned upon. With manipulation, the process of faith ignores healthy cognitive dissonance and free will which leave followers vulnerable to lies and destruction. This is where propaganda overpowers objectivity.  People often forget that the purpose of propaganda is to evoke such emotion that you will shut off your logical brain and believe that there is a child sex ring in the basement of a pizza parlor, or that a medical bed exists that is keeping President John F. Kennedy alive to this very day. Polarization of views aids cult behavior. With abortion, gun control, and many civil rights laws, there are efforts to address divergent cases, making big, polarized statements that make the grownup who was beaten as a child feel good about themselves. It really is that simple, the design is to leverage faith to morphs into blind allegiance. 

How Do We Fight Cults?

We need to fight against this new cultist faith by protecting our loved ones from becoming their followers. That means having potentially uncomfortable conversations with the administration’s most ardent followers in our friend and family groups.

Ask, “Where do you get your news?”

Ask, “Did you fact check that information?”

Ask, “Does your leader make you feel whole again?”

Ask, “Are your political views emotional or intellectual?”

Ask, “Are you considering the source?”

Ask, “As a Christian, how do you condone hate and criminal behavior?”

The narcissist’s childhood happiness drives how they see the world. For him, it’s not about what works, it’s about how he can take out his sadness and anger on the world around him.

Do you have your own thoughts? Let us know in the comments! Or join our community of successful creators on Patreon!

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