 the cult in the U.S., and maybe cults elsewhere. Here on American Issues, take two, here on a given Thursday, and we have my co-host, Tim Apachella. We have our contributors, Stephanie Stoll-Dalton, and we have our special esteemed guest, emeritus political science professor, U.H. Manfred Hennigstin. Thank you all for being here. So let me begin with you, Tim. Let's get our nomenclature right. What's the cult? Well, good morning, Jay. A cult basically is excessive devotion to a person or an object or a belief system. And it could take forms of many ways in this country and around the world. I'm thinking of the cult of Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. He had a cult-like status and caused the careers and, in some cases, the lives of Americans because they're being labeled as communists. I'm thinking of, of course, Jim Jones in the People's Temple down in Guyana. David Koresh was a cult leader. Remember Marshall Applewhite? He was the UFO Hale-Bop Comet cult that led to the suicide of many young men. And to what degree does Donald Trump fit into a cult-like figure? Well, it's public idolization of a person. It's the worship, if you will, of an individual and sacrificing or putting aside the rational thought process, the rational thinking process, and just going to whatever the individual says is right or what they want you to do for them. And I think Donald Trump qualifies as a cult-status personality. But I also- You have to have a certain skill to do this. I mean, can I wake up in the morning, Jim, Manfred, Bethany, can I wake up in the morning, one morning and say, I think I want to be a cult figure and read all the books, study it. I learned how to speak those special words. Hitler was a master of public speaking and become a cult figure. Can I do it or is it reserved for certain personality types, a certain genius, if you will? Well, I wouldn't call it genius. I think they are suffering all from megalomania. And I mean, you have to be megalomaniacal in order to become this type of leader figure. And I have here the analysis of the personality of Otto Hitler that the OSS did in 1943, that the author was Henry Murray, Harvard Psychological Clinic. And it is quite extraordinary when you read parts of it. Let me give you only one thing that I think applies to what you just asked. In that text, it says, he experiences, he talks about Hitler here. He experiences periods of marked abstraction, violent, emotional outbursts, visions of hallucinatory clarity. And speaking before Krause, he's virtually possessed, he clearly belongs to the sensational company of history-making hysterics, combining as he does, some of the attributes of the primitive Shaman, the religious visionary, and the craft-brained demagogue, consummate, actor, one and all. I don't think you are any of that. You don't mean well enough, man. Wait a minute. I think you forgot one thing, and that's charismatic. And of course, Yes, no, that's cool. You qualify. In Hitler, the trend is so intense and the extremely balancing forces, affection, conscience, self-criticism, humor are so weak that we are justified in speaking of megalomania. Can you tell us what is megalomania, Manfred? Well, it's this superiority complex. These people believe that they are superior to anybody else, even if it's quite obvious that they are not, but they believe in it. And strangely enough, people follow that. I mean, you have that in a way as a dimension of the Maga cult in the United States as well. I mean, you have other political figures at this time. Putin is the best and sickening, the most sickening illustration at this point, but you have Erdogan in Turkey, you have Xi Jinping, you had to turn to in the Philippines. So there is no lack of figures who qualify for this position of being a megalomaniacal cult leader. Now, why? One of the elements that I find as a common denominator is that a cult figure can make people do things in large numbers, make people do things that are completely irrational against their own interests. In fact, in many of the cases, him listed, suicidal. And that is quite remarkable. That seems to be against human nature. It seems to be against the primary need to survive. And my question to you, Manfred, is it goes beyond political science. It goes to human psychology, the human species, if you will, is this kind of thing built into our DNA? I don't think so. I think it's when, well, you could say it's built into DNA, you can become stupid. And when you read- That's what my wife says all the time, by the way. When I always thought, I was teaching political philosophy in the policy department and talking about Plato and Aristotle, I always emphasized that both of them, especially Aristotle, but Plato, his teacher, had no different ideas. People are inclined to not actualize what is really central to human nature, namely, reason. And there are people who are slaves, for that reason, slaves by nature. And I would translate that word slave by nature into a stupidity. And we have a lot of stupid people in America today. I mean, look at- Was that always the case, Manfred? Or have something happened here? It has become worse. Yeah. I mean, look, when you think of this carnage, that happened in Texas, everybody has talked 90% of Americans, one gun control. But some of these people must vote for politicians, not only Trump, but local politicians. Who refuse to sign on to any gun control law? So how do you explain that? How can you be, on the one hand, for gun control, on the other hand, you vote people into office who are really the opposite of what we need at this point. And- I know how to get an answer on that. No, I don't either. No, no, Tim has the answer. Oh, no, Jay, I don't have the answer other than education, education, education. Right, but even though- That is the answer. But I really think that cult figures use what I would call a direct propaganda, which if you really think about propaganda and how the tool on how it works, it's really a walking subliminal hypnosis. And human beings are certainly susceptible to hypnosis, whether it's conscious or subliminal. And that's why subliminal advertising was outlawed in the 1960s because it was so effective. And if you remember, subliminal advertising was the flashing of images at a very rapid speed that it would become subliminal persuasion. So they outlawed it. Yeah. I don't think- Everything, you know, I visualize erasing the prospect that the media has a lot to do with this. What we get on TV and those graphic images Tim is talking about. But can't we modify that? Is the First Amendment so absolute that we couldn't somehow withdraw the stimulus to join a cult by changing the way the media works? Interesting question. I like what Manfred said about the word stupid. My take on that is the ignorance that we have. And still, as Tim said, the education brings us through to being able to operate at higher levels of thinking. I think that until we move into having all people access the ways that we analyze, the way we synthesize, the way we make judgments, the way we do critical thinking, the way we do that kind of cognition. Because my point about the teaching act is that it is rocket scientist because it is cognitive development. And there's nothing harder than that, including the rocket stuff. Yeah. Well, you know, Manfred Hitler knew to teach the adolescents to the grade school kids in Germany back in the early 30s. He knew that if he brought them into his way of thinking they would be his later on. And it worked. It worked for him. And the problem about education, Stephanie's idea, is that it takes decades and generations to actually have an effect. Do we have the time to fashion a solution through education? Well, I don't know whether this German illustration works because after all, people have always pointed out this extraordinary contradiction between Germany being the society of culture and education. They had the first graduate programs at universities and everybody copied the German university system, including the United States. Science was in charge of all kinds of dimensions of German life. And then you have this incision in 1933. And I don't think education is the only answer. It may not be the most important answer to cut through to what may happen in societies at certain points. I do not think that all Trump voters in the United States are stupid. I mean, there are a lot of, I'm sure, is that in Germany, you're out of Nazis with PhDs and the SS, half of the more than 50% of German lawyers were members of the NSDRP. So you have, I mean, this cult definition that Tim gave, I think it does not completely cover the political madness that may take over societies. I mean, what is happening in the United States is not exceptional at this point. You have these figures who are possessed by megalomaniacal dreams about their societies. Think of everyone's Ottoman vision. Think of Xi Jinping's attempt to create a greater in China, including Taiwan. And Putin certainly is the best illustration of that. Now, you have opposition in all of these societies, but for some strange reason, they are unable of breaking through. So if I give you a megalomaniac cult figure and I subtract him from the equation, well, let me ask you the first this way. If I don't subtract him from the equation, what's the dynamic? Do cults get worse over time? Do the people who follow cults get more irrational, suicidal, and manipulatable over time? Or does a cult sort of cool off after a while? What does this mean? In the German case, you could say it's quite obvious, you know, it didn't only cool off, it simply died. Well, as a result of a war? Yes, in 45. Now, all of the people that had been members of the cult suddenly told people they weren't. I mean, they were lying. They went into denial. And that, I think, becomes very, very powerful when cults become dominant in a society. I mean, the figures that Tim mentioned, like Jim Jones, for example, he was an outsider and the cult remains an outside phenomenon. They're not taking over American society. And many of these cult figures stage that way. Whereas we are talking here about a phenomenon that has affected the entire society. Well, let me flip my question on you. Suppose I take Trump or any of these other autocrat megalomaniacs out. In other words, you have a cult, and by definition, by Tim's definition, it's built around one very strong personality. And he is withdrawn. Let's say one day he doesn't wake up, whatever it is. Does that, Manfred, is that the end of the cult? Is it the end of the phenomenon in a given society? It can be. I mean, I think, for example, it would be nice if someone would assassinate Putin. But I do not think there is anyone at this point in the inner circle of his government that will do that. I mean, the Russian generals are as cowardly as the German generals were who had the possibility to kill Hitler. And they were talking about that in the movie Munich. You have these scenes where German generals are talking about what they are going to do with Hitler. But no one did, even though they had the gun in the pocket and could have killed him. But I mean, after 45, suddenly, you know, the cult was gone. In a way, we said never again. And part of never again, of course that didn't stick, but never again meant we're not gonna let this happen to us again. We're not gonna be crazy, you know, irrational suicidal and- Yeah, but the never again was not said by Germans that were lictons, you know, victim jewels were making that argument. That was not a German line immediately after the war. For 20 years, you know, you had denial. Well, here's the question though. If I take Trump out of the equation, okay, and I have this society that he left behind his cult legacy. This goes to the question I'm gonna put to you, Tim. Is it gonna come back like bad wine? Does the society now bear the exposure, the vulnerability, the DNA likelihood that another Trump will emerge? One of those senators we love so much in the Senate will emerge and will take his place and satisfy the need, play on the vulnerability of these people who have already learned about stupidity. So in the United States, if we take Trump out of the equation, are we free of Trumpism? Are we free of the cult? No. I think we're now in the realm of confusing the desire to be an autocrat versus a cult personality. Governor, Florida Governor DeSantis is not a cult personality like Trump, but he's gonna take and pick up the ball where Trump left it and he's gonna run down the field with it. And he is going to try to erode democracy. Trump has done great things to erode democracy and that's why I go back to education. I mean, how do you preserve democracy if you don't know what it is? And that's why civics 101 is not being taught in high schools, nearly to the degree it used to be. Tim, how long does it take to train 50 million students about democracy? Well, yeah, your points were taken. I guess the question is, how long is a semester or a quarter? Take the class, learn what democracy is. And, you know, we can start there. It doesn't take generations. It takes generations to value what democracy is versus autocracy, but it doesn't take generations to understand what democracy is and what it takes to preserve it. And what it takes most importantly is to recognize when someone is trying to undermine it. Well, if you look at history and political science is really so close to history, you find that there have been cult figures, and correct me if I'm wrong, Manfred, all through history. And in the human condition, they have emerged again and again and again. Am I right? Yeah, no, yes, absolutely. But I mean, look, when you're talking about the United States and what Tim said about education is certainly correct. And now, you know, in the digital age, you know, it has become more and more difficult to compete with the messages that are spread in the digital civil society. But the United States, you know, is unique in a way celebrating violence by having the Second Amendment. I mean, it's the only society, the only civilized society where you have the right of citizens to defend themselves with arms. No other society has that. And there's a record of killings that you have. I mean, it's growing. You have 400 million guns in private hands. For God's sake, this is no other society has suffers from the syndrome. Well, that goes to my ultimate question here. And then you have the other syndrome, and that's the legacy of racism, especially anti-black racism. Those are two features that will not go away. Well, isn't part of cultism, this is your definition, Tim, isn't part of cultism, you have to follow me. And it's either you follow me or you don't follow me. You're my friend or you're my enemy. And so there's a hard dividing line, you know, and we certainly have divisiveness here in this country now. It's racist, it's religious bigotry, name it. And that seems to be a dividing line between the Trump cult and the others. It's part of the divisiveness. Is it not, you're with me or you're against me? You know, Jay, I think it's always been with us. And that definition is you're with them or against them. That's very true. But I think the things that make a cult leader great is these things that have been under the surface. And Trump brought it out. He was able to make it acceptable to be racist. He made it acceptable to be xenophobic. He made it acceptable for a lot of bad behavior. And now it's out above ground. It needs to be pushed back below the surface. I don't think we ever get rid of it. I just think we say as a society, that's not acceptable. And we don't want it out in the open air, knock it off. Well, two things then. Stephanie, you know, it goes beyond just the media. You know, both Tim and Manfred have been talking about social media, electronic connection and so forth. If I'm a cult figure and I want to reach people and I want to reach their vulnerability, I want them to get on my team and off the other team and be divisive, whatever it takes. The media right now, the social media, the electronic mesh network that we have in this country and this world is a great aid to me. I mean, you know, technology, information, technology has always been arguably the best weapon of a cultist. Do you agree with that? And what would you do about it? Well, I think that we're overlooking another player in the World War, World War game, okay? Which is Japan, all right? So, and also there were samurai there for hundreds and hundreds of years, all of whom were armed and all of whom exerted force. But we also have more importantly, the cultural context. And I know it was a nasty kind of thing Hillary Clinton to say, but she mentioned the deplorables. So people are in different bubbles and cultures and are influenced by different kinds of things. And so in bringing them out of ignorance and into literacy and then into cognitive activity that's at the higher level, all of those influences and pressures are there for these people to have to cope with. So, there are a few ways to influence people, humans. I mean, you can question them, you can lecture them, you can model for them, you can try to do something about their thinking, which contingency management, you can give them feedback. And these are things that all of these leaders have done because they know the human well and what it is that it takes to influence them. And one of them, I think, doesn't seem to be direct hits and forces, like for instance, in the David Koresh situation. So I think, yes, we can do it in a generation, bring people, if we could do a decent education system. And like in Germany, we're not working with the violin prodigies and the piano players and the great talents that 50% of the population is there. And who are these people that Hillary talked about in some of those last comments? There's a portion of our population that is needy and wants to maintain this presence that they have under these leaders. And that is satisfied with Trump. And I think that in answer to some of your questions is that Trump goes away, that is a problem for them. They won't have that any longer and there's a chance to do something about it. But I mean, it's probably a little bit open. And then back to war, you guys have been talking at least peripherally about violence. And I suggest to you that violence, especially wholesale violence, widespread violence, tends to make a reality test. It tends to show people that really have to think it through before they become irrational. They're gonna shed the chains of irrationality, so to speak. And I suggest to you that cults have often in history and political science ended with violence. And violence is a kind of the cure in a terrible way. Is that still the case? Will the end of cultism by Trump or his successors, will it wind up in violence? And will the violence correct it? Well, look, we talked about it before and I think the U.S. finds itself today in a very peculiar situation that I sometimes compare with the last years of the Weimar Republic. Now, Trump is not Hitler, but the situation that you have in the United States in some say is bordering on civil war. I am not completely convinced that it will come to that, but you have, in addition to the cult dimension that we were talking about, you have this really strange phenomenon of the institutional permission to become violent by owning guns. I mean, I mentioned that before, this is exceptional. America is really exceptional in this really negative sense that you have the institutionalized permission through the Second Amendment. I mean, the Second Amendment was not meant for that. The militia dimension had to do with Washington didn't want to have a standing army because the standing army of the British Empire was a very bad memory for the founders. But then this Second Amendment took on a life of its own. And what you could really say is what you have here is the institutionalization of the permission to be violent. That's exceptional. No other society has that permission. No, Manfred, man, suppose I withdraw that. I subtract it from the American formula. That would be nice, but you cannot. I know it's hard. I'm gonna ask Tim about how you do that. I leave these questions for him. But let's assume it can be done, like in Australia. Let's assume it can be done. What was he doing? Yes, does that solve the problem if I withdraw the Second Amendment? Some issues would vanish, yes. Does it withdraw the problem of cultism? No. So what's the connection? Does cultism require guns? Does it require the Second Amendment? And does the Second Amendment naturally create cultism? No, I think the American situation is unique in that respect. Cultism, I mean, the possibility of cultish figures becoming hegemonic in a society is a universal possibility. But in the American case, the Second Amendment adds the institutional permission to violence that is really exceptional. So is there a natural sine curve on this where you have cultism, you have irrationality, you have gross widespread stupidity, and then over time, something, something inherent in the human condition emerges and shows people that's not a good way to live. Shows people they have to shed the chains of cultism. Well, you could say Germany, post-war Germany is a good illustration of something like that can happen. It took two decades until really in the beginning, in the late 1960s, when Willy Brandt became chancellor, and then in the 70s and 80s, so that Germany became the pacifist society and became, in a way, immunized. Today, you know, the radical right in Germany is down to 5% in the last state elections. So what you have there is an immunization. Now, whether it's education, experience, or whatever it may be, it's a good illustration. Germany is in that sense a very good illustration of how societies can come out of this heritage, overcome it, come to terms with it. And you know how difficult it was for the present German government to support this war-like reaction to Putin's invasion of the Ukraine. And it's the greens of all people in Germany who have pushed the government in that direction. That's really interesting the way that worked. So Tim, suppose I'm a Chinese citizen living in Shanghai and I wake up one morning and say, I'd really like to have an assault rifle. An AR-15 would be fine. Like, I'll keep it in my dresser drawer. Nobody will know about it. I'm gonna go down to the gun shop at the corner and I'm gonna see if I can't buy an AR-15. What happens to me? Well, in China, you're going to be to a re-education camp because no one would dream owning a weapon based on communism and the need to keep the regime in power. A gun represents the ability to change a regime. And so, you know, to use that example, though, I get a gun and I keep in the closet and no one knows I have it, but that's 70% of all gun owners in America. There's 400 million guns and I guarantee you, 400 are not registered. 400 million are not registered. But I wanna get to a point. The point I wanna make, though, is that China's an autocracy or, you know, depending exactly how you define it, but it's an autocracy. And so the ownership of guns in China don't lead to autocracy. They can coexist. You can have no guns and you can have an autocracy. You know, Putin's greatest scare is an uprising. He saw what happened to Libya Gaddafi and, you know, killed in a sewage pipe. That scared him deeply. And when Russia started having these open protests in the street, I mean, he was really very rattled and shaken by that. Now imagine Putin having to deal with people who had guns that came out in the streets. That's why autocrats don't like weapons being owned by private citizens. They don't like it at all because they can be used against them. But the Ukraine is the best illustration for what Jim Judd said, because that's what Putin saw, you know, the revolutionary moves that you had there in 2014 scared the hell out of him. And remember, the dramatizing experience for him was in Dresden, October 1989, you know, when he was the KGB officer in Dresden in East Germany. And there were East German protesters who wanted to storm the building. And, you know, he was frantically burning all kinds of documents in the building. And then he went out and talked to them. Now he had this advantage of putting, he had the advantage of having learned German while he was there. And so he spoke in German to them and he convinced them. I mean, he was a very persuasive guy. He convinced them to not enter the building. But nevertheless, that's October experience. People say, traumatized Putin. And the Ukraine is the very best illustration, you know, for what it did to his soul. If he has any, I mean, Bush thought he saw his soul, but he may not have any anyway. But the Ukraine, the Ukraine scared him because he thought the Ukraine would become the model for what would happen to civil society in Russia. Well, it still may happen just that way. Yes, I wish for that, I pray for that. Stephanie, we're almost out of time, but I did want to ask you, you know, is there, what is the connection between guns and autocracy? We have guns and we have Trump, a cult figure, you know, who would be an autocrat if he possibly could, who is heading in that direction. And so it's not clear that we can, you know, ever, you know, withdraw guns from the American formula. But can they coexist here? It's a deadly brew, is it not? Well, they are, but what's coming out from the Jan 6th committee is that many people did not bring their guns to Washington, D.C. that day. Because like Hawaii, Washington has very strict gun laws, always has. And so as a result, it could have been, many people were there without their weapons and they're admitting it now, just because of that. So as a result of that finding, now there's a movement to change the law in Washington, D.C. to permit gun carrying and all the versions of guns that they want to have available to people who are going to come into that city. Okay, well, we're just about out of time. So I want to go around the table. Manfred, your last comments about this, I mean, I suppose the central question here is does the Colt figure need guns? How does the Colt figure play with guns? Can we subtract guns from the equation and still have a Colt? Can we subtract a Colt and still have guns? Yes, I think you can. After all, I mean, Hitler came to power. He was not elected. He was appointed by the senile president, Hindenburg, in on the 30th of January, 1933. And I mean, you had guns against the Nazis, you know, the street fights in Berlin between communists and Nazis were really extraordinary. But I do not think he was, he came to power as a result of his armed followers making that possible. So you can have a Colt figure coming to power without guns. Okay, let's go to Tim for a windup here. Tim, I've said before, and I wonder what your thoughts are and your final comments are, is that this guy who shut up the school, was it yesterday? Day before? Whatever. Two days before? Yes, two days before. They say he was acting on his own account. Okay, that's what they say. But was he really? He was acting for a public that he sought to impress with his social media and his streaming video. He was acting for a community that he perceived was out there. And I suggest to you, I'm interested in your thoughts on this, that he was not really alone. He was the point of a spear. He was the point of a violent community who believes in guns and violence on a stage on a stage of what do you wanna call it, fatal legacy. Your thoughts about that, your thoughts about this discussion. Couldn't agree with you more, Jay. I'm thinking of all the testimony of those who were arrested and charged in the January 6th insurrection of our Capitol. And if you remember, most of them said, I was invited. I was invited by Donald Trump. And they use Donald Trump as their motivation to do bad things to our Capitol and bad things to the Capitol police. So, yes, it goes to this. A cult leader really is the center of gravity of evil. And as we know, evil begets evil. And Donald Trump with a, you know, through his words and through his actions, his Boris behavior, his implementation of policy that was worst at best, he said it's okay to lack civility in a society. He said it's okay to act badly and do badly and behave badly in society. He gave the green light. And for that 33% of Americans or even in the world, there's always about a third of people who will gravitate towards that. It takes the forces of civility and the powers of good to say, no, you're not gonna rise to the top. You're not gonna win the day in our society. Go back underground under that rock which you belong. And that's where we're at is the forces that have to push this, I call it evil, back under the rock. But right now it's loose. And we have a lot of things that have caused that to happen, specifically social media and 24 hour news service, giving us a green light to act badly. There'll be more. I hope you'll all come back. I mean, Manfred, I hope you'll come back and we'll talk some more about this because it's under the hood. And I'm left with one thought I wanna mention really quickly. One of the great cult figures in American history was Yui Long in Louisiana. And if you recall how his career as a cult figure ended up, he was shot dead. That's how it ended up. And then that cult stopped only to be followed by others. Thank you very much. Manfred Hennigsen, Tim Appatella, Stephanie Stoltz-Alton, thank you very much for this important and provocative discussion. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.