Yesterday it hit me like a ton of bricks. I have a friend from intermediate school and high school that decided to end our friendship. I suppose this didn’t happen yesterday. I just noticed that he had unfriended me yesterday and when I reached out he made it official. I wished him well and then we seemed to roll back into the same arguments. I hoped he was at peace. He said he was. He clearly is not. Then again, maybe I’m not either.

Anytime a relationship ends it is a good idea to inventory our own lives. Is there something I did that was wrong? Have I changed in the intervening years? Have I somehow become radicalized and not know it? Have my views become more extreme and driven people away? These are all legitimate questions and I should recount my history so people get a clearer picture.

I have always been keenly interested in politics because my family was always keenly interested in politics. We have always been left of center and I imagine always will be. So, if anyone really changed it wasn’t me. What we have seen since 1980 is that half of our country is moving further to the political extremes and it isn’t us on the left. I suppose some of that is a natural backlash when you have people that were quiet about their desires before now coming out and demanding it out loud. I do get how that seems sudden and it seems arbitrary and contrary to everything we have been. It’s really not. Women have been demanding more rights for decades. People of color have been demanding more rights for decades. People with alternative lifestyles have been demanding more rights for decades. I’m sorry if some people slept through that and missed it.

I think a large part of it is that our parents largely shielded us from the worst of their struggles. We saw an idealized view of life growing up. In some ways it may have been easier back then. I’m sure for some people it was. I can certainly look at my relatives that did not go to college and see how they succeeded when people today struggle under those same circumstances. I’m sure some of these same friends I grew up imagined they would be doing something different by now. I’m sure they imagined life being easier than it became.

In this kind of world it is easier to blame someone else than take personal responsibility. Blaming someone else is what demagogues do best. Today it might be the immigrants, but we have heard the current GOP nominee mention other groups as well. He has called people like me “the enemy within.” We cannot normalize that. We cannot simply brush that off. We cannot simply accept that as the musings of a mad man howling at the moon.

So, while it would be wrong to say that I have not changed at all, it is more fair to say that I haven’t changed all that much. I am speaking out more because the situation calls for it. I am sure some of you have had similar experiences. It’s obvious to me that my friend has changed and not for the better. I refuse to believe that he was always this way because that would mean that I was okay with it at some point. Others have described this current iteration of the conservative movement as a cult and I think that aptly describes what has happened to him. I pray that he wakes up one day and realizes it.

A commenter to a previous piece on my Facebook page made an observation. I write way too much about the ex-president. That’s a fair criticism. I’ll gladly take that on, acknowledge it, and own it. I do write too much about that man and wish I didn’t have to at all. As much as he might be a subject of this piece, he is not the subject of this piece. This piece is not so much about him, but about you.

Of course, the you in this case is what I lovingly call the pejorative you. That means it’s not about everyone, but just those that still choose to follow him. It has gone well beyond ideology at this point. It has moved beyond ideology and into idolatry. They say the self-own is the cruelest own of all.

Millions of people wear adult diapers. I don’t wear them myself, but I have had occasional bouts with digestive issues. Various medications have had any number of side effects and those were some of the more serious ones. Some people have other health problems that require their use. So, I am not going to judge anyone that has a medical need to wear them.

So, I try really hard not to poke fun. The key point here is that every time someone points out a flaw or human weakness in the dear leader they adopt that as a sign of strength. Trump passes gas and some have suggested (people are saying) that he stinks because he has likely soiled himself. Instead of admitting that maybe he is not the best person for the job we just kind of assimilate this knowledge into our new schema. To translate that into plain English we can simply say “real men wear diapers.”

Thus the continuing spiraling nature of our politics and our culture proceeds without abatement. Therefore if you have control of your bodily functions, have basic knowledge of science, history, and current events then you aren’t really a man. If you have basic empathy for others and compassion for people that might be struggling then you aren’t a real man.

Let me be very frank. Normal people don’t do this. You will not see liberals. progressives, and leftists doing this. We don’t have bumper stickers on our cars. We don’t have signs for the yard. We don’t own any tee-shirts, hats, or flags that we fly from the home or on the back of our pickup truck. We actually don’t have a pickup truck, but that’s not the point.

People in cults do this. So, this isn’t about him. It’s about you. It’s about your desperate need to support everything and anything that comes out of his mouth (or any other portion of his body). I am trying as hard as I can to be respectful here. This is not a good look for you. You aren’t owning the libs. You are owning yourself. The self-own is the cruelest own of all.

When your goal is to deprogram conservatives we must remember that it is a process like any other cult. It’s at this point that we have to remember that language is precise. So, let me start with a statement that will seem provocative, but makes all the difference in the world. Conservatism by its very nature is selfish. This doesn’t mean individual conservatives are selfish. Many are very generous individuals, but their generosity is usually focused on those they find worthy of that generosity. As an ideology it is built on selfishness and individualism.

So, when we look at memes that focus on how great things were in the past, the temptation is to focus on how things weren’t all that great for everyone. Unfortunately, this is a strategy that won’t work. They don’t care. So, telling them that life wasn’t good for women, ethnic minorities, or the poor really doesn’t phase them. Keep in mind this is about an ideology and not individuals. Progressivism is about the we and conservatism is about the me.

Step One: The politics of scale

A number of the issues many worry about simply don’t matter. Why are we spending so much time writing laws and spending column inches and television segments on this stuff? This simple answer is that it distracts us from the stuff that really matters. If I can make you worry about transgender girls playing girls sports then you won’t notice that my economic policies are driving you to your knees.

If one percent of people are transgender then 20 people in a 2000 student are transgender. If ten of those are boys becoming girls then how many of them are both able to transition before 18 and interested in playing sports. This is simple. Does this issue impact you? Do you have a girl in school playing girls sports? So, you take this approach and expand it outwards. How many of these hot button issues are both real and impact you personally? My guess is very few.

Step Two: Enlightened Self-interest

Remember that conservatism is inherently selfish. So, instead of focusing on someone’s notion of fairness we have to appeal to their sense of self-interest. If things were so good back in the 1950s then it is fair to examine why that was. Few of them know that the top end income tax bracket paid 91 percent. Of course, they weren’t paying 91 percent on all of it, but there were far fewer billionaires.

The vast majority of these folks aren’t earning 100,000 a year. The trickle down economic policies are killing them. It’s why their wages haven’t advanced. It is why costs continue to go up. Things like deregulation are directly responsible for these things. Conservative politicians decreased government investment in higher education and lifted the caps on tuition. We all know that this is more unfair for the poorer Americans and those from traditionally disenfranchised groups. They could honestly care less about other people.

Step Three: The we helps the me

Once you have figured out a way to get people to ignore bullshit issues and have helped them see how conservative economic policies have hurt them then you are ready to finish the job. Individually, we may care or not about others, but most progressives understand the notion that when more people do well then we all do well.

If everyone has access to quality health care then health care costs drop and productivity goes up. When people have good jobs their buying power goes up and they can afford to shop at our stores. Study after study demonstrates that when the disparity between rich and poor is tighter then the crime rate drops. Happier and satisfied people typically don’t resort to violence. Obviously, there will always be exceptions but when we recognize systemic racism, sexism, xenophobia as a threat to our collective well-being then we will have completed the transformation.

Fervor is defined simply as intensity and passion of your feelings. We’ve talked a lot in this space about how cults and cult like behavior is predicated on the shutting down of the factual portion of the brain. The great irony is that the group that calls liberals snowflakes and talks about how we are governed by our feelings are completely taken over by their own feelings and irrational beliefs.

Their messiah said he would not act like a dictator. Well, that’s not entirely true. He would act like one on day one but only day one. He would invoke the Insurrection Act and marshal the forces of the military against its own citizens. Still, that would only be for one day. He says he would stop after that. He doesn’t want to be a dictator. Now, if anyone can parse out those two contradictory statements they can be my guest.

I cannot fathom how one avoids the cognitive dissonance of railing against the powers of the state and its desire to disarm the citizenry while championing a guy that wants to declare martial law. Yet, that is where we are. Let’s ignore the fact that we have heard all of this before. Let’s ignore that we know exactly where this leads because we have all seen it before. For those not cast under the spell of this fervor let’s consider where this goes logically. Who exactly is the vermin? Who are the undesirables? Who are the people that we want to round up like wild animals so that we can ship them out somewhere else?

Imagine the level of hatred that one must have to not only feel that way about another person (or worse a group of people) but also make serious plans on how to actually get this done. This was the fricking Heritage Foundation. It’s a conservative think tank. These are their brightest minds. These aren’t a couple of buddies sitting at the bar four martinis into the evening. This plan wasn’t scribbled on a cocktail napkin before stumbling to their Uber ride home. Project 2025 is that plan.

One can’t intellectually talk about the criminality of Joe Biden and his obvious mental decline with any rational seriousness. For one, one cannot possibly coordinate that level of sophistication and far-reaching avarice while also in cognitive decline. For another, one cannot rationally watch both men and come away that one is clearly on top of his game while the other is an addlebrained jackass. At least you can’t watch them and say that Biden is the addlebrained jackass.

This is all a psychological dodge. One has to develop a fairly intricate series of faux beliefs in order to justify this level of hate in their own mind. People generally aren’t this evil on their own. They don’t go around rounding up their neighbors or putting people in cages like animals. They have to convince themselves they are defending something. They have to convince themselves they are being invaded by some force they can’t quite understand or define. That’s fervor.

So, all cities are at the gates of hell. People are invading our country and are threatening to steal our whiteness (er identity or culture). Liberals in education and the arts are grooming our kids and turning them gay. There is a war on Christmas. There is a war on Jesus. Those murderous and dangerous brown people are coming for you, your job, and your vacation home in Minnesota.

Except it is all a lie. There are big lies and there are gigantic, gargantuan lies. The big lie was about the last election. The gigantic, gargantuan lie is an us vs. them lie. You don’t break that with facts. I’m not sure how you do it. All you can do is keep a close eye. They will come for us too. That much you can guarantee.

When we were in high school, the school experimented with something called Channel One. One of the challenges schools have across the board is what to do with extra time they have during the day. Most schools have class periods that are the same length except for lunch and maybe one other period during the day because home room or advisory is connected to it. Channel one was a way they filled the gap when we were in school. It was a group of teenagers that were covering the news of the day. The news of the day when Channel One started was the saga over the Branch Davidians.

Over the years, there has been a huge debate over who fired the first shot and who was really responsible for how this ended. Some blame the Davidians and some blame the feds. Beyond that, these cults ended the way these cults always end. Jim Jones and Jonestown ended the same way. Charles Manson’s cult ended the same way. We can’t literally say that every cult ends exactly the same way, but they usually end in disaster.

The dictionary defines a cult as “a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous.” Trumpism doesn’t fit that specific definition, but a growing number of people are considering it a cult. Are they off-base? We have seen a recent poll referenced in a number of places where more people who consider themselves Trump loyalists believe him than people from their own family, their religious leaders, or other right wing politicians. We have seen other loyalists say that they will back Trump no matter what until the day he dies.

So, how does all of this end? This is what worries me. If Jonestown ended in mass death and Waco ended in mass death then how does this all end? If it were a point of just cultists perishing then that would be one thing. We would do what we could to save our family and friends caught in the cult and let the rest of the lemmings jump off the cliff. Several agents died in the standoff in Waco. Jonestown even claimed the life of a member of Congress. It isn’t the plight of cultists that concerns me. It’s what happens to the rest of us. How many innocent victims go down when this finally ends?

We have already seen some of these isolated events go down. We have seen mass shooting events that were based on his rhetoric. We have seen a few loose nuts perish in showdowns with FBI and other agencies. The good news is that every time Trump calls for his followers to protest on his behalf it seems that fewer and fewer people show up. This is what happens in traditional cults. Members peel off when the trance breaks. As Trump gains more felony indictments, more and more members peel off. They may still vote for him, but they aren’t going to stick out their neck for him.

All it takes is one though. Who knows where the next crazy person will come from? Who knows what they will have up their sleeve or how many damage they could wreak if they are successful? Some of us could very well be collateral damage. That’s what frightens me. The trick is balancing that fear with the negative impacts of giving into it. We have to finish this thing. We can’t let the Freedom Caucus blackmail us into dropping charges. We need to finish it, but it doesn’t change my terror of what will come of it.