While the world “mourned” the death of one of the most evil stains on American history – the cult leader Charles Manson – on Monday, at least one liberal news organization could not help but compare this embodiment of mental illness and mass murder to…well, who else? The President of the United States!
Newsweek decided that Manson’s death provided them with the perfect opportunity to explain why the California killer was able to persuade people to carry out dastardly deeds…and to compare his form of cultish persuasion to President Trump’s ability to amass loyal followers in the political realm. To do so, they spoke to “psychoanalyst Mark Smaller” about the language Manson used to draw in his marginalized followers.
“A charismatic leader knows how to speak to people in a way that will emotionally engage those people,” he told Newsweek.
They then get into the meat of their story, after a mild disclaimer that didn’t dissuade them from writing the article in the first place:
Smaller is clear that he does not believe President Donald Trump is similar to the convicted killer, or that their followers have any shared beliefs or characteristics, but he did say we can look to the current president to see how language is used to form a bond with followers.
“Our current president speaks in an emotional or affective way to large numbers of people in our country who feel a kind of alienation or disconnection from the government,” he said. “They feel very responded to and become his political base.”
According to the psychoanalyst, cult followers like those in the Manson family are so seduced by feelings of acceptance and understanding that they accept their leaders’ ideologies regardless of how destructive or dangerous they may be.
“It’s not even the content of what that charismatic leader says,” he said. “He or she is able to do it in an emotional way.”
So even a cursory reading of the article shows that Newsweek’s psychoanalyst could be talking about any charismatic figure, which includes the majority of politicians, celebrities, and TV personalities in America. But of course, they are only interested in comparing Manson to Trump, whom they have groomed their readers to viewing as some sort of 21st century Hitler – a grave threat to democracy and the Pied Piper of a similar cult to the Nazis, the dreadful and mysterious “alt-right.”
This is the kind of crap that even Buzzfeed News would send back for revision, but apparently this is how far Newsweek has fallen in the race for quick clicks.
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