Ex-Moonie hired to 'de-program' Jan. 6 defendants of their devotion to Trump: report

An expert whose comparison of Donald Trump to a cult leader was cited in his defamation suit against CNN has been working to "de-program" a pair of Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

The former president's lawsuit against CNN was eventually thrown out of court, but cult expert and former "Moonie" Diane Benscoter says she's finding it difficult to persuade the Trump supporters from modulating their courtroom behavior – let alone recant their devotion, reported The Atlantic.

"It’s so difficult, in fact, that she sees greater hope in attacking the demand side of cultism, calling for government programs that would treat disinformation and indoctrination as a kind of public-health emergency — a Sanitary Commission of the Mind," wrote Peter Sagal for the publication.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

"If enough people can be taught how indoctrination works, she thinks, they will be able to see it coming for them before it’s too late. Set aside the legal and ethical questions about assigning the government that sort of expansive role; what if it’s already too late? Educating people so they won’t join a political cult, in 2023, is like closing the barn door after the horse has attacked the West Portico of the Capitol with bear spray."

Daniella Mestyanek Young, who has a master’s in group psychology from Harvard’s Extension School and shares her childhood experience with the Children of God cult in a series of TikTok videos, doesn't believe anyone can be talked out of Trumpism, but she's seen many self-rescues.

“Twenty years ago, when I walked away from a cult, it was much rarer to meet Americans like me, who are completely estranged from their families because they wouldn’t follow one leader, one guru, one specific ideology – and now it’s very common," Young said. "The way that cults die without a final, Jonestown-like conflagration is when they can’t recruit the next generation, and we are seeing this in the alt-right. We’re going to see young children of MAGA Republicans voting for the left.”

Younger people largely reject Trump's brand of conservatism, Young said.

"They’re not going to vote for the people who made them do live-shooter drills in schools and at the same time loosened the gun laws," she said, adding that their views extend to conservative Christianity, in general. "[They say things like] 'Screw you – you told me all my friends are going to hell. I’m going to hell with them.'"

She has seen evidence that many Trump followers simply fall away from the cult and get back into whatever interested them before he entered politics, although they're embarrassed to admit they'd been conned, and she doesn't think the cult will endure without its figurehead.

"Young believes that the only thing that will truly end Trumpism is what ends everything, eventually: the icy hand of death," Sagal wrote. "Not necessarily the departure of Trump himself; she believes that if and when he leaves the scene, via jail or one too many Big Macs, various pretenders will rise up to claim his mantle and authority, just as the Unification Church splintered into various factions after the death of Reverend Moon. No, what she means is that the members of the cult itself will die out, and there will be no one, eventually, to replace them."