Toxic Activism: Is Politics Your Drug of Choice?
The professor leaned back in her chair and asked, “What do you want to do when you graduate next month?”
“Well,” I responded, “I’m not certain. That’s the problem… that and the fact that I am forty-six.”
“What did you dream of doing when you were a child?”
I thought back to the time when I still thought as children do. All the normal dreams would have been before I turned thirteen. At that pivotal age I began my transformation from an idealist in the heart of an ultra-conservative religious organization into an antisemitic radical.
I spent the next 25 years obsessed with the ideas of the European religious far-right, dreaming only of helping to bring about a religious utopia. The obstacle was the “Judeo-Masonic New World Order.” The United States, my own country, was considered the enemy’s tool, exporting modern democracy and materialism. At thirteen, I stopped dreaming my own dreams and joined a crusade against the modern world.
How did a normal child from California end up in a convent in Vichy, France, indoctrinated by mentors who mixed Christianity with Holocaust denial and anti-democratic extremism? In 1978, when I walked into a church run by the organization now known for its Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson, I had no idea that the conservative liturgical worship went hand in hand with a radicalized geo-political worldview. In the early days, I saw only the legitimate conservative religious aspect.
“So,” the professor questioned, “you didn’t join because your family was antisemitic?”
Are you kidding? Growing up, my father’s best friend in Brooklyn was Jewish. He loved to tell me how, whenever he visited his friend’s home on Friday night, the mother put a plate of delicious fish in front of him and said, with a big smile, “No good Catholic boy is eating meat in my house on Friday!” My parents were devoid of any racism.
“And yet, you became antisemitic?”
Yes. I experienced why and how the Hitler Youth were radicalized and lost themselves and their futures to a utopian ideal. You join a group for a good cause. In my case it was a preference for the traditional Catholic liturgy. Warning signs that the group culture promoted antisemitism were ignored. The positive aspects of the spirituality led me to close my eyes and minimize the place of the “Jewish conspiracy theory.” My eventual acceptance was based on the implicit trust I had in the leaders and the pernicious mixture of an evil political theology with authentic spiritual doctrine.
A child raised in an enlightened American home sets out to find God and finishes by believing that no Jews were gassed at Auschwitz, that America is the greatest threat to mankind, and that women should not pursue higher education. Such is the seductive power of toxic activism.
The vision of reconstructing society became, almost overnight, my whole life. Friends who didn’t share my convictions were abandoned. Personal interests evaporated, along with dreams of any future not contributing to the crusade. While not all members gravitate with the same intensity to the group’s political mission, most do distance themselves from activities or friendships outside the group.
Studies of “cause-based” or isolationist groups indicate that similar psychological dispositions are present regardless of religious or political specificity. Groups gain ascendancy over members by filling fundamental human psychological needs. At the heart of toxic activism is the inebriating sensation of transcending the limitations of daily life and participating in a mission of global importance. Most members also become deeply attached to the support system. As a committed comrade-in-arms, you are superior, necessary, valued.
At eighteen, I left my country for a convent in France where Catholicism blended with the writings and ideas of the European religious far-right, including those of Charles Maurras and the antisemitic Fr. Denis Fahey. The danger of the political formation was all the more serious because it was presented as the only legitimate social application of the Faith.
Though not prone to waltzing on the way to Mass or whistling on stairs, I was as mismatched for the convent as Maria von Trapp and eventually returned to my home in California, still politically radicalized. Though many leaders of the group discourage higher learning for women, I justified attending college as a sort of “finishing school” and enrolled, an 18-year-old in a 32-year-old body who couldn’t explain why she didn’t know who U2 was or why the Soviet Union was missing.
While taking a Modern Middle Eastern History class, I discovered the writings of the Muslim Brotherhood. For the first time, I looked objectively at my own political worldview because of its presentation in the context of another religion. I can still see where I sat in class that day as I peered into the mirror of hatred and ignorance called radical Islam and saw my own gruesome reflection. So this was my face — the paranoid objectification of Jewish people, the hatred of my intellectual nature as a woman, the loathing of America, the disdain for everything and everybody not myself and not engaged in my war for my Utopia.
That I wore no bombs was merely accidental. My hatred of the world was as destructive as a terrorist. That day in the classroom, unable to face the consequences, I closed my mind in a blatant act of intellectual dishonesty and put Band-Aids on the wall enclosing my mind.
The bandages held for several years until the crack became a gaping hole. I owe my defection, in great part, to information available from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the brilliance of my husband, who researched and documented in the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism the extensive connections between members of the Society of St. Pius X and the radical neo-fascist movement in Europe.
It has been four years since we left the group.
*****
Last month, at the Kansas Republican Caucus, I met my 13-year-old self in the person of a young Ron Paul militant. Wild-eyed and laser-focused on her Cause, the ghost from my past harangued voters about the intricacies of the Federal Reserve.
Supporters of other candidates were enthusiastic; Paul’s representatives were consumed with the imperative. It was clear that for the young girl Paul was not just a political option; getting him elected was her whole life. The Silicon Valley Nazi and the Ron Paul phalangist had both been seduced by total self-oblation to a cause and the euphoria of living high on the drug of choice-activism.
When I left the religious organization, the absence of the Cause created a terrifying void. Because the group had provided me with convictions, feelings, values, a mission, and an identity, I had gone through life as an extension of a centralized persona. Once bereft of my raison d’etre, I redirected my radicalism to politics. I found a guru, a group, and a Cause. The objectives were less extreme, my fusion with the Cause was not. I was still a Utopia-junkie.
One day I looked up from my blog and realized that my daughter was no longer three, but nine. The world was neither a Catholic monarchy, nor ruled by the reincarnation of Ronald Reagan. But the sun was shining. It was time to grow up.
Withdrawal from a radical life was not motivated by disdain for authentic Catholicism or for responsible accomplishment of civic duties. There is a legitimate place in life for Faith and for dedicated efforts to free America from the Golfing Marxist and his entourage of Chicago Rasputins.
Destructive, “toxic” activism is the abandonment of personal identity for the sake of a Utopian Cause; the replacement of attainable personal life with a dream of forcing transformation upon society. The Toxic Cause becomes the unique focus and organizing principle of all activities. Only the Cause energizes. The individual moves from caring about reality and family, to living life for the abstraction.
Instead of cultivating his or her unique talents, preparing and advancing a career, and nurturing family relationships, the individual melds into the group. The authentic person disappears.
Soon, the only social network surrounding the activist consists of people of like mind. This isolation prevents the normal enriching interaction with people who are neither in agreement nor interested in the Cause.
The activist need not be a formal member of a localized group to suffer from toxic group activism.
Through radio, cable, and Internet social networking or blogging, the activist can be part of the “virtual cult,” and connect with others who share constant preoccupation with the Cause.
One identified with a Cause is not dissuaded by argumentation alone. The Cause-focused group fulfills so many emotional and psychological needs that the thought of leaving inspires terror — and a sense of humiliation. The individual has the security of being accepted and valued by a dynamic group and, as long as he or she lives for the Cause, there is no need to face loneliness or make the efforts required by normal socialization, including bonding and rejection, based on exposing the vulnerable but authentic self.
The Cause provides a sense of superiority. Simply watching a conspiracy movie enables believers to consider themselves experts in the intricacies of finance, forensics, criminology, history, the military, physics, bio-hazards, secret societies, politics, ballistics, international diplomacy, pyrotechnics, immunizations, the Mossad, and the fine art of controlled demolition.
The greatest obstacle to abandoning The Cause is the void left in a life by lack of personal development. Each need once filled by The Cause, including deciding what you want to be when you are 13, must be confronted. To give up toxic activism means accepting responsibility for living life.
We cross the line between enthusiasm for politics and toxic activism when the political cause becomes the organizing principle of life. Toxic activism focuses obsessively on transforming what is external to the self; other people, other governments, other voters.
Efforts to bring about good in the world should make us better, more balanced individuals, not mindless, frenzied minions. The expression, “There is vodka in the gulag,” while in no way meant to be taken literally, contains the antidote to group activism. True Utopia is not attained by bitter zealotry. Utopia is first and foremost peace, defined by a characteristically pithy Aquinas as “the tranquility of order.” The antidote for toxic activism is order, an order established through tempering the individual ‘s intellect, will, behavior, and emotions such that they might then emanate into the organic social spheres we inhabit. This order moves us to do the good we can, especially in our families.
Embracing The Cause of becoming authentic, noble human beings brings about the most ironic of transformations. Most lasting, freely embraced global transformations for true good can be traced to individuals who set out to improve themselves or serve others.
Looking back on the ease with which I was radicalized, converted to toxic activism, at such a young age, I understand the crucial need for awareness of the addictive nature of cultic groups offering the false security of surrogate family given on condition of identification with the group.
Focusing on nurturing our real family support systems, critical thinking skills, and an early understanding of one’s unique potential are the real “Causes” that should energize parents, teachers, and policy makers. In addition to being the basis for balanced citizens and healthy society, they are also the most powerful deterrents to the enticement of cultic groups and the Utopian escape from reality offered by toxic activism.
This is a speech given by Roberto Fiore in Budapest, October 23, 2008. Fiore is the founder of the International Third Position, a neo-fascist organization whose teachings are popular and typical of extremism within traditional Catholicism. Here, Fiore declares that the people who caused the economic crisis of 2008 are the same as those “who put Christ on the cross.” Fiore calls for the nationalists of Budapest and Italy to rise up and “fight them.” (Portion of interest at 6:03 minutes.)
If the Jews are controlling the world, I am saure not getting my piece of the action.
If the Jews are controlling the USA, do you really think it would be $15 trillion in debt?!
If the Jews were controlling the US, the Federal Gov’t would be making money and China would owe us money. Best of all there would be a Kosher chicken in every pot.
Antisemitism doesn’t have to make sense. You just have to remember the two most important principles. First, anything bad that happens to us is ultimately caused by the Jews. Second, Jews secretly benefit from anything bad that happens to us.
I’m surprised you haven’t worked out the truth behind the national debt. What causes debt? Buying things with money you don’t have. How do you buy things with money you don’t have? You borrow money. And who lends money? Jews. They’re famous for it. Hence, the Jews are responsible for the national debt. QED.
/sarc
Bugs, very unfunny.
But then there was the article about some supposedly intelligent and educated youngsters who thought that the movie “Titanic” was fiction until they were shown evidence that there was indeed the ship and it did indeed sink and people did indeed die. So why should these folk believe that other folk were worked to death and others gassed to death? These are the same folk who have a hard time believing the slaughter by the Romans, the Huns, the Saracens, the Catholic Church, the Spanish, the Stalinists, Maoist China, Pol Pot, and others.
There is, after all, a cure for ignorance but not for stupidity.
Perhaps the deniers need to spend some time learning history, going to Yad Vashem, going to the Holocaust Museum in Deecee, and having a lobotomy performed on them with a dull chain saw.
Too bad it’s not funny, but it’s precisely the mindset of the people we’re talking about. I did not make up the bit about Jews and the national debt. Just re-worded it. It was “explained” to me by a nice older man I’ve known for some years and whose mind I can no longer fathom.
He thinks China is Jewish?
The US debt is public information:
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/tic/Documents/mfh.txt
It astounds me that someone who claims to be a “rehabilitated” anti-semite could misrepresent Ron Paul’s statements to imply he’s anti-semitic. Do you really believe it makes someone a “hater” to believe that people should fight their own battles, without financing from another country?
Frankly, when someone with your “colorful” history is actively campaigning against Ron Paul, I know I’ve chosen wisely.
I’ve written on the subject of Ron Paul’s antisemitism using the books written by members of his own movement as source material: http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2011/12/14/3-impolite-facts-about-ron-paul-i-hope-sean-hannity-and-ann-coulter-mention-next-time/
“When I was deciding whether or not to run for President as a Republican, I re-read Justin Raimondo’s Reclaiming the American Right and it gave me hope—that the anti-interventionist, pro-liberty Old Right, which had once dominated the party, could and would rise again. Here is living history: the story of an intellectual and political tradition that my campaign invokved and reawakened. This prescient book, written in 1993, could not be more relevant today.”
— RON PAUL, Ten Term U.S. Congressman (TX) and 2008 Presidential Candidate
As I wrote back in defending when explaining Paul’s antisemitism to those he has duped:
This is not a complicated point (as some polite conservatives might think it is.) And it has nothing to do with Paul wanting to end foreign aid to Israel and all other nations. (I know plenty of passionate Zionists who think the same thing for different reasons.)
If you believe that the ideas of the Old Right have great value and that we should have followed a “non-interventionist” path during the rise of Nazism then you are an antisemite. You know good and well that the practical consequence of American inaction would have meant an even higher body count in the Holocaust. But dead Jews are apparently not something that concerns you much.
Just as today Paul doesn’t care if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arms the Islamic Republic of Iran for a nuclear-charged assault against Israel.
If you stop with here: If you believe that the ideas of the Old Right have great value… than you’d have Paul’s position more or less.
…we should have followed a “non-interventionist” path during the rise of Nazism then you are an antisemite. “Then” doesn’t doesn’t necessarily follow “if.”
You know good and well that the practical consequence of American inaction would have meant an even higher body count in the Holocaust.
Preventing a higher Jewish body count was a byproduct of American intervention, not a proximate cause of American intervention. Civilian carnage was indeed increased by American intervention.
But dead Jews are apparently not something that concerns you much.
No more or less than dead any other religio/ethnic/racial/political subgroup.
Thanks for a precise explanation. This is why I never considered supporting Ron Paul. I supported Santorum and some people think he’s a Catholic nutjob as the author described, but to me he is (was) a Henry Jackson Democrat who supported a strong defense, the rights and aspirations of labor, reasonable handling of money,
and freedom of speech. He never wanted to force birth control on anyone. Anyway, no good President is about to entertain America.
Oh wise one, how are you able to sweep away Ron Paul’s public statement at the Iowa GOP debate that American forces are responsible for ONE MILLION Iraq deaths during OIF? How do you sweep away his 9-11 truther statements? Ron Paul is a classic radical cult leader. He makes a little sense here, lies like hell there, makes a little more sense here, etc., etc. Anyone who blogs in defense of this ugly little creep is himself a brainwashed drone.
What is the correct figure then? How many dead civilians in Iraq-istan are too many?
I like Paul a lot more after watching him in the debates than I did before. He wasn’t a truther albeit I had been led to believe he was one, he wasn’t a racist and he was just peachy keen with Israel acting unilaterally to take out Iran’s nukes.
I think my previous dislike for Paul came from a mixture of reporting from opponents of his policies and meeting some of his followers.
So Ron Paul supporters = an obscure anti-semitic religious cult? Bit of a leap.
Most Paul supporters I know live pretty normal lives, out in the community. To the extent that they are rabid, it’s usually on the weekends. Most of them just have a sign in the front yard– right next to both the Confederate and Nazi flags; JUST KIDDING– I kid the Paul supporters because I love them.
Sounds to me like this is the opening salvo of the “Unite Behind Romney We Much” crowd, although it’s hard to understand why you have to kick Paul supporters while they are down. Or is this to head off a third party run? Hmmmmmmmmmmmm………….?
Ron Paul says things that make you nod your head in agreement and you think he is saying much that needs to be said-until he becomes the crazy uncle who says something so far off that you can’t help but think, what a crazy f–k. Sort of like the John Birch Society, lots of pertinent points and then the wander off into crazy territory. Because of the propensity of both to exhibit the ability to stay within the bounds of thinking reason and away from emotional conspiracy they both manage to do nothing more than marginilize themselves, which is unfortunate for all since there is much that needs to be validly discussed but which isn’t because of the outlying crazy.
Those were my thoughts
Inability to reason I mean.
“There is a legitimate place in life for Faith and for dedicated efforts to free America from the Golfing Marxist…..”
“The Golfing Marxist”. I like that! It seems not so long ago that if you recognized that fact that Obama is a Marxist you were considered “over-the-top” by both left and right. Now the fact seems to be becoming mainstream. Good.
Excellent contribution, Mrs. Pryor.
Man is a political and ideological animal by nature. Being over or mis-sold the nature of your adversary in early life does not absolve you from discerning the adversaries of the day, nor does it make complete retreat a viable option, as politics is interested in you even if you aren’t interested in it. Joining several Internet Hate Brigades like this one has clued me in to what motivates people far more deeply and widely than attempting to live a normal, mainstream life.(and fall into normal, mainstream debt and undergo a normal, mainstream divorce while my kids attend normal, mainstream government schools and catch normal, mainstream STDs from normal people around the world we had to import so our lives could be as authentic as theirs.)
Basically, you’re filling the void in your life by slipping into the most normal, mainstream ‘ism’ of them all: Female solipsism and the cult of cool. You accepted reactionaries when you were young and they were cool and supportive and you rejected them as evil when they grew old and socially unpopular. This isn’t critical thinking, this is how normal females behave in all times and places, and it’s a shame that you didn’t absorb enough critical thinking skills from the movement’s leaders to recognize this enough to plan accordingly rather than just letting your feelings drift you back into the mainstream current.
I’ll take my chances with the crochety reactionaries over the narrowing National Review-approved mainstream discourse, we haters can at least make predictions based on past events that generally come true.
“Basically, you’re filling the void in your life by slipping into the most normal, mainstream ‘ism’ of them all: Female solipsism and the cult of cool. You accepted reactionaries when you were young and they were cool and supportive and you rejected them as evil when they grew old and socially unpopular. This isn’t critical thinking, this is how normal females behave in all times and places, and it’s a shame that you didn’t absorb enough critical thinking skills from the movement’s leaders to recognize this enough to plan accordingly rather than just letting your feelings drift you back into the mainstream current.”
Misogyny much?
In other words, she didn’t absorb enough anti-antisemitism and extremism to stay within the confines of the political and religious cult she was in? You, on the other hand, are apparently impervious to any breaching of the wall you’ve erected against the rest of the world.
” catch normal, mainstream STDs from normal people around the world we had to import so our lives could be as authentic as theirs”
Oh, I get it (wink).
There are alternatives to living as a lonely outpost in a sea of the ignorant and disease infested imports.. Why not sign the pledge and move to New Hampshire?
“Liberty in our Lifetime”
Right,
A guy advocating personal liberty and small government is just like the NAZIs.
Sigh…where’s the edit function when you really need it?
*anti-semitism, not “anti-antisemitism”, which is a concept that boggles the mind.
Very interesting story and pertinent for today’s toxic political scene. The root is an unhealthy spiritual atmosphere. There is definitely a plethora of human frailties and psychological motives behind pathological utopianism whether it is on the Left or the Right – scapegoating, escapism, resentments, superiority complex, defense mechanism, subjectivity, ETC. A lot of it is founded in Rousseauan idealism and atheism, and other types in religious fanaticism and legalism. Either way, it seems the common ground is rooted in the denial of our own moral weakness and the humility that should accompany that revelation. Our Founders understood both man’s nobility and the inherent inviolable rights that accompany it, along with our moral weakness and the need for limiting the power of the State through Constitutional limits and checks and balances. A healthy understanding of humanity, ie. of self, it seems is a good antidote to avoiding extremism and toxic beliefs whether religious or secular.
Interesting article. I’m glad the author managed to get some distance from these cult-causes. However, I wonder if she’d have had the same experiences if she’d hooked up with a mainstream political party instead of some fringe organizations. Same utopian desires focused on a more socially acceptable cause. Watch any major party’s national presidential convention and tell me those screaming crowds aren’t hooked on something.
I’ve been involved in trying to shut down a different Catholic cult (LC/RC) for the past six years and have noticed on many occasions that people in the LC/Regnum Christi cult are very similar to those in the Democratism cult. If you google “Pete Vere’s 15 signs of a religious cult”, you’ll see a list that sort of fits today’s Democratic party. (Providing the link seems to negatively affect comments’ posting on PJM)
Oh, and I’m a different Jeannette than the author.
I have a friend who fell into Reginum Christi when she converted to Catholicism. She warned our Church and our Military Council of Catholic Women (MCCW) group, as well as our chapel overseas. They had brought in a RC priest as a fill in & guest speaker. She never would tell us of her specific experiences but this was the last person you would expect to fall into a cult. Apparently it seems like a normal, conservative, old Church group that isnt.
Like a Mummy during the “Cycle of the Full Moon”, the Tea Party Now Arises during each Election Cycle!Specific examples of Tea Party activism mixed in with some great Universal horror movie clips.
“If I wanted America to fail”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ-4gnNz0vc
Fascinating if frightening. While Republican/conservatives are busy starting and building companies and working in them, the Progressive Left is busy substituting working and life for toxic activism. They are supported by government-connected entities, so do not have the same need for focus on working for a living since their “work” is activism. The Right is busy creating wealth for all while the Left is busy tearing it down for personal power.
The Left has been winning for 75 years and we as a country are facing moral and financial bankruptcy. The Tea Party woke up the RIght (hopefully) so it’ll pay attention to this Second Civil War and fight back. Hard. (But still morally.)
This article couldn’t make sense, even if the author had a coherent point to make, because of her ignorant overuse of her Microsoft thesaurus. Just because a word is sometimes synonymous doesn’t mean it always is!
Also, sometimes a person becomes a radical anti-Semite not because of a cool theory like “toxic activism” but simply because that person is a low-functioning moron. Something to ponder.
One of my uncles who was in the first wave on Iwo Jima said the family motto is: “Figure it out for yourself.” He had a lot of time to think in various military hospitals.
People like causes because it makes life simpler. You don’t have to study potential consequences you don’t have to take the world or other people into account.
Personally, I find anyone who derives meaning from a group suspect, and inhuman to the extent they do so. In their eyes not being in their group you are nothing. Idealists are all murderers manque.
Interestingly enough there was extensive discussion by the Founders of our country and the Authors of the U. S. Constitution about groupthink. What we call special interests or toxic activists were of great concern to them. Individuals act in a more moral manner for fear of having their reputations (which granted were more important then than now) besmirched when identified. Groups however — lynch mobs if you will — act anonomously much more malevalently. The structure of our government and the separation of powers was designed to lessen the danger of groups. The Twentieth Century Supreme Court emasculated much of that protection in exchange for more “Progressive Social Justice” whatever the hell that really is. (Power, raw power over others is really what it is!)
Look, I live on Long Island, and I just had a new kidney put in at Mt Sinai Hospital (they do nice work, by the way). I have worked in a very Jewish business my whole life. Let us just say that I could give you a list of all the “unique” features of trying to live with Jews (many of the Jews I work with don’t like dealing with other Jews. “They cheat”, they say). Jews get very touchy about this kind of discussion, but before your knickers knot up, let me say this:
God Bless You. Life would like a vanilla cookie without Jews in NY. For every annoying habit which you display from time to time, there is also a delight, a genius, a style which enriches life. If my choice was to never see the bad again, I would say NO. I would miss the good too much.
Isn’t that what America stands for? You can be annoying or wonderful, and I am free to love you or hate you. But I am not allowed to abuse you or kill you, or even give you special advantages. And I am not allowed to make you do what I want. As long as you don’t abuse me, you can be wacky…or not.
Today, which side of the eternal argument holds this position? Liberals? Hardly. They will outlaw even your right to argue. Conservatives may not fawn all over gays, but we don’t want them to die. They should just pull up their pants in public. So, please tell me again why so many Jews are Liberals? It’s so disappointing that so many smart people can be so wrong.
And, yes. If there really were a Zionist conspiracy running America, we’d be running a profit. Quietly. Under the radar. Shouldn’t be too showy.
Mazel Tov, my Jewish friends.
Deductive reasoning is a Godsend to the busy, thinking person. It spares one the grunt work and busywork of inductive reasoning.
A deductive reasoning element may be accurate inside as its label outside. Or it may mean the opposite when examined by inductive reasoning if one gets around to it. Or it may even have nothing inside.
If the percentage of deductive reasoning elements in anything gets too great, then one may believing heavy duty nonsense.
Some nonsense leads to bad ends. For example, the belief that the US is defended by the vastness of the oceans. This was an eternal truth every year through 1491, but not thereafter. International relations rests on geography and the laws of physics – get used to it.
Jeanette, we would like to re-print your article, after the 48 hours of PJMedia.
Please contact us at the email in this response or at http://www.AmericasChronicle.com
John Galt
America’s Chronicle
SSPX is outside of the Catholic Church for a reason. The Catholic Duke of Greater Poland Boleslaus the Pious issued his “General Charter of Jewish Liberties” in 1264. The Warsaw Confederation of 1573 further encoded Jewish rights in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. (Although I can’t speak for Germany and France.) Many Catholics were persecuted by the Nazis, and Vatican II (which SSPX rejects) further acknowledges religious freedom. So this isn’t a Catholic thing.
From what I’ve seen , the Paul worshippers are as nutty as a burlap sack full of hamster scrotums. They’re almost ALL wild-eyed conspiracy theorists of one brand or another. Thank Heaven that the Republican party pretty much shuns these loons. Imagine if the liberal media started calling these kooks “Republicans!” Republicans would never win another election in this country!
I think this article conflates three different (if overlapping) phenomena.
There are cults (like Scientology) which exist for control of the followers by the leaders, and little else. There may be some eccentric ideas around, but the core is control (and money).
There are cults (like SSPX) which are based on some fringe political or religious or racial doctrine. It is possible to believe in such doctrines without joining a cult; but an association of devout believers in such doctrines can become a cult.
Then there is the Ron Paulite crowd. Which is not, AFAICT, organized very much. Paulites (not to be confused with the Paulist Fathers or Paulistas from Sao Paulo Brazil) get all enthusiastic because Rep. Paul says true things that hardly anybody else says; is willing to break political taboos. This is possible because he’s a political fringist (by choice) who long ago abandoned any intent to accomplish anything in politics. His ferocity is captivating to people who are frustrated by the compromised mess of mainstream politics.
I don’t think there’s any central Paulite creed; various Paulites fall in love with different parts of his messages, and ignore the rest. There are Paulites who are Jew-haters, isolationists, gold bugs, other things. I wonder how much infighting there is between these different types. So, not very much like SSPX?
Please don’t equate the entire Catholic church with breakaway cults that are not in communion with the church. I too left the convent, went right after grade school and stayed till age 24. I never heard an evil word said about the Jewish people. However, I did not even find out about the Holocaust until I was in high school, preparing to enter the convent. It horrified me that noone had seen fit to mention it earlier.