How do the pros get someone to leave a cult?

  cult (noun): A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader -- American Heritage Dictionary

Without the "generally considered to be extremist or false" it would be quite hard to even identify a cult. It's mostly used as way to slur a disfavored group. It's an element of a Russell conjugation, like I am part of a spiritual awakening, you belong to a religious sect, they are in a mind-control cult.

I was raised as a Jew. I consider that to be a cult, if one of the milder religious ones. My peewee football team was a cult. I belonged to a cultic political party, and worked for a startup that closely met the definition.

So getting someone to leave a cult is going to be the same as getting them to forsake any other community, just with the added coercion of social acceptability. There's no magic, no brain unwashing, it's the same kind of persuasion used to sell a vacuum cleaner.

> The piece left me thinking that the reasons people become involved with and attached to cults might not be different at some fundamental level from a lot of other psychological problems they get themselves in — just a matter of degree or pervasiveness.

It's kind of hard to articulate but the thing with cult and cult-like movements, and also somewhat cons & scams, is the "vulnerability" they exploit is the raw material of human connection.

A person who is immune to cult recruitment is a person who never feels isolation, desire, loneliness, grief, hope, fear of loss or lack of control, a person who never wants a hug or someone to talk to, who feels nothing at a smile from a stranger or the giggle of a baby.

Is that a person worth trying to be? I don't think so. To the degree you're open to human connection you're proportionally vulnerable to malicious connection too. Everyone, no matter how resilient, will go through periods of relative need, want, and weakness and at those times they are vulnerable. There are risk factors for getting involved, just like with say addiction, but no one is completely immune. If the wrong person is around you at the wrong time in your life you're in danger.

It's rather like romantic relationships. We do have a drive to and benefit from connections with other people, but in various circumstances can end up with a "cult of two" (folie a deux) mutually destructive situation or a one-sided exploitation situation.

I've thought about J6 a lot, and what bothers me isn't so much the violence, but the lies and pathetic worldview that drove it.

The idea that violence is necessary if an election is stolen - if political forces actually manipulated the results of the democratic process - is not absurd to me, and is not inherently immoral.

What made J6 wrong was not that it was violent, but that it was based on the obvious lies of a narcissistic compulsive gaslighter with no evidence, so they could further destroy the government and take rights away from people.

I guess my point is, values matter.

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edit, since I hit the "dang" limit on discussing things with people:

Violence has always been part of societies, when rights are taken away violently by the ruling class or when nonviolent protest fails to secure fundamental rights.

Violence because an election was lost isn't just. Violence because the government is committing genocide is just. Violence because a stupid man told me to go attack the capitol because, against all evidence, he says the election was rigged is wrong. Violence because there is massive evidence of a rigged election (Tanzania, Russia) is not wrong.

Of course, all of this is a distraction from thrust of your argument "MAGA and Trans people are equal because they both have flags and I heard someone say something violent once".

MAGA is more violent, anti-democratic and oppressive than anything you can ever say about any left-wing identity political movement, period.

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edit2: If one is willing to ignore the history of the world and the conditions I set for when violence seems just (while we diverge from the core discussion around the false equivalence between a gender rights movement and an anti-democracy movement) then I agree, we don't have a lot to talk through.