God, Trump, and the Narcissistic Trap

“There is no one more grandiose or egotistical (or insecure) than the biblical God.”

— God the Narcissist, Andrew Jasko, 2019

That line hit me because it put words to what I had sensed my whole life: the god at the center of our culture is a narcissist. And once you see that pattern, you can’t unsee it. You start to notice it in leaders, in systems, in families. It’s the same tyrant code repeating itself in different costumes.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family ruled by a mother who suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Most people don’t think of parents as tyrants, but that’s exactly what it was—living under a household dictator. The lies, the manipulation, the rage when her authority was questioned—these became my blueprint for spotting tyrants in the wider world.

So when Trump stepped onto the stage, I recognized his type immediately.

Small Town, Next to the Church

I grew up in a small town where the church wasn’t just a building, it was the soul of the town. I lived right next door, which meant I had a front-row seat to the performance. Inside the church, families sang hymns to a God of love. Outside, those same people beat me up, called me names, and made sure I knew I was different.

At the time, I didn’t even know I was gay. But they did, or at least they sensed my difference, and difference had to be eliminated. That’s how the programming of the works: identify the threats, eliminate them, nothing else matters. Even in childhood, I felt the cruelty of a system that demanded conformity and erased anything outside its control.

That was my first crack in the façade, the moment I saw the split between public piety and private brutality.

Parents as Tyrants

When people think of tyrants, they imagine kings, dictators, or cult leaders. But the first tyrant many of us meet is a parent. A narcissistic parent rules the household with fear and unpredictability exactly the same as a tyrannical dictator. Love is conditional. Obedience is demanded. Any challenge to their authority brings rage or punishment or excommunication.

This is the same architecture as external tyrants:

• Absolute authority – “Because I said so” at home; “Because I’m your leader” in politics.
• Gaslighting – your reality is denied until you start doubting yourself.
• Scapegoating – one child or group singled out as the problem.

Once you’ve been programmed to accept this dynamic at home, it feels familiar later in life. That’s why so many people walk blindly into authoritarian systems—they’ve already been conditioned to believe domination is normal.

The Church as Authority Machine

The Church didn’t rise to power by spreading compassion. It rose by destroying competition. Old cults, goddess traditions, and local rites across Europe and the Mediterranean were branded heresy and suppressed. Pagan holidays were rebranded as Christian festivals. Temples were burned or converted. Sacred sites were overwritten with cathedrals.

The formula was simple:

• Replace many gods with one jealous father-god.
• Redefine loyalty as love, and diversity as betrayal.
• Demand constant obedience, enforced by eternal threats.

That’s not faith. That’s programming. The Church became an authority machine—conditioning people to accept domination as divine order.

Everyday Obedience: Church and Capitalism

Here’s the connection most people never see: the mindset the Church trains is the same one demanded by capitalism. Different costumes, same program.

• Blind routine: In church, you kneel, recite, tithe. At work, you clock in, obey, produce, and pay. Few ask why—it’s just “what we do.”
• Worship of hierarchy: God above, pastor beneath, congregation at the bottom. CEO above, managers beneath, workers at the bottom. Both enforce obedience with threats and promises.
• Debt as sin: In church, you are born guilty and must pay it off through devotion. In capitalism, you are born into debt cycles—student loans, mortgages, credit—that keep you tethered for life.
• Advertising as sermons: Instead of pastors, we have commercials and influencers preaching salvation through products.
• Community policing: In church, members gossip and condemn those who step outside the rules. In capitalism, workers and neighbors shame anyone who doesn’t “pull their weight” or fit the mold.

Most people go through life thinking they’re free—working, consuming, worshipping—when in reality they’re serving two faces of the same authority machine.

Victims of Abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, and the MAGA Cult

This is why I see Trump supporters the way I do. They don’t just remind me of victims of narcissistic abuse—they remind me of myself. I know the thoughts that cycle through your head when you’re trapped in the push-pull of fear and loyalty.

Psychologists call this Stockholm syndrome, trauma bonding, and betrayal blindness. When a trusted figure—parent, god, or leader—betrays you, admitting it feels like losing the ground beneath your feet. It’s easier to cling to the tyrant than face the grief of betrayal.

We see it in MAGA rhetoric every day:

• “Fake news!” — denying evidence, undermining reality.
• “It’s a witch hunt!” — flipping accountability into persecution.
• “Both sides do it” — normalizing corruption to protect the abuser.
• “I alone can fix it” — welding fear and hope into loyalty.

What’s even more chilling: some supporters don’t just defend Trump—they start becoming him. Victims of narcissistic abuse sometimes take on the traits of their abuser, a psychological reflex called identification with the aggressor. In MAGA, you see people adopting his language, his rage, his conspiratorial worldview, until they speak as if they are Trump. That’s not loyalty—it’s possession.

Historical Tyrants, Same Script

The MAGA cult isn’t unique. Tyrants throughout history have reinforced loyalty by targeting the vulnerable and rewriting reality.

• Nazi Germany scapegoated Jews, Roma, and homosexuals. Today, MAGA scapegoats immigrants, trans people, and anyone outside its purity narrative.
• Imperial Rome persecuted minority cults and religions until conformity was absolute. Today, MAGA leaders try to legislate Christianity as the only moral code.
• Stalin’s USSR purged intellectuals and artists, replacing them with propaganda. Today, MAGA leaders censor schools and brand teachers as “groomers.”
• McCarthy’s America destroyed reputations by inventing enemies everywhere. Today, MAGA cries “deep state” conspiracies at every turn.

The pattern never changes: identify outsiders, demonize them, demand loyalty to one story.

Trump’s Narcissistic Wound

When Trump was called out for trying to overturn the election—or for any of his many scandals—the response wasn’t accountability. It was rage, denial, blame-shifting. That isn’t just politics. It’s pathology.

Even if convicted, he will never believe he’s guilty. In his mind, he is flawless. That’s how narcissists operate. And that’s why his followers remain devoted: their loyalty is bound up in his refusal to ever admit fault.

The Divine Narcissist

The narcissistic injury Jasko describes in God the Narcissist is the black-hole mirror at the center: whenever another god, worldview, or authority threatens its specialness, the god-egregore lashes out with genocide, hellfire, or purges.

Trump mirrors that code. His cult mirrors that code. And the Church built the prototype.

A Way Out

The hardest step for any survivor is facing the truth: the parent, the god, the leader never cared about you—only about control. It feels like death. But it’s also the first breath of sovereignty.

The process is simple but brutal:

1. Identify the program – call it what it is: abuse.
2. Track its origins – family systems, church doctrine, political manipulation.
3. Unplug from it – refuse to feed it with loyalty, fear, or worship.

And then, declare it out loud.

The Binding (in my own words)

I don’t pray to gods. I don’t ask tyrants for mercy. This is what I say:

“I see you. I name you. And I cut my energy from you.

You don’t get my fear. You don’t get my loyalty.

You don’t get to live in my head or run my story.

You are done here.

You don’t come back.”

That’s not a ritual. That’s survival. That’s how you unplug from an egregore—whether it wears the face of a parent, a church, a system, or a man with a red hat.

The cult cannot survive without your attention.

The god cannot survive without your worship.

The tyrant cannot survive without your fear.

Unplug—and the whole thing collapses.

Binding

I see you.

I feel you.

You have been witnessed and released.

By my word, my breath, and my will, the field is clear.