Latest / Follow the Leighder / How Cults and Authoritarians Play the Long Game | Knitting Cult Lady
Transcript
- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, howdy folks and welcome back to another episode of Follow the Leighder. I'm your host, Leigh Larson, and y'all, I am really stoked for today's Joining me is the knitting cult lady herself, Mestyanek Young. Welcome to the studio, Daniella. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Thank you so much for having me. Leigh/@followtheleighder: my gosh, y'all, if y'all are familiar with Knitting Cult Lady, or Daniella rather, that's who she is on socials, ⁓ knitting as she is here. And she sells also what she knits. So if you are interested, check out her store. ⁓ But knitting and being a knitting expert, ⁓ she's cult scholar and a bestselling author. She's written ⁓ and two Culting of America, ⁓ after receiving master's in organizational psychology, ⁓ studying cults literally at Harvard. She served in the army as an intelligence officer and as a combat veteran and deployed in 2011 to Afghanistan. Thank you A for your service to our country and also for sharing your wealth of knowledge online with so many of us because it's fascinating. Tell us, I know that you were raised in children of God. You talk about this as a cult. What is Children of God? Talk about your childhood. What was that like? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): So Children of God is one of your cults that got sort of famous in the late 60s, early 70s, which was our prior era of cults. know, cults pop up in times of social turmoil. And Children of God is essentially famous for taking evangelical purity culture and flipping it and flipping it to be what they called free love, what I call forced polyamory. They are also the cult that is famous for using religious prostitution and for promoting pedophilia kind of like actively and out loud. ⁓ And why maybe some of your listeners have heard of it is it's also the cult that produced Joaquin and River Phoenix and Rose McGee. because essentially this is what we were, was performing children all around the world that would sell stuff for the cult. So my family, actually my grandparents are the ones that joined the cult. Back in the 70s, my grandfather joined and became like high up in their finance and my mom was born into the cult. And then by the time she was 14, she was pregnant with me by his birth. My father's older than my grandfather, which I call sex cult math. And I grew up... sort of in what you think of, like communes around the world. I was born in Asia. I mostly grew up in Brazil and Mexico and in this sort of little army of God. ⁓ And actually the concept of my memoir, Uncultured, is during my first day of basic training, I realized, you know, ⁓ this is another cult. And I understand this because I was born a soldier in this religious group. that was totally consuming and our only purpose in life was to win the world for Jesus before the apocalypse which was supposed to occur at any point. ⁓ By the time I was 15, I got myself kicked out and ended up being sort of dropped off with an older stepsister in Houston, Texas, which was really kind of my first introduction to this country, which I'm supposed to be from. And ended up like putting myself through high school and college and then going right into the military and into intelligence. So yeah, long way of describing how when I was in grad school, you know, after, and for those who don't know, the intelligence officer is the expert on the enemy or the expert on the bad guys because we were involved in the war on terror. I spent a lot of time studying, being trained in counter-terrorism and then with two deployments to Afghanistan, you know. ⁓ studying that a lot. And so by the time I was in graduate school and studying organizational psychology, which is essentially influenced tactics, and I thought, well, I've been studying the bad guys for a long time. And I think that I'm going to keep studying the bad guys. And what's more, I think that everyone here is studying cult tactics. They're just all assuming that the companies they're going to go work for are the good guys. ⁓ So that's me in a nutshell. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you. And you talked about Children of God ⁓ being ⁓ promoters of pedophilia and apocalyptic. there ⁓ talk about that apocalyptic theology? it were you awaiting an Armageddon, a rapture? What was y'all story? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, so I mean, we were basically evangelicals. David Berg came out of the Christian Missionary Alliance and his mother was actually a revivalist pastor in the 30s who trained under Amy Semple Macpherson, if you're familiar with any of that stuff. So came out of mainline evangelicalism and then just kind of built his own worldview. But the basic concept was he was the prophet of God. Nobody else could see it. which is of course why we had to drop out from the rest of the world, but God had told him that, you know, Jesus is coming back any day now. So very much evangelical, book of revelations, Jesus coming back on white horses, we're going to have an Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, all of that stuff. In fact, On my Instagram, on YouTube today remains a video of me and six other white children wrapping Apocalypse Bible verses in downtown Rio, a product that we created for, you know, witnessing, preaching about the end of days. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Really? And that's a really interesting, you talk about children and then I mentioned the pedophilia aspect of that. This use of children as labor, as property, kind of talk about how they see children. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): So first of all, I think our basic definition of cult should just be anytime anyone's appearing to participate in their own exploitation, right? Like just go along with it. And when I tell you, I didn't really understand my life, I'd already written a book. calling the army a cult, but like telling my life story, but I didn't really understand it until I heard another cult expert say cults are always about labor. And I think it is so important because that is when I realized like, ⁓ it wasn't this unexplainable weird thing. It was essentially organized crime, but people were bought into it. And we were an army of 10,000 full-time beggars for Jesus all around the world and military-like hierarchies and structures performing and bringing in millions and millions of dollars ⁓ for this organization. Like that's what we were. You know, I was trafficked around the world as a performer and also as in many cults, the children and the teenagers are just labor of every kind. So from the age of 11, I was in charge of cooking for the entire commune, for example, you know, so physically. physical, mental, labor, all of it, really. Leigh/@followtheleighder: I, how, when you said that you got in the military and you're like, ⁓ this is another cult. How do you define cults? I know we just talked about like the bulk of it is labor, but you have your pinned definitions on your social media posts. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, no a 10-part definition that I have broken it down and it comes to, you know, so it's first of all it's a group of two or more people. and it has a charismatic authority situation. So charismatic leader, but the leader can be an idea. ⁓ It has a sacred assumption. This one thing that everybody has to believe to be in the group. It's got a transcendent mission, right? Something that is so good and so obvious and such that we need to sacrifice for. And that's step four, constant self-sacrifice all of the time. Number five is isolation. isolation and that doesn't have to look like compounds anymore and that can you know, the internet has really changed the isolation game. ⁓ Number six is distinguishable vernacular having our own language that means something to group members, but not to outsiders. Number seven having an us versus them mentality. Eight exploitation of labor. Nine high exit costs and ten ends justifies the means mentality. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): And I know that's not a simple definition to wrap your head around, but I think that's because cults are not simple. And that is actually my second book is a chapter on each one of these showing it to us in like real cults, regular cults that we all recognize. And then in the United States military and then in groups around us in our culture. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, that is fascinating. and cause it's like, like, how, what, what does, I know you've also said things like 12 step groups can be cults. That, and you're smiling. Can you, and you've gotten some pushback for that online before. Can you talk about how, like you said, the military is a cult, but now like something like AA, like How can we be sure that something we're not joining is in a cult? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): So it's hard. ⁓ I say is like the first question you get asked if you say hey I'm a cult expert the first two questions you get asked are what about the military and what about Alcoholics Anonymous? ⁓ And my answer is that it's because they're both cults and we don't want to have that conversation really as a society. I am as far as I know the first cult expert with also military experience that could really show those parallels and when I tell you from Alcoholics Anonymous it was first it was just listening to the stories of children whose parents were an alcoholics anonymous. And I was like, I recognize this cult baby thing. ⁓ One of the things very specifically, and military brats all recognize this too, having your parents put the mission before you. You know, it's just this experience that we have all had. You know, Alcoholics Anonymous specifically, one of the things I take them on for in this book is just expecting to be the sacred moose that is unquestionable because we are saving lives. And they are actually the example that I use for the sacred assumption chapter of like, you know, The Children of God got 10,000 people sober too. Scientology currently is good at getting people sober. In fact, the US military, when they pick us up and put us on a deployment for a year, they're pretty good at getting us and keeping us sober. Because when you let a group take over your entire life, you're sort of addicting yourself onto the group. ⁓ And the biggest problem with Alcoholics Anonymous is there's a lot of harm that is done that people don't have the space to talk about. And this is a similar parallel I find to talking about some of the really big cults like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, even the Amish, where it's almost not taken seriously any of the problems because people are like, what are you talking about? They do so much good. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that's like, ⁓ I was thinking about how much money behind political marketing and political campaigns, ⁓ how so much of it has contributed to people, particularly on the right, when you think about right wing ⁓ media sponsorships and media takeover. And how many people have been brought into that? Because like you said, they weren't looking. They weren't like they were, they're very sneaky. There's these things like pipelines, I think is what they're called. Is that how you define them? ⁓ But the recruitment strategies are very concerning, at least online. Can you talk about beyond online? What does it look like for someone to be recruited into a pool? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you know, so that's part of how I'm to answer your earlier question is, you how can we keep ourselves safe? And one of my answers is you kind of can't. anywhere in the space of personal transformation, you're going to be at risk for being recruited. This can be religion. This can be job training. This can be school, right? Like spirituality, exercise, diet, losing a loved one. When you're going from being one thing to being another thing, it's kind of like you're already there to change yourself. You're already willing to change yourself. And so predators can sneak in. And, you know, I like to be really clear because we never really say it this way that there's only one reason people join cults and it's because cult leaders build cults. You know, it's because abusers build cults and then cults, especially the bigger and bigger they get, tend to have recruiters. And actually one of the ways that I convinced a big serious cult scholar out there to take my claims about the military seriously is when I talk about the bait and switch. Like recruiters are allowed to lie to you and the first thing they tell you in Army Basic Training is we don't care what your recruiter told you. Like you're ours now, right? Like you have signed the contract, you're in. I- Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): do not believe that anybody who joins the military knew what they signed up for. You I don't really think that statement is ever really true. And you don't really know until you're months into the group. You know, I mean, for me, I didn't really understand what an intelligence officer did in a major combat brigade until I deployed a year and a half into already being, you know, into my service, into my commitment. Leigh/@followtheleighder: All Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): ⁓ So this sort of deceptive pipeline is one of the big things of cults. know, cults are often, people often join cults by accident, if that makes sense. You know, they're looking for a church and they find a cult. They're looking for a nonprofit and they find a cult. They're looking for a trainer and they find a cult. ⁓ And then there are, especially in our country and especially in politics, there are organizations that are charity fronts and political fronts. know, like the Children of God had a organization, Family Care Foundation, that ran all the way through the early 2000s in America for the sole purpose of getting government grants and for being like this front organization. ⁓ A real famous one, by the way, is Shen Yun, the dance show, which is a front for a Chinese cult called Falun Gong ⁓ and the New York Times. I think last year or two years ago did an article on that and another one is restaurants. So there's a cult called 12 tribes and they have a front called Yellow Deli and it's like a little hippie sandwich cafe just served with a side of child labor and you know religious coercion that most of the guests have no idea about. Leigh/@followtheleighder: What about the children? How are they educated? What does it look like? Is it all Bible? What is the education system with cults typically? Or for children of God? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): So in, mean, it's always about. It's almost always about information control, right? This is like one of the things, one of the types of isolation that cults do is information control is not allowing you to have, you know, outside books, outside music. So in the Children of God, we were 100 % cut off from the outside world. ⁓ Actually, we had an early founding member of Fleetwood Mac join the Children of God, and he ran a music program basically, made all of our own music, performed it all over the world, and that was the only thing we were allowed to listen to growing up. ⁓ We got to see some movies, but pretty rare, but that was on a whim because our leader liked movies. ⁓ And our education was pretty much non-existent. mean, technically we were homeschooled and we used a lot of the regular, you know, Christian programs, regular, ⁓ that are used in America or that were used at the time. ⁓ But definitely and in huge part because of the apocalypse mentality, education was not a priority. ⁓ And we were, I would say, educated enough to appear educated to the outside world. So they loved a good early childhood education. You know, when you have a five-year-old child who can quote King James Bible and do a little song and dance, like nobody is really concerned that that child is being under-educated and manipulated. But yeah, mean, books, like I am a voracious reader who grew up in a world of banned books and pretty much the only thing I was allowed was the King James Bible and the more and more incoherent rantings of our leader who wrote over 300,000 pages of bullshit during his tenure. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and folks listening, the King James version of the Bible was obviously King James who united, did he unite Scotland and England? But he was the, ⁓ was one of the guys over the Scottish witch hunts. You've heard me talk about the Scottish witch hunts. ⁓ Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): think so. Leigh/@followtheleighder: But he absolutely used the Bible to, ⁓ and then also for sodomy laws, for witch hunting, ⁓ for all sorts of stuff. mean, that Bible, and it was used to be disseminated across Great Britain and stamp out pagan schools. It was supposed to, like you said, it was to teach children how to read. And that's, and here it is still to this day being used. Go ahead. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah. And speaking of distinguishable vernacular, there's a reason that a lot of controlling Christian groups like the King James Version, because it is written in archaic English and it is hard for the average person to understand. It's sort of the same reason that Latin priests didn't wanna give up their... hold on the Latin Bible didn't want to give it the people they understand in their modern language. And so, you know, this was our cult leader because he grew up with a mom who was a preacher who was teaching him the Bible and then he studied it and he could explain it to people who didn't understand it. It gave him a lot of control. Leigh/@followtheleighder: such a great point. Well, you talk about, you have Uncultured and culting of America. Culting of America, it looks like it takes the ten parameters, is that, don't, ten points of your definition of a cult. But Uncultured looks specifically at the military. ⁓ Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, so uncultured is my memoir. It is like me telling a story. And actually part of this came about because when I started telling people about my background after like 10 years of just trying to mask and be the perfect soldier and not talk about anything, and I started telling people and people would always say to me, oh, you don't seem like a cult survivor. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Okay. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): You know, and then also being a civilian out in the world after the military and people telling me, ⁓ you don't look like a veteran, you know, and in both of these cases being like, what does a veteran look like? You know, what do you, I started asking people, how many cult survivors have you met? You know, and it's, we have these stereotypes about what cults are. ⁓ When I was going through trying to publish Uncultured, I would get told, we don't do books about the children of God because the abuse is too awful. Or we don't do books about women in the military because nobody reads them. ⁓ And I... I kept getting told also, like, these are two different stories. And I was like, but I don't think they are. I think these are similar stories about power structures. ⁓ And so, you know, I don't actually call the army a cult in Uncultured. I just show you my life story of growing up in this, what we think of as a very extreme, obvious cult, and then going into the military and having the same parallels and the same triggers. ⁓ not to mention the sexual violence in the military, which was a direct parallel for me as well. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Absolutely. And that explains too, ⁓ with our close personal best friend, Pete Hexhead. ⁓ But he's from one of the, don't know, at a rural town out of Minnesota. And so it makes, I mean, he was quite literally born and raised for the position he's in. And that's what's fascinating is, The Mark Driscoll, I don't know if you had overlap with Mark Driscoll or focus on the family material in Children of God, but a lot of those folks have grown up and they've either left, like you, they've been like, what is going on? And they've left and they're trying to tell others or they're very, they're the next wave. ⁓ It's a... Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, yeah. So, you know, one of the things for me when I, so I'm 15 years old, right, I leave the family international, right, I don't want to be this full time missionary anymore. I want to go to school. So I get kicked out. And I realized I grew up in a cult, like that's the outside world sees that as a cult. And then I proceeded to go through my next 20 years closely hand in hand with like evangelical America and Mormon America because of being in Texas and then serving in the military. And I was like, it was pretty clear to me that a bunch of millennials had also come up under a very similar kind of extremism that I had come up under. Ours was just named and identified as a cult and these ones hadn't. And I think that now we can stand here and look back and say, ⁓ they were growing up in MAGA. you know, like these, all of these different organizations that were using more and more charismatic and coercive techniques, they really started organizing in, I mean, there was a lot of response to the sixties and the progress of the sixties that was a knee-jerk response. And a lot of the cults of the sixties and seventies came out of anger about desegregation, as did a lot of the, you know, Christian Bible schools and colleges and all of that. And then more and more, or they're organizing under Reagan and then... You know, it's interesting because I recognize what Trump did because it's what David Berg did is he showed up and he just took everyone's cult into his cult of personality, like all these individual organizations that were already coming up. I mean, Pete Hegseth is exactly like this is this is what I was raised to be. And this generation, Joshua, that they call it, of raising like good little soldiers in the various armies of God. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right, yeah. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): so that they can go win the world for their ideology, for their Christian theocracy. mean, Mormons have been encouraging their people to join the military forever, you know? ⁓ And it is very much not a niche thing anymore, I feel like, to have this extremism upbringing and have that having effects on people's lives. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, no, not at all. And it's ⁓ not lost on me how the accusations coming from the right constantly are like, ⁓ we don't deal with identity politics. I'm like, religion is the one of any of them that you can pick and choose and build an identity around. the one choice in terms, you know what I mean? But I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, I mean it was the the mili- part of why the military was hard for me is because it's so religious. and it is so specifically Christian and in my opinion, it was like evangelical recruiting, you know? mean, every boss I ever had told me I should take atheists off my resume. I know that sounds strange to civilians, but our religion's on our resume in case we die at work. And they would tell me they're like, you're gonna be discriminated against if you have this on your resume. And you know, all of this, like, there's still so much religion baked into the military. I every ceremony we do there is bow your head and pray. And as someone with a lot of religious trauma, it was really hard for me. And I was like, this is not, like it doesn't feel equal, like you can choose. It feels like we have this one thing we want you to be. ⁓ There you have it. Recently we had, what, over 200 complaints of commanders briefing troops that this war in Iran was going to bring on Armageddon. So it's all, I don't know, a little on the nose, I think. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Very on the note. And that's exactly like, it's like trying to talk to someone who's not familiar with either the military or Christian National or just anything. You start to feel like you, have a tinfoil hat. Like I'm like, no, I, they're not, this isn't fringe anymore, y'all. They have all come together and now it's like very much a threat. And it's. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, and. I mean, I feel like all the cult experts that are working right now are like screaming, like, we're not being hyperbolic when we call MAGA a cult, you know, like really this is what we are seeing. Like the cults of the sixties rams or walked so that MAGA could run, you know, and this is what we are dealing with. And, you know, I even think it's interesting if you look at last Trump administration, which is when I was like, ⁓ this guy's a cult leader. I'm going to write. first book, you know? And, but it didn't so much feel like all of us were in a cult. It just felt like a scary cult had the government and like how much worse is this going to be? And I feel like this last time around, it was like from day one, it felt like we were all in the cult of America. I mean, I swear the president writes copy for my book every day, right? And like, the good news is the way that cults die or end is when they fail to keep and recruit the next generation. And that's how children of God ended. That's happening in a bunch of the big OG cults. And I definitely think it's happening in... you know, all of these like Christian nationalist circles right now. And also, I don't know of any cult that can actually survive for a long time, forcing two thirds of its adult population to be there against their will. So. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Thank you. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Right? Like it's almost this like, like dictators need to come to power on the love of the people. ⁓ The majority of the people, not a minority. So I don't think the power dynamics are in their favor. And I do think, you know, the not cult side. Leigh/@followtheleighder: There we are. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): of this eventually wins, but it is definitely not fringe anymore, right? mean, Pete Hegseth had Doug Wilson. Doug Wilson, who runs an absolute cult, speak at the Pentagon. You know, Doug Wilson, who doesn't believe women should vote and want to repeal the 19th Amendment, speak at the Pentagon. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Bye. And he did an interview and he talked about how he ministers to pedophiles and like how much that, you know, Jesus was working with sinners. And I was like, yeah, Jesus, Jesus. But like sinners who didn't want that, like he wasn't condoning it. He wasn't like approving it. And like, it was really, it's the, feels like a lot of jumping hoops and twisting a lot of scripture. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah. Well, you know, one of the interesting things for me was being dropped out of a pedophile cult into evangelical purity culture. Because there's definitely that all over the military as well. And, you know, now I feel like we've come full circle and I can say purity culture is pedophilia culture. You know, but I spent so much time wondering, like, why do I have so much in common with ex-Mormons and ex-Vangelicals when in theory we had the opposite, right? But if you think about it, like, what Children of God was, overexpose children to sex, over talk about sex, of course the adults end up abusing the children, but tell them it's all good and tell them it's all love. And it doesn't actually matter that much if you're overexposing children to adult conversations about sex and then telling them it's bad. Right? It's not like it's still in both cases. It's obsession with the sexuality of children and it creates pedophiles and it leads to the same bad things, which is sort of what we're seeing with the Duggars right now. You know, and I, I mean, literally when I came out of the Children of God, the Duggars was on TV and I don't even think I'd fully realized the Children of God was a cult yet, but I was like, that's a cult. Why are we watching that? You know, and it, it really is just like the way I explained it now, it's like purity culture is the other side of the coin of pedophilia and you can't separate a coin, right? Like two sides of a coin are not opposite in the way we think of them. They are parts of the same thing. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, that's a really good point. The focus on the most vulnerable, innocent, the perversion of it, it's just like a very astute observation. Thank you. I'll be thinking about that one. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, and you know, it's interesting because people are always like, why? Why does it always come down to abusing children? And I think it's really important to understand that like, so cults are power structures and cult leaders like to play power games. And they are power structures built for exploitation, right? Exploitation specifically of children and women, and then all of their members. And so one of the things is like, they do it because they can, right? They do it because it's powerful. because children are the least powerful people in our society, the most oppressed demographic. And if you can do that to children and walk away, like you're powerful. ⁓ but it also comes down to exploitation, you know, and I sometimes get frustrated that we focus so much on the sexual abuse, like especially with children of God, people really only want to hear about the sexual abuse. And one of the reasons it's considered a yes, for sure, occult is because of the sexual abuse, but it really is just all exploitation of children. And if we tighten our exploitation laws, tighten our labor laws, you know, they're trying to go the opposite way, they're trying to push labor laws backward. You know, if we think about creating a bill of rights for children, like those are the things that are going to stop the abuse of children. Because sexual exploitation is just another kind of exploitation. And I really have put a whole chapter on labor exploitation in America on this book, because I really think it's that important. Leigh/@followtheleighder: necessarily like could you argue it like as a like a pyramid scheme too like is there ⁓ yeah like it's just Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): ⁓ yeah, and pyramid schemes or multi-level marketing as we call them are, we call them commercial cults. these days, you know, like that is what it is. And cults are cons, you know, and part of why people fight so hard against realizing that a thing they were involved with was a cult or did cult damage to them is because it's very, very difficult to convince somebody they have been conned, right? Nobody wants to believe that. ⁓ You know, to this day, my grandfather runs the money for the children of God and has lost his entire family, his kids, his grandkids. and 50 years of his life and he you know it would cost him too much to actually realize the truth so so he's invested in not waking up if that makes sense Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. And you brought over, you talked about this idea of cult and state cult ⁓ in Hexeth, and I don't know if you can see it, but for Battle of the American Mind and American Crusade to repeat Hexeth's books, he really talks about the Roman state cult. Like, he loves it. He likes the idea of Rome and like the imperial, like, ⁓ The whole culture, so you talking about like we really are in a culture, a cult of country is very intentional. It's. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Bye! And yeah, so two things really, really relevant here is that our tech overlords have been studying cults forever and actively trying to build cults, right? Like, yeah, they'll call them good cults, right? But copying cult leaders and cult tactics. ⁓ And that is built into America. ⁓ don't, any of us, I think, realize how much Scientology has impacted politics and government and kind of like every part of America. And then you have the Christian nationalists who have essentially decided that they are so committed to their Christian theocracy that they will do anything, even burn down right? And so they have been going toward more and more authoritarian styles of leadership. I mean, you have these people that supposedly hate communism, but they're worshiping Putin by the late 90s and in the early 2000s, right? they, so sometimes the left, like they don't understand. They're like, why would they choose this? It's bad for America. It's bad for democracy, but they don't want democracy anymore. They want a Christian Pete Hegseth wants a religious crusade. And these are the people that have been put in charge, you know? And I always say, like, regular people, not in cults, if you hear about an apocalypse, you're probably working to stop it, right? That's what all of our disaster movies are. But, like, evangelicals, they're not afraid of the apocalypse. They're prepared. Right? And obviously not all evangelicals, but evangelicals who are in apocalypse groups, right? They're prepared. We wanted the end of days to come in the children of God because that was when we got to do our thing. You know, I describe it a little bit like how soldiers want to deploy after all of that training and preparation. You like want to go do your, do your job and do your thing. And so It's hard to understand if you don't realize they actually don't care about the survival of the world or the nation as we see it and as most of us Americans feel committed to it, part of which is freedom, right? And they've left freedom a long time ago. They're not scared if you say they want to repeal the 19th Amendment because most of those women don't vote already. You know, they're already living in these many Christian theocracies in their homes and in their churches, and they have been marching in organized step to get the rest of the country under that control as well. Leigh/@followtheleighder: That's a great point. was reading recently how Palantir has been funding articles in the Christian female women's magazine, EV, about the dangers of birth control and IVF. And then it's not like presented by Palantir. It was that someone else connected the dots. but, ⁓ but yeah, this, like, so by the time like we talk about their coming for birth control, or they're coming for women's health care, he was like, No, they're not. No, they're not. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): All Leigh/@followtheleighder: Like not to, mean, that yes, they working hard today, but like they are planting seeds now for exactly what you're talking about. Like that you've already built and shaped a world to where they've are, they think birth control is terrible and awful anyway. ⁓ Not even like it could be for religious reasons, but like they're playing the whole science thing. Look at how much it's like changed women's and ⁓ it's. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Mm-hmm. Leigh/@followtheleighder: It's very concerning because they really are playing the long game. And I want folks to know that. They are playing a very long game here. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): And, you know, this is kind of what's been frustrating for me being on the left is like, people are kind of just waiting for this savior to come. You know, the amount of times I've been asked, when is the military going to step in and save us? I have to tell people never, that's not going to happen. You know, I, I really think our parents kind of slept on Phyllis Schlafly defeating the ERA and like how organized these religions are and you know, I mean one of the fights I used to have in the army I would always be like hey why can't the atheists all sit together on Sunday and have free time and eat donuts and get to know each other when y'all get to go to church and do that right and it's like this concept that religion and religious organizations are not just about religion right they are about community they're about mission they're about purpose they're about family they're about all of providing all of these things that drive us. And, you know, I have been as guilty as anyone of making fun of evangelicals for getting together five nights a week, but they're organizing, you know, their second graders are politically identifying, and they have raised an entire generation of conservatives to go into government and military and in other areas of power. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): And we have not done that on the left. And it is going to, in my opinion, be a concerted 50-year effort to go the other direction. Leigh/@followtheleighder: And all of that, they're so organized because of like what you were saying, the hierarchy and the exploitation of labor. Like people are willing to give themselves to this cause, to let themselves be exploited and be recruiters and be missionaries of this. Ugh, yeah. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): And one of the things that people ignore is that it works. Getting all these people's free labor, it works. You know, I have a cult book club and we read this book about a little cult in the middle of Arizona and they to this day have the best chess academic wins in history, at least in American history with like basically no schooling. And it's because, and he says this in the book, he's like, it's because no regular adults would think it was okay to for children to dedicate that much of their youth and their childhood and their education to chess. You know? And so it is unfortunate that the extremism works. Getting people to vote for Jesus works. Getting people to bond over hatred and fear works. And that's what we're up against is I always come down and say it's it's harder to get people to bond over love than hate. And I love that on the left, we're trying to do a different message for every person and we accept everyone, but that side is culting better right now. And it can be really hard to beat a cult when everyone is marching in lockstep together. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Well, I've been ⁓ watching your content for quite some time. ⁓ And I know that you probably repeat yourself over and over. You're like, folks, what do you not get? ⁓ That idea of a savior that you're talking about, that is the kind of concern on the flip side on the left. Because whoever does come in, Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Okay. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Left-wing authoritarianism can be very scary too, I guess is what I'm trying to say. We have history of that as well. ⁓ Go ahead, sorry. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): you Yeah. I mean, Gavin Newsom scares the bejesus out of me, you know? Like, I am watching him very closely because that man wields charisma like a weapon. And it's great when he's the one fighting Donald Trump, but... You know, I'm at this point, especially with the Cesar Chavez stuff where I'm like, can we just stop pedestaling leaders? Can we, you know, I mean, right now, I think we're all stuck in this movie idea that an 18 year old girl is going to show up and save the world. And You know, I keep reminding people that when Mr. Rogers said, look for the helpers, he was talking to the children. And if you are an adult in America, like you're the leader and. I also think that maybe it's good that there's no identified leader on the left because we really need to have some class warfare in this country, like a popular class solidarity movement. That is what we haven't had. Our revolution set that off all across Europe, but our rulers made real sure we got into race conflict and stayed there for all of our history. And The times we have gotten the closest after reconstruction, the leader got assassinated and then a different leader took the country the other way. And then sort of the same during the civil rights movement with both JFK and MLK. And now I'm going, but this uprising looks like a true popular movement. the people just do not want to go along with it anymore. And that's what we need. But, you know, as much as I've written about group think and mass movements, don't know what that trigger point is going to be. But I do know that America cannot be ruled by force. And so at some point when we decide like, this is not the government we're going to have. like we're going to be able to change it. But it really is this lack of organization and lack of knowledge even on the left of like how our government works, how our country works, how these power structures work and run under everything. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, as you look to the future, I know that you said that you're already seeing cracks, how there's already a lot of flags that this movement is fracturing. You've also, I've watched one of your videos talking about how JD Vance isn't charismatic enough to take it over, which is so funny. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): No, yeah, so first of all, cults of personality basically don't pass down, right? They basically don't, they almost always fracture and even the ones that seem to have successfully passed down, I think have just been the beginning of the end. So I do really think that like when we get the big beautiful burial, you know, the fracturing that has already begun in MAGA is going to really take over. But that doesn't mean like the Heritage Foundation is going to go away, right? That doesn't mean that all of these other organizations that are under here are going to go are going to go away, you know. ⁓ But the good news is when a cult leader dies, it's usually Game of Thrones. You know, I haven't, there's just nobody who is going to be able to do what he's done. You know, it took them, how many years has it been since Reagan to find someone that could, that could do this. and certainly Shady Vance is not going to like, like, yes, he'll step into the presidency, but he's not going to have the power over Mag. But something I believe that I don't think a lot of people have identified is they don't really have a mission anymore. I think MAGA's transcendent mission was drain the swamp, right? He was going to bring them their apocalypse, rain down political apocalypse on their Democrat enemies. He was going to perp walk the Clintons and the Obamas. He was going to pull thousands of little white children out of cages where they were being held. as sex slaves, right? And the one thing that truly surprised me in this administration is when they came out so early in the administration and said, no, we're not going to give you the Epstein list. And then his mask dropped and he showed his people how much he hated him. He hated them. And I kind of think it's been bleeding out since then. And I think there's an even interesting parallel here with the military and the war in Iran. don't, I do not see how Donald Trump is gonna convince the modern day military to go put people on the ground to die in Iran. There's no mission and it takes an incredible amount of propaganda and missionizing and all of this stuff to get people to be willing to go over and fight and die. And I don't think any of it's working. So. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): I think it is getting crazier and crazier as this massive cult is bleeding out kind of all over our country. But I do not think they have the power they're projecting and I do not see this really going well for them. And I think this is kind of true is like. Progress always wins, freedom always wins, people don't really like living under oppression and coercion. so it's never just over. There's always more ways to fight back and push back and resist oppression. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, this has been an awesome conversation. This could have gone on for another hour. I'm so thankful for your time. Can you show us, like, what you've knitted so far? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, so I'm making this ⁓ blanket and. I actually had a an angry knit in protest recently and I had people from all over the country send in granny squares and then we got together in DC and we made blankets and then we marched on DC. So anyways, I'm making I'm using the leftover squares to make a blanket for knitting called admin's new baby and it's kind of like made by the whole community. So the front's going to be the little frogs with the stuffed eyes and the back's going to be the fuzzy. So it's going to be like a tummy time blanket, not a blanket training blanket to be very clear. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Well, you are such a good heart. Thank you for putting love into not only what you knit, but also into your platform because it comes through that you care, that you're passionate, ⁓ and that you really want to, like you said, call out bad guys, hold bad guys accountable. I... Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): you You know, let me tell you, I've identified this one thing, ⁓ which is that I think the bad guys are all the same in this one thing. And it's the reason that they lose. And it is failure to listen to the intelligence officer, because the intelligence officer is here to ask you, what if you're wrong? What if you lose? And they all You know, it's so interesting because they all study each other. That's how they learn how to do it. But they all think they're the one that's going to get it right. You know, I call it sampling the Kool-Aid. know, Donald Trump truly believes that he is the best leader of all time and he's going to show people one way or the other. And so it's, it's interesting. You know, I always say I'm going to understand cult leaders, the best and the worst, because they just, I, I study bad guys and I just see the same patterns of, of how they lose. I don't see this like, ⁓ yeah, you're going to get it right. So that's, that's. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): good news and you know I don't see them winning in the end and yeah I'm pretty I'm pretty passionate about it I'm very excited to have you come on the show but like one of the reasons I wrote this book the way I did like I know talking about bad guys and cults is controversial and we're never gonna agree and I don't think it matters what we call them I wrote this as a tactics book This is literally how the bad guys do it. And I wrote it because I realized I didn't care about the groups. I cared about the individuals. And so we're going to always live in this unequal world where groups and systems have more power than individuals. And so I hope this book helps individuals like understand groups that have hurt them in the past, understand groups that are hurting them now and what's going on right now so that we can avoid being hurt in the future. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. Yeah. Well, and into... I'm thinking about people being hurt right now in the military, currently serving under Hexes, and know, like, rolling back a lot of sexual harassment and reporting policies and procedures, cutting a lot, like how they're challenging the Chaplain Corps, they just trimmed the faith codes down to 31. So that's another cult type thing for you, deciding what is an appropriate faith. It's a... Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): They're just, ⁓ meanwhile, they've just raised the age standard by a decade ⁓ because, you know, they're getting desperate and yeah, I mean, Hexeth is pretty much my like... biggest political foe that I feel like is trying to everything that strong folks in the military have worked for. But I remind myself that we all knew that guy and we all hated that guy. And he's a small, tiny percentage of the armed forces who I do believe are just Americans who, you know, signed up for a job to serve their country, not to follow a tyrant into a crazy religious war. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yes. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): And I'm very, very upset about all of the people who are being hurt by the military doing what they're doing right now. But, you know... Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah, that was... Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Also, I comfort myself with like, maybe it's gonna bring about these conversations, know? 200 complaints were filed in 24 hours after the religious war speeches, you know? So maybe it's time to have these discussions and... One of the reasons that I'm excited by people like you who are still like in the theology world and, you know, we are living through a time where religion has been really used to hurt people and it doesn't have to be that way, you know, and I think there's going to be a big reckoning when we come out of this. And I think that Leigh/@followtheleighder: Yeah. Right. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Most people in the world seem to need religion. I don't get it because I'm not that person, but you know, we have this need for belief in something greater than ourselves. And I hate it when things like that are used to hurt people. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Right. I'm laughing to myself because you're talking about like theology. Like there's so many people on the theology side of it. There's so many people in seminary, go through seminary, see this liberation theology and then just like me, I'm like, I don't want to minister to a church now. Like I want to just go liberate individuals. Don't follow, like you can follow me, but like. This is individual. This is like, I'm so like, ⁓ no, whatever gets you through it gets you through it. And it's completely anti and that's why they hate pagan. They hate spiritualists. They hate like they like, I don't have any and a lot of folks don't either a lot of theologians and seminarians coming out of this are like, how are we supposed to course correct if none of us actually want to to lead? How do we like, if we're of us are like going into churches anymore like what how are we going to get through them so it's a there's a lot of different discussions happening and because nobody wants to turn into the enemy like you're saying Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah. it's important to have the discussions. And I think that, you know, one of the things about our country is like religion was used to justify genocide and justify slavery. And one of the things that I think cults do is they take things that have worked for communities forever, generally communities of color, chanting is one of my favorite examples, and they've like hacked it and used it, you know, as... something to harm people, right? Very a la the Chinese using gunpowder for hundreds of years for fireworks and then white men see it and they're like, how can we kill people with this? Right? So. I think in this country there needs to be a reckoning of like spirituality and cultural practices and like earth and nature and all of that. But it has to be an anti-racist practice. has to be an anti-patriarchal decolonized practice. Otherwise, like you said, you're just kind of repeating the same things and becoming the enemy. And I really... I'm going to keep saying I hope we can figure out a way to do it without leaders because that's just such an easy way to, know, individuals get corrupted, I think. it's, you know, every time I see another leader in the news, especially a religious leader, I just think like, when are we going to stop deifying people, you know, and even if We need, you even in the military, always thought like we're, we're wearing rank on our chest so that in an emergency, you know who you're talking to, so that things are streamlined so that we know who's making the decision. Like it's not supposed to be so that you're treated as special or singular or individual. And I could just tell which officers were which honestly, you know. I don't really want to hang out with the leader ones that much. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Well, Danielle, as we're wrapping up, can you tell folks where they can learn more or follow or just generally be in your orbit? Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): Yeah, you know the first thing I want to say if you feel like we're leaving this conversation confused that is because nobody has the answer right now and anyone pretending that they have the answer is trying to cult you or con you. Like all of this is just going to take conversation and figuring out new paths and organizing. And on that note, you can join me on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. And I am knitting cult lady on all of those. And I pretty much show up every weekday and knit and talk about tyrants and trying to help narrate our march toward dictatorship. I like to call myself the intelligence officer for America. And I can't tell you how this is gonna go, but I can help. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Good. Daniella (Knitting Cult Lady): narrate it as we are going through and I've seen a lot of things. Both of my books, Uncultured and Culting of America can be found anywhere you buy books. I also have a really cool work. Leigh/@followtheleighder: Y'all should definitely. Check Daniella out, and that's knitting Cult Lady, and of course, so many different ways ⁓ to learn more and be in her orbit. Guys, let me know, what did y'all think of this podcast and this conversation? You're absolutely right to know when you say, like, nobody has an answer. Don't let anybody you. ⁓ But I to know, what did you think of this topic? Please let me know in the comments. Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe. You know the drill. ⁓ Otherwise, My name is Leigh Larson. This is Follow the Leighder. See ya!