Scientology in the time of Trumpism: Tom Cruise getting rehabbed by the right?

We’ve been telling you lately about the surprising connections between the second Trump administration and high-level Scientologists.

President Trump appointed Scientology’s wealthiest donor Trish Duggan to the board of trustees at the Kennedy Center. He named OT Scientologist and attorney John P. Coale to be his deputy envoy to Ukraine while key negotiations are going on. Another major Scientology donor, Grant Cardone, spoke at the Madison Square Garden rally a week before the election. And Pam Bondi, the new US Attorney General, has a long relationship with Scientology and has praised its “civil rights” agenda.

We also pointed out the connections between Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to OT Scientologist attorneys who are leading a years-long litigation war against the manufacturers of the devices used in ECT.

And once Kennedy was confirmed, the White House put out an executive order directing him to take aim at what happens to be one of Scientology’s most ardent goals: eliminating “psych drugs,” in the form of antidepressants.

With top donors and OT Scientologists like Duggan, Cardone, and Coale so tight with the administration, and with Bondi at Justice, we agree with the late Mike Rinder, who said after the election that he did not expect anything to be done by the federal government in the next four years about Scientology’s controversies or abuses.

But with Kennedy also bringing an anti-vaxx and anti-SSRIs agenda to Health and Human Resources, could Scientology’s longtime goals against psychiatry and “psych meds” also get a boost?

On Thursday, a Twitter account that calls itself “Doc Anarchy” posted a 2-minute video edit of the infamous 2005 Today Show interview of Tom Cruise berating host Matt Lauer about psychiatry with the tag, “I know he’s a Scientologist but are we ready to admit Tom Cruise was right all along?” The post went viral, with 1.5 million views so far.

At the time of the Today interview, Cruise was supposed to be promoting the Steven Spielberg film War of the Worlds, but for months there had been a dramatic shift going on in Scientology: Leader David Miscavige had convinced a re-dedicated Cruise to become an outspoken ambassador for the organization. Cruise fired his longtime publicist and put his own sister in the job, and then went on a reckless PR campaign, arguing with Lauer and other journalists, and jumping on Oprah’s couch. It was a disaster, and shortly afterwards Cruise went back to keeping quiet about Scientology.

In the clash with Lauer, Cruise offered Scientology’s quack anti-psychiatry line (“there are no chemical imbalances”) but he held back on what is really at the center of Scientology’s anti-psych lunacy: that our “aberrations” are caused by mental image pictures stored up after trillions of years on other planets.

In this new anti-psychiatry, anti-expert, anti-intellectual environment, however, will Scientology itself have a new moment?

Among the responses to Doc Anarchy’s post were, “Maybe Scientology is not as bad as [its[ Hollywood portrait lol” and “what if scientologists are not as ‘bad’ as you have been led to believe?” and “Why haven’t Mel Gibson and Tom cruise made a movie yet” and “This is a perfect take down by TC. My hope is that we will see more of this by RFK Jr.”

Then, just after midnight this morning, Doc Anarchy’s post got an even bigger boost when right-wing podcast host Matt Walsh reposted the video for his 3.5 million followers with the tag, “He’s right about every single point he makes here. And also right in the tone he takes with Matt Lauer.”

That clearly alarmed journalist Yashar Ali, who has his own major following (701,000 plus) and often uses it to expose Scientology’s abuses. He penned a lengthy reply to Walsh’s post.

He’s actually not right, Matt.

But even if he were, what he wants to replace psychiatry with is Scientology and you are aiding him in that effort by endorsing his words.

Your tweet will now be shown to Scientologists as evidence that a thought leader who isn’t a Scientologist agrees with him.

Did you know that Scientology has a policy of forced abortions on sea org members?

That Scientologists believe that Jesus Christ was a pedophile and that god doesn’t exist?

When you endorse a Scientologist like Tom Cruise it isn’t like endorsing anyone else…you are quite literally, for Scientologists, endorsing the person and the organization.

That’s because there is no separation between a Scientologist and Scientology.

Particularly when it comes to Tom Cruise.

Leah Remini explained this to you a few years ago but you always refuse to listen to experts unless they endorse your worldview.

Walsh answered back…

Not sure why you’re giving me a sermon about Scientology. Yes Scientology is batshit crazy. Tom Cruise was also right about the points he made in the clip I was responding to. These two statements do not contradict.

As you can imagine, with two large accounts going back and forth like this, the result is a sea of aggressive responses, with everyone attempting to dunk on one or the other.

But we can’t help wondering, will this reconsideration of Cruise and Scientology continue in the age of Trumpism? It seems kind of astonishing, doesn’t it, after all the work done by Leah Remini and Mike Rinder and so many others to expose David Miscavige and his mafia masquerading as a church.

It’s hard to believe. But then, only a few months ago we never would have expected to see high-profile political figures in this country throwing Nazi salutes.

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

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