The Progressive Cult & How a Political Movement Became a Religion Without God
Victimhood is a status symbol; dissent is a sin; families, destroyed under the guise of progressive liberation; then you are no longer talking about politics … you are talking about a cult.
Today I am going to propose something controversial. However, if you are paying attention to the culture over the past ten years, you already know this to be true.
Modern-day progressive activism has transformed itself from being merely a philosophy of politics to being a religion. More specifically, it has developed the same psychological dynamics as a cult.
Do not take this as an attack upon the political arena. It is just a simple assessment made through the lens of psychology. If you look beyond the terminology used to describe these movements such as “Social Justice” and “Equity,” what exists underneath is a belief system that teaches individuals to be submissive to authority, to maintain mental purity through public humiliation and ridicule, and to use victimhood as their currency instead of overcoming it as a condition.
What is very important about this belief system is that it has infiltrated the most fundamental aspect of human society, the family. In a society that increasingly strengthens those who are emotionally fragile (rather than mentally strong), we have to ask ourselves how did a movement that claims to represent tolerance become so intolerant, and how is this movement destroying our families?
The Architecture of Thought Reform
The American psychiatrist, Robert Jay Lifton, published a very important study in 1961 that identified eight criteria of thought control; that is, how cults break down the identity of individual members and force them to conform as a group. When we apply the criteria of Lifton to today’s progressive activism, we see an obvious match between the two.
Demand For Purity
A cult views the world as purely black-or-white; that is, you are completely with the cult, or you are an enemy. Today, modern progressive activism also works within a black-or-white framework. You are either an “antiracist,” working to dismantle systems of oppression, or you are complicit in those systems of oppression. There is no neutral ground. As Ibram X. Kendi made clear: “There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy.” The language used by Kendi is indeed the language of fundamentalism and not political science.
The Confession
Cults require their members to publicly confess their sins to show they are committed to the cult. In today’s workplace, we see ritualised confessions of one’s “unconscious bias” and acknowledgement of one’s “privilege” during corporate DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) training sessions. Those who do not confess are not considered just disagreeable … it goes beyond that, they have been excommunicated from the group. An example of this occurred in 2024 when an employee was terminated for refusing to take part in required unconscious bias training.
Loading The Language
Cults have their own “thought-terminating clichés,” that is, short phrases or ideas designed to shut down critical thought and put an end to the debate about a particular subject. When progressives make the statement that “silence is violence,” or dismiss a factual argument by using their “lived experience” as evidence, they are not engaging in any sort of meaningful dialogue. They are simply using a thought-terminating cliché to demonstrate that their doctrine is sacred and your questions are irrelevant.
The Narcissism of Perpetual Victimhood
Why did such a cultish mentality become so entrenched in Western culture today? Well, this can be explained by the convergence of narcissism and … wait for it … therapy culture.
Over the last several decades, a large part of therapy culture has promoted the idea that emotional validation and acknowledgment take precedence over the importance of personal responsibility. In their book, The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff explained how we have trained an entire generation to adopt three major untruths about themselves: They are fragile, they should always trust their feelings, and life is fought between good vs evil.
A culture of coddling through therapy has created a wonderful breeding ground for what is referred to by psychologists as the “Tendency for Interpersonal Victimhood” (TIV). Research conducted in 2026 and published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences found that TIV is comprised of four main components: A need for validation of one’s suffering; Moral Elitism; An absence of Empathy for others; and A preoccupation with past grievances.
Most importantly, the authors of this 2026 study determined that TIV bears the closest relationship to vulnerable narcissism. The individuals who are most likely to be vocal about the fact that they are victims of some form of wrongdoing are often not seeking justice. Instead, they seek the social capital and moral authority that accompany being considered a victim.
The sufferings that they claim serve as both a shield against accountability for their actions and a sword against those who challenge them.
The problem is that whenever any movement emphasises victimhood to the greatest degree of moral authority, it will inevitably provide refuge for those individuals who wish to exploit that amount of emotional weakness for the purpose of exercising control over others. The result? The progressive cult represents an unprecedented example of how such behaviours may lead to an authoritarian imposition of control under the guise of compassion.
The Dismantling of the Family
To achieve the isolation of each individual or member from any external influences (especially that of their family), all Cults are committed to disallowing each member from being exposed to or affected by anything outside of the Cult. However, instead of physically segregating their members (compounds, shared housing, etc.), the Progressive Cult uses Therapeutic culture / Feminist ideology to breakdown the family unit from within.
Modern Feminism has portrayed the Traditional Family (the structure historically upheld by patriarchal society) as a system of oppression rather than a foundation for stability.
This ideological shift has resulted in the following consequences: nearly 70% of all divorces initiated in the U.S. today result from the actions of women, and, according to an analysis conducted by the Institute For Family Studies in 2026, the ideological marriage gap is significant; only 44% of Liberal Women have ever been married versus 60% of Conservative Women.
Marriage is perceived as a trap and Toxic in the Traditional Family is heavily subsidised by Therapeutic Culture, which encourages individuals to sever emotional connections with anyone who causes them discomfort. No wonder there is an unprecedented epidemic of family estrangement. A YouGov poll performed in 2025 demonstrated that approximately 40% of adults are estranged from at least one immediate family member and that approximately 1 in 4 young Americans have completely blocked a parent from their life.
The “No Contact” trend has become a popular prescription for estrangement through Therapists who diagnose parents they have never met. “Therapists diagnose parents they have never met, promoting Estrangement as Authority, Autonomy, and Identity,” says Psychologist Dr. Joshua Coleman. Family Conflict is routinely labelled as “Abuse” and Parents are often classified as “Narcissist” or “Toxic.”
This is how the Progressive Cult achieves its greatest success in Milieu Control; through convincing young adults that their Families are Unsafe, that they have an obligation to elevate the moral authority of their “Boundaries,” and that “Radical Autonomy” is the manifestation of their truth. Families’ connections are severed the deepest possible level leaving individuals alone, completely dependent on the Progressive Cult in order to validate their existence and provide their identity.
The Ritual of Cancellation
Now, among outsiders who don’t abide by the family’s ideals, the cult employs other controlling mechanisms, including the infamous cancel culture.
Cancel culture, of course, doesn’t hold people accountable; it’s just a public shaming tool to instill fear and enforce ideology conformity among outsiders.
And if we look at the statistics, they tell a grim tale. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), 2025 reported the highest number of incidents, 273, where university students received punitive action for their speech. Additionally, 24% of students state that they often self-censor themselves when speaking to fellow students.
When Bari Weiss resigned from The New York Times in 2020, she demonstrated how the progressive media establishment’s suffocating milieu control had become so pervasive. In her resignation letter, she stated that “At The Times, intellectual curiosity - much less the act of taking risks - is a liability.” As a result, this environment allowed employees to bully her via their company’s Slack channels, with Twitter being the “ultimate editor.”
The story of Professor Kathleen Stock illustrates this same point. She was chased out of Sussex University in 2021 by a mob of masked students for only saying that sex was a biological reality. Similarly, J.K. Rowling received death threats and was shunned from the industry for saying the same thing.
These two people are not alone in this fight for love, support, and respect. Instead, these instances are a display of public executions for a religious fundamentalist ideology. This is the message sent to the congregation,
“If you do not conform, we will destroy your livelihood, your reputation, and your life.”
The Return to Responsibility
This “progressive cult” is based on people giving up their own responsibility for their problems, telling them that it is the result of systemic oppression and that their feelings are always right. They claim that their family is toxic and that their major calling in life is to be the “language police” for others.
It’s a philosophy based on being weak and it will ultimately destroy the mental toughness of a whole generation, leaving them divorced from their families and alone.
The remedy for this cult mentality is not a new ideology but rather a return to ancient ideas about being responsible for oneself and what makes families strong. Two thousand years ago, the Stoics preached this same philosophy, as Epictetus said, “Make the best use of what you have control over; accept what happens without trying to change it.”
You have no control over the insanity of society or the mobs on social media or the therapists that encourage your children to cut you out of their lives; however, you do have full control over your own mind.
You can refuse to repeat thought-terminating clichés. You can refuse to participate in the public confessional rituals. You can reject the seductive, narcissistic attraction of being a victim. And you can fight to keep your family intact.
The progressive cult demands that you give up. It demands that you give up independent thought to the collective, moral judgment to the mob, and your family to the therapist.
Don’t do it. Your mind and your family are yours. Keep them that way.
Final Thought
The deadliest cults don’t make demands of you like drinking poison; deadliest cults demand that you give up critical thinking, that you disconnect from your entire family, and that you call it compassion.
Think about your statements; are they original thoughts from you, or are you merely repeating the chant of a religious group?
References
Lifton, R. J. (1961). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. W.W. Norton & Company.
Kendi, I. X. (2019).How to Be an Antiracist. One World.
Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP. (2024). “The man who said ‘no’ to DEI training, and four lessons for employers.”
Lukianoff, G., & Haidt, J. (2018).The Coddling of the American Mind. Penguin Press.
Bedard, et al. (2026). “How Victimization May Be Grounded in Narcissism.”Personality and Individual Differences. (Summarised in Psychology Today).
Whitley Law Firm. (2020). “3 Reasons Why Women Initiate Divorce More Often Than Men.”
Institute for Family Studies. (2026). “Analysis finds marriage and children rates on steep decline among liberals.”
The Federalist. (2025). “1 In 4 Young Americans Cuts Off Parents And Calls It ‘Boundaries’.”
Coleman, J. (2025). “Are Therapists Causing a Rise in Parental Estrangements?”Family Troubles(Substack).
National Review. (2025). “Campus Censorship Reached Record High in 2025.”
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). (2025).2025 College Free Speech Rankings.
Weiss, B. (2020). “Resignation Letter.”
The Guardian. (2021). “Kathleen Stock says she quit university post over ‘medieval’ ostracism.”
The Week. (2026). “A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift.”