Cults tend to go after people who are stable and well adjusted. The totally malcontent are lousy materials to work with because they are malcontented and often disruptive.
The trick is to ask questions to potential marks that get them to self-identify as unhappy (the psych term is called “positive test seeking”). So if I ask you you if you are unhappy with your life, you will spend more time in your head looking up memories of when you were unhappy than you would actively looking up memories of yourself being happy. Afterwards you try and get them to believe you when you say you have answers to their problems.
That is a starting point for joining cults.
Another reason so many people now are getting more easily targeted by the far right is that
a) It’s much easier to disseminate information (good and bad), and sleazier people are more interested in using sleazier tactics
b) Lots of people are unhappy, and if you can make people believe that a specific nefarious other has usurped their place in the world you make it “us vs them”, and you often do not question people if you view them as “us”…
c) Your Grandpa who fought in or survived WWII is no longer around to BITCH-SLAP you if you mention joining a Nazi-adjacent group at Thanksgiving dinner.
