Steven Hassan’s Mask Dropped After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
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From early deprogramming controversies to his selective framing of political radicalisation, Hassan’s record raises questions about authority, scholarship, and accountability. Why the world’s “most famous cult expert” blames Trump, ignores leftist radicalisation, and never retracts when the facts prove him wrong?
Steven Hassan has built his reputation as one of America’s most visible “cult experts,” author of The Cult of Trump and a frequent media commentator. For decades he has presented himself as a sober analyst of undue influence. But if we look carefully at his record — and especially at his recent comments after Charlie Kirk’s assassination — a very different picture emerges.
The mask slipped most visibly in September 2025, when Hassan posted a short video reacting to Kirk’s killing. In it, he declared: “My first thought was that’s one of Trump’s people, one of the rightwing did it and did it to blame the left. And so the fact that this person has not yet been identified makes me wonder whether or not this was a very sophisticated assassination… made me think of Putin assassinating people that he felt was a danger to his power.”
These are not the words of a careful researcher weighing evidence. They are speculative leaps that immediately cast blame on Trump supporters, invoke the specter of Putin, and amplify precisely the kinds of conspiracy frames that spread like wildfire after high-profile political killings. Hassan has defended himself as opposed to political violence — but the instinct to reach for Trump/Putin theories reveals less a neutral analyst than a partisan voice.
In contrast to Hassan’s speculative framing, the public record from law enforcement and prosecutors indicates a very different trajectory for Tyler Robinson. Utah Governor Spencer Cox has stated that Robinson developed “leftist ideology” that distinguished him politically from his conservative Republican parents. Prosecutor Jeff Gray has said Robinson had become increasingly concerned with LGBTQ+ rights and had grown apart from his family’s conservative beliefs (Wikipedia). Court documents show Robinson left a note before the shooting declaring: “I had the opportunity to kill one of the nation’s leading conservative voices ‘and I’m going to take it.’” (Associated Press). And in messages to his roommate, he said he’d acted because “I had enough of [Kirk’s] hate.” (Reuters). These are not vague suspicions — they are tangible indicators of radicalisation. The evidence thus contradicts the idea that Kirk’s assassination could be pinned first to Trump’s circle or to state-sponsored operations.
This is not an isolated slip. A consistent pattern runs through Hassan’s public work. He is quick to apply the “cult” label to conservative or religious families, while downplaying radicalisation elsewhere. One striking example is his treatment of “Tyler’s” conservative Mormon parents. Hassan portrayed them as members of a “cult” — despite the fact that those very parents took the responsible step of informing law enforcement. Rather than acknowledging their cooperation, he cast their faith and family structure itself as cultish. That move says more about his biases than about the reality of the case: conservatives and traditional families are easy targets for the “cult” label, while far-left radical movements — even when they use the same manipulative dynamics — receive far less of his public attention. The imbalance is hard to ignore.
Read more https://messeryve.wordpress.com/2025/09/18/steven-hassans-mask-dropped-after-charlie-kirks-assassination/
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