A brand new year is upon us, and although many
folks may be viewing the coming year with trepidation, given all of what's gone down in the past two years (and with 2021 taking Betty White from us!), I imagine one person who is super excited about the
year to come is imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau (aka KT, aka
Katie on this Whirled), who is scheduled to be released on May 9,
2022. There are increasing signs that he is busily laying the
groundwork for taking up where he left off, scamwise.
As reported on this blog in January of last year, in
early 2021 Trudeau entered a Chicago-area
Residential Reentry Management (RRM) program overseen by the Bureau of Prisons. He's not in a
"halfway house" facility per se, contrary to what some
of his fans seem to think, but instead is on "home
release" in a Chicago suburb as he serves out the remainder
of his ten-year prison sentence for criminal contempt. And he seems more than ready to hit the ground
huckstering the moment his sentence is completed, perhaps through
the Global Information Network
(GIN), the "success club" that he founded in 2009 but
no longer "officially" owns, or perhaps he intends to form a new club, and/or come up with new schemes to further
broaden his scampire.
Of course, if you've been following this blog for the past eight
or nine years, you know quite well that Kevin Trudeau has never
really stopped being a huckster. Pre-trial confinement in
Chicago's grim Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC), and
subsequent incarceration in a relatively cushy federal prison
camp (FPC Montgomery AL) didn't thwart his ambitions at all;
throughout this time he never stopped begging for money and
pushing various products and "trainings," while building on yet another marketing hook by presenting himself as a witness to miracles and a wise spiritual leader. (And the rubes have actually bought that
crap.) He used proxies as necessary to get his messages to social
media and websites, but it was clear that he was always
controlling the messaging, with the ultimate goal being to line
his own pockets. I've written about this topic many times on this
blog, this January 3. 2015 post being but one example.
I'm far from the only writer to point out that Trudeau never
stopped hustling despite being a federal prison inmate. On
January 3, 2017, the Chicago Tribune
published a short piece with the headline, "After 18 years,
TV fraudster Kevin Trudeau's case is over, 'we hope,' judges
rule." (Here's a link to the digital edition version in case you can't get past the Tribune's paywall.) The
article explained why the appeals court judges could only express
their hope, but not a solid promise, that the Katie court saga
was over.
On Facebook last week, Trudeau's backers continued to solicit donations to his legal defense fund from his 29,000 followers, promising them they could “DOUBLE YOUR MONEY.”
And in a pre-Christmas message presumably relayed through supporters from his cell at the Montgomery, Ala., federal prison camp, Trudeau told his fans he would “share 2 secrets that will give you success in every area of your life.”
If they followed his advice, the convicted fraudster, formerly of Oak Brook, wrote, they would “vibrate frequencies that will allow you to create the life you want.”
We've heard all of that before, for sure.
But what about today? What's up with "GuruKev" as he
prepares to be a free(ish) man?
Reduced circumstances, but still better than federal
sleepaway camp
It appears that Trudeau is currently residing in the home of one
of his long-time toadies, David Krueger, in a near-northwest
suburb of Chicago. (If I'm wrong about this, and you want me to write about it, feel free to send in
corrections and I'll publish them.) Before this, Katie was
reportedly staying with another Chicago-area fan and GIN member
in a one-bedroom apartment, and my guess is that he drove that
poor GIN member crazy. And no doubt Katie was going a little
crazy too, because a one-bedroom apartment, no matter how nice it
might be, simply isn't the same as a gaudy McMansion in Ojai, Cali
or a fake castle in a
swanky Chicago area neighborhood.
Reportedly, however, the authorities overseeing Kevin's home
confinement/parole are compelling him to live in relatively
humble circumstances for the time being, which must truly be
agony for him. Break out the violins.
At least Katie is now in more comfortable digs,
though, even if his current situation is still far from the opulent lifestyle to which he
had become accustomed before his conviction and sentencing, and
to which he almost certainly plans to return as soon as he
possibly can. For the time being David Krueger seems to be providing
Kevin with a safe haven until the great KT can be restored to his
full power, though when I think of this pairing I can't help but
be reminded of the arrangement between Professor Quirrell and Voldemort (except without the turban), and I wonder how long it will be before Dave and Kev
drive each other nuts, assuming it hasn't happened already.
But I digress. Lately Trudeau has been stepping up
his efforts to beg people to give him money to support his
mission to rebuild his lavish lifestyle, though he pretends that
a third party is doing the begging on his behalf, since he is too
busy Humbly Serving Humanity to beg for money for himself. Read about it here, especially
if you're even marginally tempted to send money to this guy.
You've met David Krueger on this blog
previously: initially back in 2012, when I
reported that David was all excited about getting to ride on the
same airplane as Kevin -- in first class, no less! -- and was
absolutely over the moon because Kevin bought drinks for everyone
on the plane, not just the first class passengers but the
peons too. And David's mama had won a BMW Series 500
through GIN. (Later on, unfortunately, after Kevin's legal
troubles began to seriously accelerate and GIN was taken down a
notch or two, the authorities took the BMW away from Mommy, but
apparently that didn't faze her son in the long run, since to
this day he remains a KT loyalist.)
I also mentioned David in passing on this May 2020 post, following
a remark that he had made on the Facebook KT fan page, claiming
that Facebook and YouTube were censoring the real
"truth" about COVID-19.
A dream come true for three lucky rubes
 |
| Infomercial Kings-in-Training? Left to right: David Krueger, Rube, Kevin Trudeau, Rube, Rube |
On December 30, 2021, David Krueger was featured again, not on this blog but on the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club page on Facebook. Apparently a trio of young hucksters-in-training got to spend some quality time with both David and Kevin earlier that month, and they took full advantage of the visit to push the MLM (overpriced cookware) in which they're involved:
Spectacular weekend with Kevin Trudeau and David Krueger, read about the Mushyakov brothers’ experience here: https://kevintrudeaufanclub.com/spectacular-weekend-with...
Here's a direct link to the post about that "spectacular
weekend," in case the one above
doesn't work. In breathless, starstruck prose the author(s), who
claim to all be high level members in GIN, describe a personal
meeting and sleepover with Kevin and David on the weekend of
December 10, 2021. It's not a very long post, but it mentions a specific brand of pricey cookware no less than nine times, which is about par for the
course for insufferable MLM-ers who just can't shut up about
whatever it is they're hawking. Here are a few snippets.
...What a wonderful weekend we have spent with Kevin, David and of course my amazing brothers Nathan and Ruben. Words cannot describe the feelings and energy I felt. I know you will feel the energy in my words and immense gratitude with your hearts and souls.
First, I would like to thank Kevin and David for your generous hospitality by allowing us to spend the weekend with you...
...My family and I are forever grateful for the exposure to GIN and this new found wisdom it has provided us. The energy we felt during this weekend was mind blowing. It was very surreal. The smiles on our faces and the emotions we experienced were just simply spectacular.
Spending one on one time with Kevin was a dream come true. This seed was planted as soon as I started listening to “Your Wish is Your Command”. It has been watered and nurtured for some time now. This weekend the fruit has been harvested with many tasteful meals and conversations with Kevin and David. Many other seeds were planted along the way and I’m excited to see them come to fruition.
The energy among us was powerful. It has enlightened me to become a better person, a better husband and father, a better friend, a better brother to my family and to all the GIN brothers and sisters...
...When I woke up in the morning in Kevin’s house I felt like I was in a movie. With a fresh cup of coffee in hand, I sat across from Kevin on the couch and had an intellectual conversation. I was able to ask anything that came to mind without any sensation of being rushed.
Every morning Kevin would lead us in an hour exercise which was incredible. Even with muscles getting sore, I continued to push through because of Kevin’s leadership. We are all half Kevin’s age, yet we were not able to keep up with his stamina.
After the exercise we had the pleasure of using TEETER inversion table and other favorite gadgets of Kevin’s like the Kloud. All my aches and pains were gone, aside from the muscle soreness that felt great.
After all the morning activities, I felt amazing and energized...
...After dinner, cigars in hand, the conversations continued as we couldn’t get enough of Kevin’s life experiences and wisdom. Thank you again for this spectacular and unforgettable weekend. It will be remembered for the rest of my life!...
The post reads as if the writer(s) had been
coached by Kevin himself, but at the very least, they were
clearly inspired by Kevin's nearly lifelong devotion to
aggressive selling, often via MLMs. (GIN itself was a very scammy MLM back in the day; the "product" being sold was a Level One
membership to the seekrit club.) Reading about this
"spectacular weekend" left me with the sense that
the weekend was much more about training or rehearsal for producing an
infomercial than about deepening the bonds of friendship and
brotherhood. (Which wouldn't be at all surprising, come to think
of it, since while he was in prison Kevin was marketing an infomercial training course for
the low, low price of only $997.) Woven
throughout the near-worshipful words about excitement and energy
and intellectual conversations and life-changing, life-saving
wisdom, there is persistent promotion: the nonstop selling,
selling, selling of stuff.
Which is exactly what Kevin does. Turds of a feather....
Naturally, the readers of the post on the Kevin Trudeau Facebook
fan page were excited about it, and gushing words of praise in
several languages followed in the comments section. One person,
however, had a question:
Matthew Manahan Does he have the ankle bracelet on under the table ?
To which I responded:
Connie Schmidt Matthew Manahan If the terms of his home confinement are typical, he has to wear an ankle bracelet, plus he has to answer random calls from a land line to make sure he hasn't wandered off of the premises (in this case, apparently, David Krueger's house -- perhaps a stopgap until he can move into a McMansion again. Big dreams!). So unless he has a way of forwarding that land line number to his cell phone, he has to stay put.
Of course, it totally is possible to forward your land line number to your cell phone. And Kevin reportedly is allowed both a cell phone and a laptop in his home-confinement setup. But presumably he is being properly supervised to ensure compliance with the terms of his home release. I don't know if this includes monitoring of all of his communications, including his activity on Telegram, the popular messaging app for all manner of hucksters, conspiranoids, and far-right wingnuts. (They probably can't monitor his email account, however, since his provider, ProtonMail, is a Swiss company that stores all data on servers in data centers in Switzerland, and is not subject to US or EU laws.)
 |
| Above: David Krueger's excited March 2021 announcement on Facebook that Kevin Trudeau is "back" and is communicating via Telegram. |
What's really going on behind the scenes?
Your guess may be as good as mine. But it seems that David Krueger rose in the ranks of GIN in early 2021 -- and I'm guessing that this was due to the influence of Kevin, who perhaps felt that David should be rewarded for being such a good and faithful manservant. Apparently David was even doing the weekly "GIN updates" for a while, which in recent times were normally perpetrated by one of the GIN owners. Rumor also has it that the few remaining members of the loyal GIN office staff, the folks who had been keeping the whole thing running for years and years through thick and thin, were fired around the time David rose to prominence, and I'm thinking that this was also at Kevin's behest.
 |
| Dr. Tom and the Chosen One (for now, anyway) at a GIN event, summer 2021 |
You may be wondering how Kevin could possibly be dictating what goes on in GIN, since he hasn't officially owned the company since 2014, but... oh, who are we fooling? Kevin has always been the big draw in GIN, before, during, and after his criminal trial and sentencing, and the current owners, who are three of his very long-time buddies and scam partners, know this very well. (If you need to catch up on that, you can read about it here and here.)
It's very possible that the GIN owners -- chiropractors Tom and Ted Morter and inveterate MLM hustler Blaine Athorn -- are actually a bit intimidated by Kevin, and are nervous about the probability that if they don't do his bidding he'll take his mailing lists and his fan base, and form another seekrit exclusive club. With a big ship and everything.
In fact, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that Kevin Trudeau is for all practical purposes shadow-running GIN, quite possibly in violation of the terms of his home release/parole, and that he might even be raking in significant bucks, most likely tax-free, through direct donations to the current Katie fund being run by his fan club. (And his loyal minions do so love to promote that fund. A previous donation fund that was set up for him was supposedly for the purpose of paying off his lawyers, but I'm guessing that those guys have since given up on ever being paid. Shades of Trump, eh?)
Given the way hucksters like this work, and having some idea of the fealty that GIN's owners have to Kevin, I think it is possible that he might even be getting a slice of the GIN pie, safely funneled through the donation fund, perhaps as another attempt by Ted and Tom and Blaine to placate their prima donna and meal ticket.
I'm just speculating about much of the above, and accordingly do not have links to source material to back up my speculation. Again, if you have different or additional information and would like me to share it here, or even if you just want to tell me that I'm full of crap, my contact info is on this blog, or you can send in a comment. Comments are moderated to filter out spam, so yours may not show up right away, but I welcome your input.
In any case if I were Judge Ronald Guzman, who declared Trudeau "deceitful to the core" back in 2014 as he sentenced him to ten years, I'd probably want to look into these issues. For that matter, Judge Robert Gettleman, who presided over Katie's civil case -- and to whom Katie wrote a letter back in January of 2020 asking for post-prison scam guidance -- might also be interested, just in case Kevin still owes money on that nearly 40 million dollar FTC fine, which he claimed for years that he couldn't pay because he had no money.
Did prison change Kevin Trudeau?
As you may also know if you've been following this blog for a few years, I generally do not believe in prison sentences for nonviolent criminals, not even incorrigible con artists like Kevin Trudeau. I have mentioned that point several times on this blog and on other forums, and it's a stance that has put me at odds with several of my friends and long-time allies, some of whom have asked, "So how are you going to keep a convicted fraudster from continuing to scam?" But being imprisoned certainly didn't stop Kevin from scamming. Prison, on the contrary, is an incubator for scams; it certainly has been for Trudeau, both during the time he served on felony charges in the early 1990s and throughout his most recent stint in the clink.
Other defenders of lock-em-up policies say that even if being incarcerated doesn't completely prevent a scammer from scamming, there's a mitigation factor because jailed offenders are at least temporarily restricted from committing fraud on the scale to which they've been accustomed. Point taken... but see the paragraph above.
There's also the school of thought that confinement provides at least a small measure of punishment (or poetic justice, perhaps), because even the most cushy min-security facilities are still... well...prisons, as opposed to the ill-gained luxury accoutrements that many fraudsters had previously enjoyed. Surely the contrast between prison life and his mythic lifestyle as a free-range flim-flammer had to have bothered Kevin on some fundamental level.
A chronicle on the Kevin Trudeau Fan Club site, written by one of Kevin's prison mates at FPC Montgomery, Charles Wilson, may provide some insight. This is from Part 8 -- Covid," in which Wilson describes the experiences at the prison camp as COVID-19 was wreaking havoc throughout the facility.
I logged in my journal February 3, as a special day of sickness and noise in our wing. Big Jim had a 4-step process of cough, choke, snorting, and throat clearing. This would go on for hours at a time with no change. Kenny would yell at him or combat with a symphony of sewer farts. John was nonstop cleaning shoes, coughing, and yelling to “Little Man” about laundry and side hustles. Loui, right behind Kevin, was coughing, hacking, and spitting repeatedly. Dr. Mark was in the corner eating dozens of cough drops per hour, with intermittent coughing and throat clearing. “Papi” was blasting his ears out to American 80’s jams and singing at the top of his Puerto Rican lungs in broken English. KT was in the corner shuffling a deck of cards and practicing his Italian. My throat had just gotten sore, and I sat at my desk trying to enjoy the unique chaos of human survival in prison...
Wow, not quite the ritzy and elegant
surroundings to which Katie was accustomed, and that he used as a
marketing hook for GIN in order to get people to fork over
thousands and thousands of dollars to "upgrade," with
the promise that they, too, could (eventually) enjoy the same enviable lifestyle. "See you on the beaches of the world!"
In fairness I must point out that all of these prison chronicles
center around what a great man Kevin Trudeau is, and how he
manages to remain unruffled and to inspire people even in the
grimmest of circumstances. Consider the scene described above:
even amidst the coughing and snorting and hacking and spitting
and sewer-farting, there was Kevin, sitting in a corner shuffling
cards and practicing his Italian. Congruent with this narrative,
he (naturally!) managed to avoid getting COVID, at least
according to Wilson, although I have heard from other sources that at one point Kevin did
test positive for the virus.
However, notwithstanding the near-mythical image perpetrated by
his admirers, and by the great man himself, who often described
his prison daze as an experience of perfect bliss, it has always
been clear that Kevin Trudeau did not actually enjoy being in
prison. At all. In fact I think it would be fair to say that he hated it. And over the years, in numerous failed efforts,
at times enhanced by tears, to get the courts to grant him
leniency, he and some of his defenders have claimed that
incarceration has changed him for the better, making him more
humble and truly "reformed."
It's true that prison does change people, but rarely for the better, and I have a feeling that if it has changed Kevin, it
has only made him more cynical and greedy. I've heard credible
rumors that former friends and loyalists have been taken aback by
the ego and greed and even the occasional abusive behavior that
he has displayed since being semi-released in early 2021 -- in
stark contrast to the humble-and-enlightened-servant-of-humanity
image that his minions, almost certainly under his direction, have been
trying so hard to push. Rumor has it that even his longtime
generous supporter and sycophantic enabler, former Congressman Ed Foreman, is appalled by
this new behavior.
To which I can only respond that there's nothing at all new about
that behavior. His pals are just now noticing he's egotistical and
greedy? Even many folks who have never even met him (including
me) noticed it years ago. And I'm guessing that more than one of
his ex-wives could vouch for his tendency to be emotionally
abusive; consider ex-spouse Kristine Dorow's story in Aaron Gell's January 20, 2015 article for Business
Insider (under the sub-head, "Up
Close And Personal"). From what I've heard, his most recent
wife, Nataliya/Natasha Babenko, had a pretty rough time of it
too.
Despite his lofty spiritual rhetoric about
leaving the ego behind, Kevin's own ego is large enough to have
its own zip code. One of his goals appears to be to eventually
live in a huge house again, but this time with lots of
servants... er... volunteers/students/acolytes... to cater to his
every whim, while he fools them, or allows them to fool themselves, into thinking that they
are the ones who are really benefiting, just by being in his
presence. I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to speculate
that Kevin, a longtime dabbler in Scientology, wants to be the
next L. Ron Hubbard. In fact I wrote about that last year.
Does/did Kevin Trudeau really belong in prison,
though? That's not up to me to decide, of course. I do think it's
a bit of a pity that his ten-year(ish) sentence was for his
deceptive infomercials about a deceptive diet book, and not for
the millions of dollars he pilfered from thousands of gullible
GIN members, some of whose lives were reportedly decimated by the
mega-scam.
Many if not most of those who were bamboozled have no doubt moved
on, some with great difficulty, while others just slid on to the
next flopportunity/flim-flammer, because some people never learn.
(In several cases, disillusioned/angry GIN members or KT buddies
or staff formed their own GIN ripoffs, such as the IBMS Masters Society and the World Information Network (WIN).
The WIN founders initially tried to take over GIN and keep the
MLM going, but the government said no.)
And there's at least one former GIN member, Abe Husein, who once made a
lot of noise on the national news media about having been cheated
out of big bucks by GIN and KT, but apparently has now forgiven
him and has even expressed "mad respect" for Trudeau. See this January 2021 Whirled post, under the first subhead, "Ex-GIN 'whistleblower'
still has a crush on Kevin Trudeau after all."
But the fact remains that the GIN MLM was a huge scam, and was
launched chiefly as a private piggy bank for Kevin (as revealed
in numerous court documents, this one being just one example),
and lots of people lost lots of money. And while Judge Guzman may
very well have taken some of these facts into consideration when
handing down Trudeau's sentence, GIN was not the reason for the
criminal charges or the prison sentence.
Why this still
matters, after all these years
Over the years I've been asked why my blog posts so frequently
focus on scammers such as Kevin Trudeau, when there are so many
more important issues and world problems (and problematic people)
to worry about. I've addressed this question numerous times
previously on this forum, but for the sake of review (and at the
risk of annoying some readers with my redundancy as well as my
tendency to write too-long blog posts), I think it's important
for me to go over this once again.
Actually, in July of last year an anonymous commenter,
clearly a Trump supporter/right wingnut/anti-vaxxer, harrumphed
that I should just stick to writing about Kevin Trudeau and
similar scammers, and stay out of politics and world issues
altogether, because clearly I'm a dunderhead who is "blinded
by Liberal rhetoric." If you'll pardon me for quoting myself
at length, here is one of my responses:
For years...[p]eople who were supporters/defenders of various scammers such as Kevin Trudeau, Joe Vitale, and a host of minor Scamworld gurus helpfully offered suggestions, some with more than a tinge of hostility, that my focus on these people was a waste of time and my talent. They said that I should be focusing instead on larger, more important issues such as government corruption, corporate malfeasance, politics, etc. For instance, when I was frenemies with Peter Wink (former shill for Joe Vitale, then for Kevin Trudeau, then for Leonard Coldwell, but now apparently retired from the shilling-for-scammers biz), Peter suggested to me more than once that I really needed to turn my attention away from KT and on to larger and more relevant topics. Not surprisingly, this was when Peter was working for Trudeau; later he very publicly turned against his former boss, and even helped various government agencies with their criminal and civil investigations of KT.
To all of those who advised me to focus on important matters, I would respond with some variation of my opinion that in blogging as in life, you have to pick your battles. And in the case of blogging, it's a good idea to narrow your beat. For years I mostly resisted political posts, because there were (and are) already so many political blogs and other forums online. And from 2009 on, Kevin Trudeau was certainly one of my favored targets (I had known for years that he was/is a scammer, but 2009 saw the launching of GIN and the alliance of Trudeau with some of my other favored targets, e.g., Joe Vitale).
Then Trump waddled his way to the front lines of American politix... and for me it finally sank in that Trump was like the worst of the Scamworld scum, writ large. One of my initial posts about that topic was this one, from March 2016:
https://cosmicconnie.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-devils-at-crossroads-of-politix-and.html
That was far from the first time I'd written about Trump, but that was the first post to really focus on the unholy marriage between American politix and Scamworld.
The point is that it looks like I've come full circle, and am now being advised by people who defend Trump and far-right-wing ideologies to abandon political subjects and focus on the likes of Kevin Trudeau. But I'll continue to blog about the matters that interest me and that I think are important.
And one major reason that I think Kevin Trudeau
is still important, apart from my concern that he has spent
decades cheating people out of their hard-earned money, is that
he is flagrantly symptomatic of a nearly out-of-control trend of
misinformation/conspiranoia crapitalism.
Of course Trudeau was in many respects far ahead
of the curve, since he has been trading in "information that
'They' don't want you to know" for decades. Most of that
"information" has consisted of misinformation,
distortions, exaggerations, lies, repackaged
selfish-help/McSpirituality content, or, in some cases,
cherry-picked data about issues that have been addressed by far more
responsible consumer advocates, whistleblowers, and muckrakers.
But the nebulously evil "They" were the perfect
scapegoat for Trudeau's marketing strategies.
Shortly after Trudeau was convicted and sentenced back in 2014,
Salon.com published a piece by Mary Elizabeth Williams, which
I've cited on this blog before, but here it is again. The
headline reads, "Kevin Trudeau's empire of 'they'
collapses," and the tag line said, "The TV pitchman
goes to prison -- but his conspiracy shtick lives on." The
piece was spot-on in many ways, but the truth is that Trudeau's
own scampire never did completely collapse. As noted, he
continued to run it throughout his confinement
And unfortunately, the Error of Trump mainstreamed the
conspiranoid, "alternative-facts" mindset that has been
the foundation of KT's hugely successful marketing efforts for
years, and that has attracted so many gullible people to his
"teachings" and schemes. Kevin and his most devoted
fans and enablers are emphatically part of the problem, but the
problem is so much bigger than they. It's bigger than Alex Jones and Mike Adams and the other
conspiracy-porn peddlers I've written about on this blog. It's
even bigger than Donald Trump.
What is happening now goes beyond the fact that conspiracy theories have become a booming business. America (and to a large extent much of the developed
world) have entered a "post-truth" era in which we're
all susceptible, some of us more than others, to conspiracy
theories, science denial and extremism. In the May 2021 edition of Scientific American, Andy Norman wrote that we are all being played by
liars, and that those lies not only further divide us but also
manipulate our brains in a way that we lose the capacity for
reasoned reflection.
The deep culprit here is not a shadowy government insider. It’s not an aspiring demagogue or a corrupt political party. Trace the problem to its roots and you find a compromised cultural immune system. Astonishingly irrational ideas proliferate because they’re playing us.
This goes for "liberals" too, wrote Norman.
When we fixate on the wingnut outrage of the day, and nurse our own grievances, we suppress our own higher brain function...Right-wing provocateurs love to "own the libs" and too often, we liberals play along. When we do, we play ourselves.
I feel that there's a bit of a false equivalency
here, since in contemporary America, right-wingers/conservatives are considerably more likely
than left-wingers/liberals to fall for
conspiracy theories and worldviews, anti-science dogma, and even
political extremism. In fact, it is the right’s stubbornly persistent embrace of the big lie about the “stolen” 2020 US
presidential election that led to the violent and deadly insurrection last year and that continues to seriously imperil American
democracy. It may be my own "liberal bias" at work, but
I think that overall the right is significantly more
reality-impaired than the left, and at this point far more of a
threat.
The deeper issues touched on in Norman's
opinion piece are quite beyond the scope of this blog, but the
point I wish to make is that this "post-truth" problem
is a serious one. Bringing it back to our original topic, Kevin
Trudeau has made money for decades not only on peddling
questionable products for which he has made outrageous and in some
cases fraudulent claims, but also, and more importantly, on
pushing conspiracy narratives and misinformation that he always frames
as exclusive info that "They" are trying to keep from
you, but which can be all yours -- for a price.
And Trudeau has never missed an opportunity to crapitalize on the
fears and concerns of the masses, while placing himself firmly
front and center as the only source to be trusted for vital
information. He has long played on and nurtured people's growing
distrust of government and mainstream media. It's hardly
surprising that for a while in 2020 he was exploiting the
COVID-19 pandemic by posting "updates" that were little
more than a repackaging of the most out-there narratives from the
alt-health and right wingnut fever swamps, all framed around
promoting GIN membership or other outlets for Kevin's
"teachings," and in some cases, promoting health
frauducts.
I wrote about these COVID "updates" here and here, and in the body of my
posts I provided summaries of and links to individual
"updates," though the links no longer seem to be valid.
For the benefit of those who don't feel like following those
links or trying to find Trudeau's original COVID posts, some of
the main takeaways were that, according to Kevin...
(1) COVID is no big deal
(2) the government is lying to us and seriously
exaggerating the seriousness of COVID, just like they exaggerated
the seriousness of AIDS for years (at least according to Kevin
and numerous other conspiracy peddlers, not to mention some ignorant right-wing politicians -- even though that declaration is bull-crap;
millions and millions of people have died of AIDS over the
decades)
(3) COVID is mainly a hoax arising from a conspiracy by the
mainstream media and the evil elite "They" to ruin the
US economy, thus making Donald Trump look bad and ruining his
chances for re-election
(4) the shutdowns and lockdowns are seriously
hurting the economy and while that really sucks, hey, don't
worry: a few enterprising folks will find a way to make tons of
money even during the worst of the shutdowns and especially when all of this is over [with the clear implication being that if ya stick with Kev, he'll show you how to rake it in]
(5) there's so much more that Kevin really wants to share with
you about COVID, and it is information that you can't get
anywhere else because he's getting it from a select seekrit group
of elite international experts (as well as, apparently, from
other dimensions or planes of existence), and even though he's
doing as much as he can for you by providing these updates, if
you want to really get the inside scoop you need to join GIN
and/or get on Kevin's mailing list and/or or give him money,
and/or... well, you get the drift.
However, Trudeau seems to have been silent about COVID since he has been
on "home release," though for all I know he has
continued to spread misinfo via private forums such as his
Telegram channels and his ProtonMail account. But the main point
is that he continues to spread misinformation not only in the
service of selling products, but also to maintain his brand as a
source of forbidden secrets and indispensable wisdom.
From what I've been observing for many years now, Kevin Trudeau
is the quintessential personification of the adage about leopards
and spots. I know I'm repeating myself, but it can't be stated
emphatically enough that he is all prepped to hit the ground
scamming, full force, just as soon as he possibly can.
Caveat emptor.