Kevin Trudeau: keeping a low profile since release from prison, but still grifting, begging, cult-building (and yes, enabling fascism)

 

Earlier this month, someone wrote to this blog asking me if I'd seen a recent-ish video of formerly imprisoned and newly released serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled. Here's the link to the vid in question, which shows a July 16, 2022 interview on a show called "All Things Rex Worldwide," hosted by one Rex Sikes. Sikes, whom, I confess, I'd never heard of prior to the heads-up from my reader about this video, is self-billed as an "NLP Trainer and Authority on the Law of Attraction." (His Twitter handle is I'mRexcellent. Modest fellow.)

Rex may be an NLP trainer and an "authority" on the Law of Attraction, but his bread and butter, the area in which he truly appears to Rexcel, seems to be making videos of himself kissing up to far more successful Scamworld luminaries that people have actually heard of, such as mega-hustler "Dr." Joe Vitale, one of this blog's former favorite subjects. I say "former" because even I, who am so easily amused, get bored after a while. But clearly, Rex is not bored at all with Vitale. Quite the opposite: he seems utterly enamored.

He appears equally enamored with Kevin Trudeau, as you'll quickly see if you watch his interview with Katie. Here's that link again, but I warn you, as I often do with such offal offerings, that it will be time that you'll never get back, in this case, 1:20:52. Rex is in full-blown hero-worship mode on this one, beginning his intro by listing all of Katie's many "achievements" -- acclaimed best-selling author; worldwide media star; widely revered marketing genius; one of the foremost authorities on success and goal-setting and the Law of Attraction; and to top it off...

Today he is known as an enlightened spiritual leader, helping people attain a state of joy and happiness in addition to manifesting material success...

Rex fails to mention a few of Kevin's other major achievements, most notably: lifelong grifter who has scammed thousands of people out of millions of dollars; notorious liar; and several-times-convicted felon who recently completed a ten-year(ish) federal prison sentence.

The long conversation between Rex and Kev focuses mainly on "spiritual" stuff, in keeping with Kevin's efforts over the past few years to rebrand himself as "GuruKev," which I first wrote about back in December of 2019. It's also congruent with Kevin's apparent and reported longtime desire, and ongoing efforts, to become a true cult leader in the manner of the late L. Ron Hubbard, founder of the evil cult Scientology. I've mentioned that several times over the years, one of the more recent offerings being this March 2021 post, which links to previous Whirled posts on the topic.

In any case, I'm glad my anonymous commenter wrote to me about the video, which was also announced on a September 22, 2022 post on Katie's public Facebook page, The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club. I hadn't posted about Trudeau in several months, in large part because I've been busy with other matters, such as concentrating on a very challenging book manuscript. Any energy I've had left over for blogging and social media engagement has been devoted more or less to political issues, particularly the very serious threats presented by the rise of fascism in various and insidious forms, in America and other parts of the world .

But I've certainly not forgotten Kevin Trudeau. For that matter, concerns about the rising tide of authoritarianism and fascism are not irrelevant to Trudeau and scads of other grifters who prey on gullible and unhappy people who are desperate not only for scapegoats, but for heroes. More about that momentarily.

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Anyone who still cares enough to follow the saga of Kevin Trudeau has probably noticed that he seems to be keeping a very low profile these days. This is likely because the terms of his release/probation dictate what he can and cannot do in order to avoid being thrown back in the clink. But he is still hustling, though in most cases making it appear that others are doing the hustling on his behalf while he occupies himself with humbly serving humanity. It's all in the service of lining Kevin's pockets so he can resume his formerly gaudy lifestyle as quickly as possible.

Trudeau has apparently been quite active on Telegram, that haven for scammers and far-right wingnuts, and no telling what all he's doing there. Sure, there's The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club Channel, which is more or less publicly accessible, but he is reportedly on several other Telegram channels that aren't so accessible, as well as using deeply encrypted email services that are all but untouchable by US or any other authorities. I would assume that the judges who presided over both his criminal and civil cases are paying attention.

Previously, when I wanted to get an idea of what Trudeau was up to, I would check the aforementioned public Facebook page, The Official Kevin Trudeau Fan Club. That's a little more difficult now, though, because it appears that I have finally been thoroughly blocked from the page. It no longer shows up as an option for me in the Facebook search field, and when I click the link to the URL, I get a "content not available" message. I know that the site is still up there, and that the posts are still listed as "public," because I checked via another route. So it's still available to the public generally, just not my part of the public specifically.

I suppose that blocking me was the next logical step in the process of isolating the cult from the nefarious influence of what one faithful KT ally warned the fans is "that nasty woman" (according to another former KT ally, who told me as much on the phone a couple of years ago). Earlier this year the admins of the fan page blocked me from commenting or responding or doing anything but share posts from that page, but now it appears that I have been completely locked out. The blocking happened very recently, occurring only this month, which I thought was rather odd timing, as I hadn't even blogged about Fearless Leader since June 12. But maybe the admins are simply procrastinators.

Of course, they have every right to block anyone they want to block, and as I've noted previously, I can be rather annoying when trying to make or belabor a point, particularly points about scammers and grifters. But in this case, I suspect that something more than mere annoyance led to the blocking. I have to ask a largely rhetorical question I've asked before: what are Katie and the minions so afraid of?

Trudeau's fans (and Trudeau himself) are always talking about how brave and bold he is, how completely unafraid he is to face government tyranny and whatnot. But one little blogger, whose blog is read by almost no one... what threat am I? After all, I'm just one of those "rats in your head" that Kev has been warning the cult followers about for years. Or, to put it in other terms, I'm a "Suppressive Person."

Who, apparently, has to be suppressed.

(Right-wing) politix and Scamworld: more than ever, a match made in hell
Earlier in this post I mentioned a connection between Scamworld grifters such as Kevin Trudeau, and the rise of authoritarianism and fascism in America and other parts of the world. Notwithstanding the fact that Kevin has spent decades presenting himself as a fearless fighter for freedom and individuality, and against tyranny, his brand of hustle is actually taken from the propaganda playbooks of any number of historical and contemporary tyrants (and wannabe tyrants).

Over the years I have written many posts about the alliance of politics (mainly right-wing American politics) and Scamworld. In a September 2021 Whirled post titled Scamworld & politix: Eric Trump set to join alt-health/conspiranoid scammers in Nashville in October, one point I made was that the strengthening bond between alt-health hucksters and the American right is not only spreading misinformation that endangers public health, but is also endangering democracy. While Trudeau wasn't featured at the event discussed in this post, a couple of his alt-health/conspiracy-mongering/right-wing brothers-in-arms were, such as Mike "The Health Ranger" Adams.

Two of my original and most significant points of reference for the Scamworld/politix theme on this blog have been Kevin Trudeau and #NeverWasMyPresident Donald John Trump, for good reason. First off, the two have much in common, even down to a mutual disdain for "Mexicans" -- here's Trudeau, and here's Trump. As well, for years Trudeau expressed a fawning admiration for Trump, using that as a basis for unsuccessfully begging Trump to commute his sentence and pardon him.

All of which provided rich fodder for numerous blog posts. It wasn't long before I discovered that these posts had alienated a substantial base of my former readers who had been screwed to a greater or lesser degree by Trudeau's mega-scam the Global Information Network (GIN) and enthusiastically supported my endless critical posts about him -- but who turned out to be ardent Trump supporters, and were totally put off by my critical posts about Trump. This came out during the 2016 US presidential campaign, and I wrote about it in this October 2016 post, in which I pondered the curious fact that so many who had seen Trudeau's true colors seemed so blind to Trump's. I had come to realize that for many, their liberation from the KT/GIN delusion did not inoculate them against similar, or even worse, delusions.

It appears to me that these good ex-GINfolk simply cannot see that Donald J. Trump is an even worse -- and potentially more dangerous -- scammer than Trudeau ever could be (although granted, Trump and Trudeau have a few things in common). Though a few people have acknowledged that Trump is far from an ideal candidate, they insist that all of his shortcomings, wrongdoings, and deep character flaws pale in comparison to Clinton's alleged "life of crime."...

...None of this is really surprising, though. As my pal Salty Droid has both documented on his blog and has mentioned in private correspondence, quitting one manipulative scam or scammer doesn't cure one of the thinking pattern errors that got them sucked in in the first place. "Manipulation causes susceptibility to manipulation as a side effect," sez Salty. I know he's right, but I am still capable of being surprised by the phenomenon, especially when it occurs among folks whom I'd thought were friends, or at least allies.

But I digress. One of many examples, and a relatively recent one, of ruminations on the Trump-Trudeau connection, is a July 2021 post in which I compared Kevin's ridiculous narrative about the many sacrifices he had voluntarily and selflessly made in order to serve humanity; and the Trump crime family's equally ridiculous narrative about how they had voluntarily and selflessly sacrificed nearly everything in order to serve the American people. In both cases, the narratives owe their success and longevity to the support of various dodgy allies and a zealous fan base. I wrote:

None of these grifters could effectively spread their myths without the ready assistance of their respective armies of faithful enablers. Matter of fact, Trump and Trudeau share a significant fan base -- which is not surprising since the two inveterate hucksters have a lot in common.

And that brings me to a question that some may be pondering, and which I've actually been asked: why am I still going on and on about Kevin Trudeau after all these years? Isn't he kind of passe? Haven't I made the point, over and over, that he's a huckster? Can't we just move on? The simple answer to that has to do with the aforementioned point that Trudeau has so much in common with Trump, and that their respective and mutual fan bases are veering more and more towards existing in a universe of "alternative facts." In both cases, there's a big cult mentality going on. Trump is Trudeau, writ large, and while many of us may wish that both would just go away, that seems unlikely to happen any time soon. With Trudeau, the appeal to alt-reality may just mean that more people will get snookered out of their hard-earned money, to greater or lesser degrees. With Trump... well, as [the January 6, 2021] insurrection/day of rage demonstrated, those "alternative facts" -- and cult mentality -- could spell the death of American democracy.

Trump, unfortunately, is far from the only political figure threatening American democracy, as noted, among many other sources, in a July 2022 Brookings blog post.

One of the problems we have now is the rise of copycat candidates who parrot Trump’s moves and endorse his anti-democratic tactics. Possible presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, and Josh Hawley as well as dozens of congressional candidates spread the Big Lie about 2020 election fraud and some Republicans show a willingness to have electors chosen who do not respect the popular vote winner within particular states.

One of the worst things Trump has done is to show many other aspirants how to engage in power politics using unethical steps. Between his unorthodox behaviors challenging the legitimacy of the 2020 results and his continuing efforts to push Republicans in illiberal directions, he has become a role model for many candidates around the country. Rather than seeing Trump as a dangerous demagogue who threatens our democratic system, many Republican candidates are mimicking his tactics and pushing the country down the road towards illiberalism.

"Illiberalism?" Why mince words? Maybe a better word is "fascism." On the larger world stage, fascism and other forms of totalitarianism, both historical and contemporary, are built upon many of the same tactics used by the contemporary American right (or reich, as the case may be). Perhaps political philosopher and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt's 1951 work, The Origins of Totalitarianism, is worth a revisit. From a September 2019 liberalarts.org.uk piece that discusses this work:

Fake news, people versus elected officials, trashing of democracy, ridicule of truth, relativism of values, nationalism with its love of loyalty and oaths and its aesthetic of self-sacrifice and violence, the hatred of internationalism and its humanist liberal values, accusations of international (Jewish) conspiracies, charismatic malevolent leaders shunning accountability and saying whatever would be popular one day, only to be reversed the next day, and supporters who don’t care at all about the behaviour of their leaders. These were fascisms then. Are they also fascisms now?

Spoiler alert: Yep.

Masses of people succumb to fascism, without realizing what is happening, due to a combination of factors, including gullibility, cynicism, dissatisfaction with their lives, a desire to find someone or something to blame for their unhappiness, and a longing for a hero.

And these are precisely the factors exploited by skillful hucksters such as Kevin Trudeau, whose longtime ticket to riches has been the scapegoating of an amorphous enemy he has repeatedly referred to as "They," while painting himself as the white knight who rushes in with the life-changing, life-saving information that "They" don't want you to know.

But Kevin Trudeau is no hero, no white knight. At the time of his sentencing in March of 2014, the sentencing judge, Ronald Guzman, noted that since at least the age of 25, Trudeau "has attempted to cheat others for his own personal gain." And prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo that Trudeau was...

...an unrepentant, untiring, and uncontrollable huckster who has defrauded the unsuspecting for 30 years. He is the type of person the Court should expect to defraud his fellow inmates while in custody, and to continue to commit fraud into old age. He appears capable of nothing else.

That just about says it all.

And Trump? Like Kevin, he has mastered the art of the neverending grift. Kevin is mainly doing it these days through his proxies, who are constantly begging for money on Kevin's behalf, using the false narrative (or outrageous lie, if you prefer) of Kevin as the self-sacrificing hero/martyr who has risked life and limb for all of us, despite the forces of evil that are out to get him. (Of course, Kevin is directing all of these propaganda campaigns, and very likely is writing a lot of the copy himself.) And Trump is currently doing it through his PACs, mainly in the form of relentless, aggressive fundraising emails that use pretty much the same false narrative (or outrageous lie, if you prefer).

And apparently that strategy is working, for both of these craven grifters.

But... fascism? Isn't that carrying things a bit too far?
Perhaps you're thinking that I'm being a bit histrionic (or hysterical), and that I exaggerate the threats to cherished freedoms posed by Trudeau and other scammers. Possibly you even think I'm overstating the threat of Trump and Trumpism. I'm not. Both Trumpism and "Trudeau-ism" feed into, and are fed by, many of the same base aspects of human nature, particularly the aforementioned need for scapegoats and the yearning for a hero.

And both Trumpism and Trudeau-ism rely -- and I can't state this often enough or forcefully enough -- upon the cult of personality: Kevin with the laughably transparent GuruKev shtick, among several other longer-standing ruses; and Trump with a Messiah-ish scam that has sucked in millions of gullibles. As progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann wrote in a September 23, 2022 opinion piece in Daily Kos:

Donald Trump has built a cult around himself. This is dangerous to America and dangerous to democracy.

Cults of personality in governance are broadly incompatible with democracy. They usually erupt in dictatorships where the Great Leader’s face and sayings are splashed all over public places. Think Mao’s China, Stalin’s USSR, Hitler’s Germany, Kim’s North Korea...

...Rational people know that messiahs don’t molest women and brag about it, don’t fleece people with a phony school who just want a college education, don’t encourage racial hatred, and don’t get crowds to try to overturn democracy and kill a policeman.

But Trump isn’t after the rational people. He’s a predator, and his prey are the psychologically and emotionally vulnerable, people crushed by 40 years of Reagan’s neoliberalism, now desperate for simple answers to complex problems.

We should have known when Trump said, in a Charles Manson moment, that he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and his followers would still support him.

Charismatic con men can make some people believe anything.

For example, nearly a third of all registered Republicans believe that top-level Democrats are running international child trafficking rings to torture and abuse kids before draining their blood...

Again, Trump is just Trudeau, writ large. Or, for anyone who needs to have the point hammered home, Trudeau is just Trump, writ smaller. Both are ruthlessly exploiting, and profiting from, the inherent irrationality of humans.

And ultimately, that's not good for freedom or democracy.