Someone told me on Sept 28th at around lunchtime, sometime at the midday, in northeastern Pennsylvania, there was a right-wing talk show on broadcast radio where the talk show hosts were using Steve Hassan’s cult “BITE model” to assert anti-mask propaganda, by saying that it proves the government is an awful cult, and mask mandates were authoritarian cultism or something. Continuing the right-wing anti-mask campaign in 2024 is absurd, and probably only had the purpose of ginning up Qanon past glories to get out the vote for Trump. Steve Hassan was not on the show himself as a guest, from what I was told. At times Steve Hassan said some stuff people find troubling or problematic, but I haven’t heard of him being an an actual anti-masker or using his cult criteria to argue against mask requirements himself.
I’ve tried to find out over the intervening weeks but have been unable to find out what radio show this was on. If anyone knows, please tell me what it was, or do let me know if you have heard any reason to think Steve Hassan approves of this kind of argument.