As I was reading this I was thinking not only of the Moonies and their alarmingly successful exploitation of Japan's traditional right wing party the LDP. The success of the American Christian right and the total infiltration of the Republicans comes to mind. The Trump-loving Falun Gong, using its anti-communist purity, seems to be following the Moonies' playbook. It's interesting that the Moonies were integrated with the South Korean equivalent of the CIA from the very start. To say that religion and politics go hand-in-hand is an understatement which sugar-coats the reality. Religion is in partnership with the dark underbelly which seeks to exploit political systems to gain power and wealth while we are oblivious to, or willfully ignorant of its malicious actions. We look only at the parts of the iceberg above the surface. In Australia. the Christian right's attempts to control the political scene show that we are not immune to what happens in Asia and America. Religious power managed to get a Prime Minister into office (Scummo of course), just like the Moonies did in Japan.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... es/675114/