America was watching, the world was watching, and Donald Trump needed everyone to understand just how dire the straits really were.

“Our convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation,” he proclaimed ominously as he officially accepted the Republican nomination for president at the party’s convention in Cleveland last month. It was a grim portrait of America, a once-great nation ravaged by terrorism, “poverty and violence” at home, “war and destruction” overseas.

The solution? Not God. Or patriotism. Or casting aside party loyalty to come together as a nation. No, politicians had rallied under those virtuous banners before, and where had it gotten us? Instead, the newly crowned nominee offered a more messianic promise: that Trump—and only Trump—can get things back on track.

That’s the moment, says Rick Alan Ross, America’s leading cult expert, when he realized Trumpism had striking similarities to the fanatical groups he studies.

Like many moderates in the party, Ross, the executive director of the Cult Education Institute and a lifelong Republican, had watched Trump’s rise with mounting distaste. But Trump’s rhetoric at the RNC—“I alone can fix it”—clicked the pieces into place. “That kind of pronouncement is typical of many cult leaders, who say that ‘my way is the only way, I am the only one,’” Ross says. “That was a very defining moment.”

When I called Ross, I cut right to the chase, asking, “Is Trump a cult leader?” I didn’t get more than a few words in for the next 20 minutes as he dove into the evidence: the nominee’s deep-rooted narcissism, his lack of transparency, many of his supporters’ blind, full-throttled adoration. A week later, he left me two voicemails outlining the warning signs of narcissistic personality disorder in the candidate, and a week after that, followed up with another batch of e-mails expounding on Trump’s similarities to the cults he studies. There was a lot to dig into.

Sign I: His campaign is fueled by charisma.

Growing up in Beaumont, Texas, in the ’90s, Tania Vojvodic was enamored with the “handsome, smart, successful” businessman Donald Trump, whom she first heard about when he bought the Miss Universe empire, in 1996. Vojvodic loved that everything he touched “turned to gold,” she says. She drew inspiration from the blunt maxims in The Art of the Deal, making “don’t let your attitude become a liability” her personal mantra. And most of all, she admired that underneath the Brioni suits and artificial tan, he was “just this average guy.” A Queens-bred kid who’d made it big. He made success—a better life for a single teen mom struggling to make it in East Texas—seem attainable.

“I've lived by the Trump ideology since I was 15,” says Vojvodic, who now runs the volunteer network Team Trump 2016. “That ideology has helped me to be successful in almost everything that I do. And I adore Mr. Trump.”

For his followers, the appeal of Trump is Trump himself: his take-no-bullshit attitude, his (greatly embellished) only-in-America success story, his apparent business savvy. His policies, which are largely vague or nonexistent, aren’t the main draw (his 180 on immigration, one of the defining issues of his campaign, doesn’t appear to bother his supporters). And that’s where he perfectly fits the cult archetype.

“The single most salient feature of a cult is a person who has become, essentially, an object of worship,” Ross says. They’re the “defining element of the group,” the heart of the movement.

Even The Donald’s personal habits have inspired his followers. In May, Politico ran a story about an entire Reddit community of millennial bros who’d gotten sober thanks to Trump, who doesn’t drink or do drugs. “Trump has inspired me,” wrote a crystal meth addict who’d been clean for two months. “I’m getting sober and doing my bit to Make America Great Again. Thank you Donald!” The epiphanies continued, from “How Donald inspired me to be a great American once again” to “Trump saved my life!”