Veganism is a cult

Cult checklist:
http://www.csj.org/infoserv_cult101/checklis.htm

1) Black/white thinking.
You either are or aren't a vegan. There is no inbetween. What veganism is is 100% vegan, and what veganism isn't is 100% not veganism. You cannot question this narrative or the metric upon what makes you vegan or not vegan. This leads to:

2) Extremism.
What is and isn't a vegan is absolute. There is no leeway or debate. Either you are perfect, or you are a failure. There can be no failures.

3) Being above criticism.
If you are a vegan of the "true" kind you are above criticism. Aka: ELISTISM This leads to:

4) Those who fail veganism (become ex vegans or are "caught" not being perfect) are "cast out." And were never "true" vegans.
Which leads to:

5) Veganism is both perfectly accessible and available but also ridiculously hard to achieve as if anyone fails, they just weren't "doing it right".
This is a contradiction of many found within cults, which is a sign of disordered and abusive thinking (grandiosity, martyr complex, exceptions from accountability, downright grifting...see also MLM schemes where everyone can make millions but most drop out because they "weren't trying hard enough.") This leads to:

6) Failure in Veganism is the fault of the world not Veganism itself.
This is part of the Narcissists prayer. "sure i did what I did, but what I did was your fault not mine." This is a halmark of cult-think. It's blame-shifting. Veganism isn't perfect because the world isn't perfect, therefore it's not veganism's fault...etc Which leads to:

7) Gestapo/kappo/reporting on fellows.
Since perfection is unattainable in the cult, and it is ultimately the worlds fault the vegan is constantly unhappy with self. This leads to cult members finding "self" by policing other members (cancel culture, calling out, snooping, bullying, invalidating etc is LARGE in the vegan community.) and attacking those who are not-vegan as they are (the world) to blame for the failures of vegans with themselves in their own diets.

8) Being not-vegan makes you an "other."
Identity in the vegan world is everything. Anyone not vegan is another species almost. This is how they justify violent attacks on non-vegans. Also a hallmark of cults. Self is found through tribal identity of "us" vs "them." Thus you find they need to call the rest of us with labels (#carnist etc) because the labels are entirely meaningless without a black/white dichotomy. A vegan is meaningless without a carnist on the other side. Because it is a dialectic of extremes. Heaven and hell. Now, how do they trap people in the extremes?

9) Love bombing.
Only for new members though. And only if you sign yourself on the dotted line and prove you are a "true" new vegan. New vegans are treated as new recruits. They have to be indoctrinated. They aren't given the salty treatment unless they dare to question the narrative and show a sign of original thought... But if they dare to question the narrative of what it is to be a "real" vegan? Oh you best believe, that shit comes down harder and with more rage than the Moses when he threw the tablets down when he saw the calf worship. Can't question the narrative you see. Which leads to:

10) "Everything is awesome but terrible at the same time."
Cults that are really culty have a perverted mindset that demands they share this insane positivity all the time while also ultimately spouting a very negative (anti) agenda. ISIS if you all remember, was all about showing how great and normal their lives were yet at the same time their ideology demanded they were completely being oppressed by the "west" and was justifying all kinds of evil. A vegan has to hold this massive contradiction. At the one hand they have been saved by veganism and their entire life has turned around with no more problems ever, they are now perfectly healthy and enlightened, at the other had, the world is coming to an end from climate change, animals are being horrifically abused etc etc, there is no end to the suffering until we outlaw the carnists etc etc. It's this insane positivity with this insane negativity. It's a duplicitous agenda pretending to be positive (corporately feasible, friendly to moms etc) while its really not. At the center it's reactionary (anti) as fuck...with an extremely fundamentalist activism where no one is saved until every piggy is saved. This leads to:

11) The incredible burden on the follower.
SO VERY CULTIST. Every single follower, to the most minutest aspect of their lives, has the burden of saving the world with every small action - of being deemed "not vegan enough" and failing billions of lives. Of not being 100% vegan and excommunicated from the church. (ETA: BTW, this burden is what leads vegans to lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. No vegan can ever let another vegan know, much less the world, that they are struggling with their divine mission - this would be unacceptable - letting down every little unborn chicken's life to be...by presenting an unperfect image to the world- to end the carnist agenda etc...)

12) Isolation.
Being a vegan makes you immediately isolated from those around you who are not. A hallmark of cult groups is this tactic. There is no such thing as a halfway vegan, so those who are not - you are immediately not. Secondly, pair this with how they police and attack fellow members for not being 100% in line with perfect "true" veganism even though the requirements are very hard, then you have the perfect recipe for someone to be brainwashed. (Pair 11 with 12 btw and you have Mormonism, Scientology, every major cult btw.)

13) Word salad and gish gallop tactics in presenting "facts" about veganism.
Veganism recruitment relies heavily on one sided propaganda that is not backed with direct primary sources- or when such sources are available they are outdated and extremely one sided (poorly obtained data). Recruitment starts by making sophisms such as "you can save animals" or "stop climate change go vegan." They are commercial in nature - to hook you in on a feeling of guilt/shame and then make you lose your sense of skepticism with emotional baggage and then a gish gallop of data. Much like pro-lifers operate. Or anti-vaxxers. You will rarely see a fair debate with vegan ideology. They rely on denying facts about health conditions, basic biology, basic nutrition and basic environmental issues. IF you get them on one point they will basically move (gish gallop) to another point rather than admit they were not right about one thing.

14) Co-opting.
Cults often try to align themselves with social justice movements to gain legitimacy and take attention. Vegans constantly do this. And like many fundamentalist groups they actually harm those who are marginalized (take advantage of, endanger, harass.)