Comparing Trump to Jim Jones’s cult

On television [recently], the HLN channel’s series “Very Dangerous People” profiled Jim Jones. It followed Jones from his early ministry to the creation of the Peoples Temple in San Francisco and its later move to Guyana. His mesmerizing personality led his followers to believe he could do no wrong. Those who questioned him were ridiculed. His death, and especially the deaths of over 900 Peoples Temple members Jones told to commit suicide by drinking a cyanide-flavored drink, shocked the world.

I couldn’t help but think how Donald Trump holds a Jim Jones-like power over his most ardent supporters who wildly cheer at his rallies and believe only he knows what’s best for them and the country. Like Jones’s followers, these Trump devotees give him money to finance his organization to proliferate his message. Jones’s supporters saw themselves as poor, persecuted Christians while Trump’s see themselves as patriots under siege. These Trump people even did something previously unthinkable. No, not mass suicide, but an attack on the Capitol to overthrow a duly elected president — something that threatened the life of our democratic system of government.

Beware of the power of egotistical megalomaniacs.