Jones in the Time of Trump
A Leader, a Cult and His Followers
Yesterday was the 43rd anniversary of the Jonestown Massacre, when Jim Jones, reverend, rapist and killer, engineered the murders of over 900 people by forced suicide and gunfire, including U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan.
It happened in Guyana where Jones had fled with his followers.
Jones grew up in an unhappy household in Indiana; they were evicted from it during the Depression.
As a child and then as a teenager, he was strongly attracted to religion and preaching.
- He also had an apparent fascination with autocratic leaders including Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, and Adolf Hitler.
- He was ordained in the Assemblies of God Church and later joined the Disciples of Christ.
- His churches were fully integrated and he was a Civil Rights community activist.
- He was a communist and engaged in sexual violence.
- He moved his congregation to San Francisco after deciding that a nuclear attack would destroy Indiana.
Jeff Guinn, who wrote a book about Jones, says of Jones’ paranoia, “from the time he was a child, [he] accepted the fact that he is being stood up and attacked by enemies everywhere.”
And Harry Robinson has written, “… Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine [an Assembly of God preacher] told Jones personally to “find an enemy” and “to make sure they know who the enemy is” as it will unify those in the group and make them subservient to him.”
Jones was attracted to dictators and used religion as a source of power to coerce people into following him until be exercised complete control over their lives.
He also saw the U.S. government as a source of oppression and imparted that belief to his followers: the government was not to be trusted.
In retrospect, Jones used the levers of society such as politics, religion, and relationships to create a community of followers who would do anything he demanded.
He became more obsessed and paranoid each passing year, eventually taking everyone over a cliff.
January, 6, 2021, is a Jonestown-type anniversary in our history.
Besotted cult followers traveled from across the U.S. to attack the government it was told not to trust by a pathological narcissist drunk on power and spewing lies.
