I Listened to All Six Trump Rallies in October. You Should, Too

[Lonestarblue]

51. I too think he is dangerous.

Trump’s ability to convince people to follow him is quite astonishing to those of us who are not susceptible to cult worship. More and more, Trump reminds me of Jim Jones of Peoples Temple and mass murder/suicide fame. Like Trump, Jones was described as megalomaniacal. Jones was from the Midwest (Indiana) where he anointed himself a Christian minister and established his “church” called the Peoples Temple. Is there something about some people in the Midwest, which is also Trump’s major base of support, that contributes to susceptibility to charlatans? I grew up in the Midwest/South, but I never saw examples of the adulation given to anyone like Trump.

Again like Trump, Jones promised followers a utopian existence in communal harmony (like Trump’s inferred promise of an all-white country with no immigrants), but his demands for members to turn over property, and even custody of their children, to the church caused some members to drop out and gained more public notice. From History.com: “Faced with unflattering media attention and mounting investigations, the increasingly paranoid Jones, who often wore dark sunglasses and traveled with bodyguards, invited his congregation to move with him to Guyana, where he promised them they would build a socialist utopia.”

In Guyana, Jones had armed guards who prevented followers from leaving. In 1978, the day of the mass suicide/murder, he ordered his guards to murder a U.S. Congressman and his staff who had gone to Guyana to investigate the Peoples Temple and whether U.S. citizens were being held against their will, after which he ordered the mass suicides and murders. Like Jones, Trump cares nothing for the rule of law. It’s all about him and his accumulation of wealth, but he is able to fool people into hero worship. Trump and his followers will not end as Jim Jones did, but I think Trump’s personality and lack of any moral underpinnings will allow him to order any actions that will keep him in power. The question becomes how far he can go with no repercussions before the people in Congress, law enforcement, and government institutions decide enough is enough. We will not be able to rely on Republicans. As we’re already seeing in this election, Republicans will say and do anything to be elected, and many of them are trying to be just as outrageous as Trump. We know that Republicans suppress Democratic votes. Do they also change vote counts? I suspect that someone like Brian Kemp in Georgia would.