Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA), who is a survivor of the 1978 Jonestown massacre, said Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” that she believes there is “no question” there are legitimate compassions between cult leader Jim Jones and former President Donald Trump.
Speier said, “There is no question that you could compare Jim Jones as a charismatic leader who would bring his congregation together, force them to do things that were illegal and then took 900 of them into the jungles of Guyana where over the course of time he convinced them they should die. I can never say they committed suicide because I don’t think they were in control of their faculties, to be quite honest with you. So you look at Donald Trump, charismatic leader, who was able to continue to talk in terms that appealed to those who were disaffected, disillusions and who were looking for something, much like those who became part of Jim Jones’ congregation, the People’s Temple. They were lost, souls.”
She continued, “The only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is the fact that we now have social media. So all these people can find themselves in ways they could before. He basically was a merchant of deceit, both of them merchants of deceit. Both of them making people not look at facts, not think independently and sewed a story for them that was indeed destructive.”
She added, “We saw what happened on January 6. How can you not recognize that that was an illegal act, that you were being asked by this charismatic leader to go do something that was going to be destructive, and you went and did it anyway?”
Speier concluded, “I then saw it in my own colleagues in Congress. The big lie has now been embraced by the majority of members on the Republican side in the House of Representatives. They are now paralyzed to speak truth. They know it. They know that the election was not stolen. They know that it was held properly. They know that there was not massive fraud, and yet they will continue to mouth those words because their leader, Donald Trump, wants to hear them.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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