Rep. Jackie Spier, Jonestown Survivor Who Has Experience With Megalomaniacs, Calls Trump a 'Political Cult Leader'
Politics
Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat from California, was at the Capitol on the day of the insurrection, where like her fellow lawmakers, she was forced to hide in fear for her life. This isn’t the first time her life’s been threatened by strangers motivated by a megalomaniac, Speier tells The Guardian. In 1978, Speier was traveling to Jonestown with Congressman Leo Ryan as part of a congressional investigation into the cult. Speier, the congressman, and the people they were traveling with were shot at by Jim Jones’ followers on the tarmac in Guayana. Speier was shot five times and left on the tarmac for almost a full day before help arrived, “As a victim of violence and of a cult leader, I am sensitive to conduct that smacks of that,” she said.
Speier adds the clincher that she believes that Jim Jones and Donald Trump are not as far apart as one might think. “Jim Jones was a religious cult leader, Donald Trump is a political cult leader,” she told The Guardian. “We have got to be wary of anyone who can have such control over people that they lose their ability to think independently.” Speier referred to the events at the Capitol as “group think” and warned that if enough people can be convinced to act on the singular idea of overthrowing the government, something is amiss.
Since her near-death experience in the ‘70s, Speier has been actively working to create more strict regulations around dismantling white supremacist groups and violent extremist groups who have a habit of recruiting former military members with combat experience. As far as Donald Trump who is arguably the figurehead of some of these groups, Speier argues that Trump knew all along who he was speaking to and what he was saying. “Donald Trump had a code for talking to these groups. ‘There’s good people on both sides,’ ‘We love you,’ ‘You’re special.’ He recognized that they were valuable to him, and they recognized that he could amplify their recruiting,” she says.
Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, which includes a charge of inciting insurrection, is still underway.
Some other fun news you might have missed today:
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