People Were Bored With Jim Jones Jr.

Jim Jones and his followers, November, 1978

People were restless -- yawning, stretching, looking around. 
Donald Trump, the latter-day Jim Jones, who would lead his people into a vicious pandemic, was losing his audience.
That's what the TV screen was telling me Saturday as Trump ran out of material, ran out of juice. Maybe it was the blue seats in the upper deck yawning down on him that took away his edge. 
He was alone out there, dying, as they say in show biz.
People were breathing on each other, taking the chance of a fatal dose of the virus he does not take seriously.
What was worse was the ennui of the faithful, who had driven all that way to downtown Tulsa, braving the fears of violence and huge crowds -- and now they seemed to be thinking about whether they could get their car out of the parking lot and head for home. 
He had nothing for them.
That doesn't mean Trump won't do scandalous things, violent things, in days to come, when he can take out his anger on his staff, his enemies, the American people, aided by the Lickspittles of the Year, Barr and Pompeo. He will fire people, sure, but deep down he knows that the polls and Joe Biden and the honest investigators and even the Supreme Court are on to him.
He tried to wing it once too often, and on Saturday night he came up empty. 
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(The following is my original essay leading up to the Tulsa yawner:)
Jim Jones picked Guyana.
Donald Trump is, you might say, dead set on Tulsa.
 
Having a bad month with that mean Supreme Court, Trump is mimicking that old-time religion -- trying to hold an old-fashioned tent revival for the faithful in an arena in Tulsa on Saturday, during a pandemic. 
 
Trump is losing in the national polls plus polls of most swing states, and if he loses the election he knows that dozens of legal challenges are waiting. Even if he has no stomach or brains for it, he needs this job. 
 
As of Friday, Trump was going ahead with the mass meeting of Coronavirus microbes while nags like Dr. Anthony Fauci tried to remind him that the pandemic is still on, and while cases are spiking in red states that "opened up" without precautions.

Of course, Trump is already responsible for thousands of deaths because he ignored the warnings early in the year.  Any executive  would already be indicted, probably convicted, of wilful malfeasance. Instead, he gets crowds at his rallies. 
​
Putting 19,000 people in an arena could be injurious to their health and  exponentially that of many thousands more outside.
 
The result would be on a much higher scale than Jim Jones' pouring the poisoned Kool-Aid for his American followers in far-off Guyana on Nov, 18, 1978, leaving 909 dead, including himself.

For whatever reason, Trump has the same messianic appeal to his people that the charismatic preacher from California had back in the ‘70s.
 
The son of Jim Jones, Stephan Jones, who happened to be away from the Jonestown compound on Kool-Aid Day back in 1978, has been comparing Trump and Jones for years.
 
“I see so many parallels it’s ridiculous,” Stephan Jones told Susie Meister in Medium.com in 2018.  The son said that Trump, like Jim Jones, is a narcissist and relies on similar manipulation tactics.
 
“My dad would meet someone, quickly read what you feared most and what you wanted most, and convince you that he was the one to save you from one and give you the other,” Stephan Jones said.
 
Trump, who needs to feel big about everything he does, might be heading for a much higher figure than Jones achieved.
 
There are some sensible people out there: themayor of Tulsa, a Republican, wants this thing called off, and conservative  doctors and lawyers went to court to block this health hazard, but the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the rally could go ahead. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/us/juneteenth-2020.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage#link-76b469ca
 
There are indications the regular ushers and other workers at the arena might decline to show up because of the danger, leaving "security" in the hands of volunteers, most of whom do not have the sense to avoid crowds, much less control one.
  
Another person who has seen the light is Trump’s 11-day-wonder of a press secretary, Anthony Scaramucci.
 
I wonder whether Rep. Jackie Speier of California makes the connection between Jones and Trump. At Jonestown, Speier took five bullets in an ambush when she accompanied her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan, who was investigating the Californians said to be in danger there. Ryan died but Speier survived 10 operations and in 2008 was elected to Congress from the same region as her late boss. She is one of the most stable and subtle critics of Trump.
  
Trump may have prevailed in this legal effort to spread the word -- and the virus -- so gratuitously, but with the Supreme Court making decisions that rebuke him and relatives and aides writing books critical of him, deep down he may understand that he has been found out.  

An arena full of potential virus carriers could be the new version of poisoned Kool Aid.  This could be his way out.
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How this rally came about:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/us/politics/trump-rally-tulsa-juneteenth.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
 
Scaramucci and Trump:
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/458555-scaramucci-compares-trump-to-jonestown-cult-leader-its-like-a-hostage
 
Stephan Jones on his father and Trump:
 https://medium.com/@susiemeister/the-legacy-of-jim-jones-and-the-cult-of-donald-trump-116fd56aa612
 
Rep. Jackie Speier of California:
 https://www.sonomanews.com/article/news/jackie-speier-to-talk-height-of-corruption-under-trump/

Donald Trump spreads the word....and the microbes