[Editor’s note: A video presentation by the author of the information in this article appears here.]
“A clown with a flamethrower still has . . . a flamethrower.”
–Charlie Sykes, The Daily Beast
If Donald Trump is re-elected President this November, he will, in office, inevitably encounter a major crisis exposing publicly what such a crisis did privately–and psychotically–in January 2021: that his narcissistically-inflated ego as a “very stable genius” is nothing but a sham. Because of the ensuing agony of unbearable criticism, and his addiction to seeing himself as a winner, there is a realistic chance he will be compelled to retributively launch a nuclear strike. This will invite a nuclear counterstrike that deservedly extinguishes Americans for being part of a world unworthy of him.
Trump exemplifies the same behavioral traits as did Jim Jones whose narcissistically-inflated ego as a “great mind controller” was about to be exposed as a sham. Because of his ensuing agony and addiction to seeing himself as a winner, Jones retributively extinguished his own community of Jonestown in Guyana, South America, on November 18, 1978. He regarded his own people as part of a world unworthy of him. He orchestrated the deaths of 907 people by cyanide while guards wielding firearms lined them up. Jim Jones himself would die by a gunshot wound.
I was Jim Jones’ attorney in the United States. After Jones left for Guyana, I became his enemy in a child custody war. I discovered too late that in supporting Jim Jones I made the same huge mistake that Evangelicals are now making in supporting Donald Trump, which is overlooking a basic law of the universe: Character Devours Cause. I overlooked Jones’ narcissism because I liked his cause of social justice. And then, when in Guyana Jones achieved absolute power and chose to exploit it, his narcissism became malignant and utterly lethal.
We will be proceeding to compare Jim Jones to Donald Trump, of whom his own Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis, said: “He’s dangerous . . . unfit . . . felony stupid. ”
Erich Fromm: Malignant Narcissism
In 1964, an eminent psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm, wrote a book titled The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil. Fromm had fled the Nazis, studied their leaders, and coined the term “malignant narcissism.”
He first described the more innocent form of narcissism, the “benign” form as the result of a person’s effort, for example a carpenter taking pride in his work. What keeps that type of narcissism under control is the fact it requires the person to be related to reality.
The “malignant” form, to the contrary, is based on what the person has, for example his looks or wealth or charisma, and not what he achieves, and therefore he does not need to be related to anybody or anything, or even to make the effort. As a result be becomes more and more dangerous:
In maintaining the picture of my greatness I remove myself more and more from reality and I have to increase the narcissistic charge in order to be better protected from the danger than my narcissistically inflated ego might be revealed as the product of my empty imagination.
I became acquainted with Fromm’s book after reading People of the Lie, a 1983 book by a prominent American psychiatrist, Scott Peck. Adopting Fromm’s term of “malignant narcissism,” Peck defined it as extreme narcissism involving an intent to kill for nonbiological reasons. He then applied it to Jim Jones. We will see how Donald Trump qualifies as a malignant narcissist under that same definition, and why that makes his psychological instability utterly dangerous should he obtain a second term.
The Basic Question
The basic question upon his reelection then becomes: Is Donald Trump’s psychological instability a nuclear danger to American survival?
The best way to answer that question, in my opinion, is by considering five similarities–five parallel behavioral traits–between the former president and Jim Jones.
FIVE TRUMP-JONES SIMILARITIES
I. Extreme Narcissism
Donald Trump and Jim Jones share the extreme narcissism of a flawless self.
In a tape recording made in Jonestown, Guyana on March 20, 1978, Jim Jones told his followers gathered before him:
I’m so sure of my principles and my goodness and my honesty and my introspection and soul-searching analysis, that I cananswer any question you’ve got to ask. And if you can see my goodness, then you would work on your goodness.
On September 12, 2015, Donald Trump made the following self-revelation:
I think apologizing’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologize, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.
II. Extinction Power
Donald Trump if re-elected will acquire, as did Jim Jones, extinction power.
Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power see themselves as “gods” having no limit to their lust and power, says Fromm, and they become “borderline insane.”
Jones
Jim Jones left the United States for Guyana on June 18, 1977. It was a way for him to obtain governing power not available to him as a private citizen in the United States. He got hundreds of United States citizens to follow him—to leave the land of their birth, their friends, their neighborhoods, and their families. He promised a place where seniors could grow old in a pristine nature environment. He promised a place for everyone to have the excitement of building a utopian community from scratch. This utopia was named Jonestown.
By April 12, 1978, Jones had consolidated his dictatorial power. On that day he threw in the face of his people what he had done. He told them that he had not only established a dictatorship, but was intent on exercising it:
This organization is built upon the dictatorship of the proletariat, and I am, g––dammit, very much in control.
Although Jones wrapped his language in ideological trappings, his only concern now was order – order for self-aggrandizement.
Trump
Donald Trump will acquire extinction power (nuclear power) simply by being elected in 2024 to the office of president.
Trump will not quit running even though he has been convicted of 34 felonies. He has the same hubris as Jim Jones, and the Jim Jones I knew would never, in a million years, countenance quitting.
There would be one exception, however, and that will have a bearing on Donald Trump in his second term. As we will see, the exception occurred when Jim Jones came to experience existence-related agony. It was the time when he could take the world no longer.
III. Destruction of Critics
Donald Trump and Jim Jones are narcissistically compelled to destroy their critics.
Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power react “with fury” when criticized, says Fromm, because only the“destruction” of the critic can save them from the threat to their “narcissistic” security.
Jones
Jim Jones put on record his intent to destroy a forthcoming critic. In mid-November 1978, acting at the request of relativesconcerned about conditions in Jonestown, U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan traveled to Guyana to investigate Jim Jones’operation. In the weeks leading up to Ryan’s arrival, Jones increasingly expressed his concerns about the visit – fearing that Ryan would return to Washington, D.C. and would denounce him – and on November 16, 1978, his agitation reached its peak. Projecting his own evil of “pushing about” people onto Ryan, Jones declared that the congressman deserved to beshot:
I didn’t come this far to be pushed about by someone from Burlingame or San Mateo. I want to shoot somebody in the ass like him so bad, so long, I—I’m not passing this opportunity up.
Trump
Donald Trump voices, ominously, a similar solution as to his critics, even when they are only in groups he considers antagonistic to him. In May 2020 the murder of George Floyd led to widespread demonstrations. It would later be revealed by a Wall Street Journal reporter, Michael Bender, what Trump had asked his military to do to the demonstrators. Trump’s intent was to kill, which thus showed him to be a “malignant” narcissist:
* Beat the fuck out of them.
* Crack their skulls.
* Just shoot them.
In addition, Trump has floated the idea of executing former Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley. Writing on his social media platform Truth Social in late September 2023, the former president wrote that Milley’s phone call to reassure China in the aftermath of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, thepunishment would have been DEATH.” He capitalized every letter in ‘Death.”
IV. Turning on Loyalists
Donald Trump and Jim Jones are narcissistically compelled to turn on their loyalists.
Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power lose the corrective element of “relationships” says Fromm, which leads to “frightened isolation” whereby “everybody” becomes an “enemy.”
Jones
On November 10, 1978, Jim Jones became angry at Jonestown residents who simply wanted to return to the U.S. His anger was lethal:
I’m tired of you people draining me. I’ve lost 21 pounds in two weeks because of you assholes. And I’m tired of it. I’m going to take– to turn in my judgment on you. I usually take it upon myself, but if I turn my judgment for five seconds on you, they’ll have to carry you tonight down to the SCU [Special Care Unit]. I will see you in the grave. Many of you. I’ll wipe out some of you just like that.
The people Jones was speaking to were loyalists, people who left the land of their birth at his behest, who stayed with him in Jonestown month after month, who had made no attempt to obstruct his governance in any way.
Trump
On January 6, 2021, Donald Trump’s frightened isolation led him to go after Mike Pence, his own Vice President and – up to then – his most slavish loyalist. Pence had agreed to count the electoral votes as required by the Constitution. Here is what Trump tweeted at 2:24 that afternoon while the crowd of his supporters was marching on the Capitol:
Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution.
Obviously, then, there was only one thing to be done. So up it came: a gallows. And, accordingly, the crowdresponded: “Hang Pence.” And what did our president say when he became aware of the chant?
Maybe our supporters have the right idea.
Mike Pence deserves it.
In supporting his followers’ calls that Mike Pence be hanged for doing his job, Trump was acting exactly parallel to Jim Jones when he said, “I will see you in the grave.”
V. Extinction Precursors
Donald Trump if reelected will conceivably be narcissistically compelled to yield to the same four extinction precursors as did Jim Jones.
Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power yield to increased ruthlessness, says Fromm, when their “picture of greatness” is threatened.
As we will see, Jim Jones’s need to maintain a picture of greatness set into operation four precursors to his utterly ruthless act of extinction and suicide:
- Fear
- Rage
- Agony
- Addiction to Win
Let us first look at Jim Jones as to these precursors.
Jones: Fear
Jim Jones’ first precursor – fear of exposure – led to his extinction contingency planning. That fear became a psychological reality in him some months prior to November 18, 1978. His fear was that his ego identity as a “great mind-controller”–his picture of greatness–would someday be exposed to the world as a sham. The feared event was that his “own” people would abandon him.
Jones conceived himself as having a charismatic “hold” over the individual personalities of his diverse group of followers. He had worked hard to earn those dependencies, staying up long hours to attend to people’s needs, and making them grateful.
But, for Jones, gratitude implied servitude. His ego slowly became inflated by the narcissistic belief he might be historically unique in his charismatic power of mind control. As a result, on those few occasions when followers defected from his organization, called Peoples Temple, during his years in the U.S., Jones went ballistic. He acted as if he had been personally abandoned, as if he had been rejected at his core, in his very essence of being.
Jones’ picture of his greatness intensified after he moved to Guyana, and then proceeded to acquire life-and-death governance power, all of which caused him to remove himself more and more from reality. Then, when some of his followers in Guyana started to grumble, his unbearable fear of abandonment went into overdrive.
This is what accounts for the savagery he would manifest on November 10, 1978, toward some people wanting to leave: “I’ll wipe out some of you just like that.”
So Jones proceeded to engage in dramatic contingency planning – what Fromm might call “increased narcissistic charge”planning – to protect himself from the expected contingency that some of his people would abandon him for the UnitedStates. The only possible solution for stopping this would be what it turned out to be: mass murder.
Jones acquired both cyanide and firearms in the months leading up to November 1978. He got the cyanide into Jonestown by lying to the Guyanese government that it was for the purpose of mining and refining gold. He got the guns in by smuggling them in crates delivering agricultural supplies. One of the guns would be reserved for himself.
He also did something very clever. Even as the deaths were about to proceed on November 18, 1978, Jones recorded what is known as “the death tape.” In so doing, he tried to make future listeners – and the media – conclude that his peopleactually committed suicide at his request. This would allow him to preserve the fiction of his ability at mind control and,even better, make him possibly go down in history as the greatest mind-controller of all time.
As a result, nowhere on that death tape would a person gain evidence of the truth: that
guards with guns would be lining the people up for the mass murder, and that “nobody was to pass through alive.”
Finally, Jones’ own suicide would have to be part and parcel of his community extinction planning. For he did not care to live without dependencies, and he knew that no sovereign government, including Guyana, was going to look lightly on mass murder.
It is, of course, one thing to make a terrifying plan for a contingency, but it is a wholly different thing to carry it out.Carrying it out would depend, as it turned out to be on November 18, 1978, on three circumstances – three additional precursors – coalescing at the moment of truth.
Jones: Rage
Prior to November 18, as we have seen, Jim Jones had planned to kill visiting Congressman Leo Ryan. He Jones knew that some of his people had wanted to leave, and he was angry with Ryan for coming to provide an escape for them. So, onNovember 18, as that fear manifested itself and people actually left with Ryan for the airstrip, Jones expressed his rage to the point of violence:
You can’t take off with people’s children without expecting a violent reaction.
Jones: Agony
As to the third precursor, agony, there is no need to speculate. for Jim Jones used that very word on the death tape:
Please, for God’s sake, let’s get on with it. We’ve lived– we’ve lived as no other people have lived and loved. We’ve had asmuch of this world as you’re gonna get. Let’s just be done with it. Let’s be done with the agony of it.
Jones: Addiction to Win
Jim Jones’s death-tape words reflect, in no uncertain terms, that his death-dealing conduct was related to an underlying addiction to win.
Even as the death scene events were unfolding before his eyes, Jones pulled into a single quote his sense of greatness, and his characterization of extinction and suicide as an altogether “win.” First, he maintained a picture of greatness by referringto himself as “a prophet.” Second, he claimed a “win” by community extinction, and by his own suicide; he used the word “win” with the phrase “when we go down.” Third, he claimed a future win over an outside adversary – by combining the word “win” with the phrase “he’ll destroy himself.”
We win when we go down. Tim Stoen has nobody else to hate. He has nobody else to hate. Then he’ll destroy himself. I’m speaking here not as . . . the administrator. I’m speaking as a prophet today.
Trump: Fear
Let us now turn to Donald Trump, and we will see that the parallels between him and Jim Jones as to shared extinction precursors are undeniable. We will start with the first precursor: fear.
Donald Trump on re-election will experience a fear of exposure. This fear–Jim Jones’ first precursor–will lead to Trump’s own extinction contingency planning. His fear will be that his ego identity as a “very stable genius”–his picture of greatness–will be exposed to the world as a sham. The feared event for Trump will be the arrival of a major crisis that reveals to the world, front and center, the same major psychological instability manifested by him privately–and psychotically–in January 2021, which we will see as reported by General Mark Milley.
Trump will expect that critics will then mount vicious attacks on him as a “loser” to the point of it becoming maybe unbearable. He will view those critics as part and parcel of an unworthy world. He will then conclude that this unworthy world requires a major rectification. He will, eventually, conceivably conclude that nothing less than a nuclear strike could be adequate rectification. And so he will conceivably engage, as Jim Jones did actually, in contingency planning for the extreme measure..
And this is so for Donald Trump even if it means suicide by way of a nuclear counterstrike. Fromm explains why suicide – the destruction of “oneself” – follows unbearable criticism:
The narcissistic person reacts with intense anger when he is criticized. Only the destruction of the critic – or oneself – cansave one from the threat to one’s narcissistic security.
Contingency planning for a nuclear strike will be commensurate with Trump’s preexisting openness to “using” nuclear weapons. On March 30, 2016, Trump gave a response in an interview perfectly showing both his awareness of his available nuclear weapons, and his attitude about using them:
Chris Matthews: “They are hearing a guy running for President of the United States talking about maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.”
Trump: “Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?
In addition, contingency planning for an “illegal” nuclear strike will be consistent with two other preexisting factors, which occurred in Trump’s first term.
The first is Trump’s awareness of the November 14, 2017 U.S. Senate hearing testimony of General C Robert Kehler, former head of the United States Strategic Command, affirming a president’s unilateral nuclear power:
Senator: “What happens if a President’s nuclear decision is ‘illegal’?”
* * *
General Kehler: “I would have said . . . I’m not ready to proceed.”
Senator: “And then what happens?”
* * *
General Kehler: “I don’t know exactly. . . . The human factor then kicks in.”
The second preexisting first-term factor is Trump’s July 20, 2017 manifestation of contempt for the top military he would have to consult, but not obey when ordering an illegal nuclear launch. This was shown at a July 20, 2017 Pentagon briefing, which is detailed in the book, “A Very Stable Genius,” by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. It is in a Chapter titled “Shocking the Conscience.”
The book is reporting on Trump’s behavior at a briefing at the Pentagon with the nation’s top military brass on July 20, 2017. That briefing took place in Room 2E924, known as “The Tank.”
To Trump’s left is Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis; two chairs from him, in the seat of honor, is Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marine General Joseph Dunford; to Trump’s right, not visible, is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; behind Mattis in Trump’s line of sight is Steve Bannon.
And here comes President Donald Trump addressing the nation’s top military officers:
“‘I wouldn’t go to war with you people,’ Trump told the assembled brass. Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
The Secretary of State cannot restrain himself afterwards from expressing his opinion of his president:
Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let his guard down.
“He’s a fucking moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.
As for Trump’s having to prepare for implementing a nuclear strike, there will be no need. Implementation will be automatic by virtue of his position as president. Trump will not have to work like Jones, who had to engage in smuggling.
Finally, as was the case with Jones, it will be a different thing for Trump to immediately go from extinction planning toextinction execution. Execution will depend, as it did for Jones, on three circumstances – those three additional precursors – coalescing at that moment of truth.
Trump: Rage
Trump has already shown his susceptibly to the second extinction precursor: rage. It comprises two parts: anger and retribution.
First, as to the anger, a single example will suffice. Trump’s own Republican Attorney General Bill Barr was asked on Fox News what was the most unsettling thing that happened working with Trump:
It was certainly unsettling when I went in to talk to the president about the election. He was livid and shaking and showed a lot of temper and yelling.
“Livid” and “shaking” and “yelling” should meet the definition of anger.
Second, as to the retribution, we have already witnessed Donald Trump’s unconscionable act of retribution: accusing ourgovernmental system of having “stolen” the election from him.
It’s hard to think of a word more retributively damaging to the average citizen’s faith in democracy than to hear the accusatory word “stolen” coming from the lips of its president. Trump knew he had no evidence the election was stolen.He lied to the American people.
Further, Trump’s retribution consciousness remains active to this day. Speaking to the Conservative Political ActionConference on March 3, 2023 – even before any federal indictment – Trump declared: “I am your retribution.”
This retribution consciousness will make Trump far more dangerous than in his first term. He was then on defense with theMueller investigation, the first impeachment, and Covid. And he had not experienced the world viewing him as a “loser.” He will have no such constraints in a second term.
Trump: Agony
Trump has also already shown his susceptibility to the third extinction precursor: agony. This has been revealed by GeneralMark Milley, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and who witnessed psychotic developments in his commander-in-chief. As authors Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in their book Peril:
Milley was certain Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials, and constructing his own alternative reality about endless election conspiracies.
These officials that Milley speaks of are the same officials needed to implement Trump’s oath “to faithfully execute theOffice of President.” Such screaming conduct can only be attributed to agony. Any reasonable person witnessing Trump’s numerous “I’ve been robbed” reactions to Biden’s win would have to conclude that Trump’s agony was not superficial agony like losing a golf game. This was agony hitting Trump at his existence core as a loser.
Trump: Addiction to Win
Finally, and possibly of greatest importance, Trump has repeatedly shown an addiction to win. The practical issue now becomes whether Trump has a need to win that is so extreme as to make it conceivable it will compel him to execute contingency planning for a nuclear strike.
On this point, let us never become weary in addressing the sobering fact of what happened in January 2021. For the firsttime in United States history, a president tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power. He initiated a constitutional crisis for one reason only. That reason was to “win.”
Really, can anyone think of a more compelling item of proof of an outright addiction to win than that of a presidentinstigating his followers, some of whom were armed, to “march” on the U.S. Capitol so that the president could “win” what he had been told he had lost?
In sum, the immediate question before us becomes whether Trump’s need to win is so extreme that he would be compelled,in a future encounter with existential agony, to “increase the narcissistic charge,” i.e., to order a nuclear launch that he knows will result in mass deaths, including his own. That, in turn, depends in great measure on whether he has anaddiction to “always” win. Trump has favored us with the answer.
Here is Trump’s self-revelation to Maureen Dowd of the New York Times on August 15, 2015:
“I win, Maureen.
“I always win. . . .
“I win.
“It’s what I do.
“I beat people.
“I win.”
Based on his word “always,” his psychotic behavior after losing the 2020 election, and my experience with his alter ego, Ibelieve Donald Trump’s need to always win is so uncompromising – that it is so like Jim Jones’ need to always win – as tomake it conceivable it will require mass deaths, including his own, when unbearable anger and agony next enter him.
Conclusion
Donald Trump is, in my opinion, already 90 percent as demented as Jim Jones was at the very end.
The bottom-line risk facing every American voter if Trump is elected in 2024 is to the fundamental values – andfundamental purposes – of all government. These are, simply stated, security and stability. Neither is safe unless thePresident of the United States is safe.
From Trump’s Own Mouth
Let us listen to just three examples of Donald Trump’s own recent words in assessing his fitness for the office of President:
* “Poison”: “They’re poisoning the blood of our country,” said Trump on December 16, 2023, referring to immigrants, in language used by Hitler about German blood being poisoned by Jews.
* “Vermin”: “We will root out [those] that live like vermin” said Trump on November 12, 2023, regarding his political enemies in language echoing Hitler and Mussolini.
* “Dictator”: Referring to Sean Hannity, Trump on December 5, 2023, states: “He says, ’You’re not going to be a dictator, are you? I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one.’” Once a dictator, always a dictator.
From Trump’s Former Officials
Let us now consider just three of Donald Trump’s own former officials as to Trump’s fitness for the office of President:
* Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly: “He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life.”
* Attorney General Bill Barr: “He is a consummate narcissist. . . . He’s a very petty individual who will always put his interests ahead of the country’s.””
* Defense Secretary Gen. Jim Mattis: “He is more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine.”
Trump and Christian Values
As for Trump’s character, it does not appear an easy task for Evangelical voters to reconcile with Christian values the character of someone whose philosophy of life (totally different from that of King David, who repented) embraces adultery:
I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. . . . I did try and fuck her. She was married. . . . I moved on her like a bitch. . . . And when you’re a star they let you do it. . . . Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.
Likewise, it does not appear easy to reconcile with Christian values the character of someone whose fantasies in life lead him to say this:
I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.
If Evangelicals nonetheless choose to take their chances and elect Trump, it will be only a matter of time when some humiliation he deems unbearable comes upon him. Jonestown will then become more than an extinction specter, for Trump will feel existence-related agony as he tries to maintain his picture of greatness. And he will have the means to do something about it, namely uranium and missiles.
He will conceivably, then, react as did his narcissistic extinction twin, Jim Jones, when his moment of agony came:
Let’s just be done with it. Let’s be done with the agony of it.
All Jim Jones had, when the moment came to “be done with it,” was cyanide and firearms. When that moment comes for Donald Trump, he will not be so limited.
(Timothy Oliver Stoen is a California Attorney. He is a graduate of Wheaton College and Stanford Law School. Stoen was the personal attorney for Jim Jones in the United States. After Jones left for Guyana, Stoen became Jones’ enemy in achild custody war. After the Jonestown tragedy, Stoen became a prosecuting attorney. He is the author of Love Them to Death: At War with the Devil at Jonestown. Mr. Stoen can be reached at 1timstoen@gmail.com.)
References
“Mug Shot” photo of Donald Trump: Fulton County Jail, Atlanta, Georgia, August 24, 2023. (Public Domain.)
Photo of Jim Jones leading January 1977 Demonstration in San Francisco. Photographer Nancy Wong, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
“He orchestrated the deaths”: Alison Eldridge, Britannica, “Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica”: “Jim Jones orchestrated the mass murder-suicide of Peoples Temple cult members on November 18, 1978.”
“of 907 people”: “There were 918 people who died in Guyana on November 18. Of that number, 907 people died of cyanide poisoning. All of them were in Jonestown.” How many people died on November 18?. San Diego State University, Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple, http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/, hereafter, Alternative Considerations.
“while guards wielding firearms lined them up”: Tim Reiterman with John Jacobs, Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His People. New York: E. P. Dutton, Inc., 1982, p. 509: “Around the pavilion, security people and some who returned from the airstrip patrolled with guns. No one was to run. No one would pass through alive.”
“He’s dangerous . . . unfit . . . felony stupid”: Ryan Pickrell and John Haltiwanger, Business Insider, Sept. 10, 2020, “’Dangerous,’ ‘unfit,’ and ‘felony stupid’: The most revealing quotes from Jim Mattis on Trump’s presidency in Bob Woodward’s bombshell book,” Rage.
Erich Fromm, The Heart of Man: It Genius for Good and Evil. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1964.
Photo of Erick Fromm, 1974. (Photographer Mueller May.)
“In maintaining the picture of my greatness”: Erich Fromm, The Heart of Man: Its Genius for Good and Evil, p. 77.
Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983.
“I’m so sure of my principles and my goodness”: Audiotape found in Jonestown by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), Q 757, Jim Jones speaking, April 1, 1978. Page 7 of transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III, Alternative Considerations.
“I think apologizing’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong”: Donald Trump speaking, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, NBC, September 15, 2015.
“Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power see themselves as ‘gods’”: Transformed from Fromm, The Heart of Man, p. 66.
“This organization is built upon the dictatorship”: FBI Audiotape Q 598, Jim Jones speaking, April 12, 1978. Page 1 of transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III, Alternative Considerations.
“Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power react ‘with fury’ when criticized”: Transformed from Fromm, The Heart of Man, pp.74-75.
“I didn’t come this far to be pushed about by someone”: FBI Audiotape Q 050, Jim Jones speaking, November 16, 1978. Page 5 of transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III, Alternative Considerations.
“Beat the fuck out of them”: Zachary Cohen, CNN politics, June 24, 2021: “Top US general rejected Trump suggestions military should ‘crack skulls’ during protest last year, new book claims.”
“In addition, Trump has floated the idea of executing”: From Brian Klaas, The Atlantic, Sept. 25, 2023.
“Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power turn on their loyalists”: Transformed from Fromm, The Heart of Man, p. 66.
“I’m tired of you people draining me”: FBI Audiotape Q 313, Jim Jones speaking, November 10, 1978. Pages 8-9 of transcript prepared by Michael Bellefountaine, Alternative Considerations.
“Mike Pence didn’t have the courage”: From Andrew Restuccia and Siobhan Hughes, The Wall Street Journal, July 25, 2022: “Jan 6. Hearing Witnesses Say Trump Did Too Little to Stop Riot.”
Photo of gallows: “Storming of the United States Capitol, January 6, 2021.” Author Tyler Merbel: https://www.flickr.com/photos: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
“Maybe our supporters have the right idea. Mike Pence deserves it”: Taiyler S. Mitchell and Charles R. Davis, Business Insider: “’Mike Pence deserves it’: Trump’s response to aides telling him the January 6 mob wanted to hang his VP,” June 9, 2022.
“Extreme narcissists who acquire absolute power yield to increased ruthlessness”: Transformed from Fromm, The Heart of Man, p. 66.
“You can’t take off with people’s children without expecting a violent reaction”: FBI Audiotape Q 042 (”The Death Tape”), Jim Jones speaking, November 18, 1978. Page 1 of transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III, Alternative Considerations.
“Please, for God’s sake, let’s get on with it. We’ve lived”: FBI Audiotape Q 042 (”The Death Tape”), p. 12.
“We win when we go down. Tim Stoen has nobody else to hate”: FBI Audiotape Q 042 (”The Death Tape”), p. 5.
“The narcissistic person reacts with intense anger when he is criticized”: Fromm, The Heart of Man, pp. 74-75.
“CHRIS MATTHEWS: ‘They are hearing a guy,’” MSNBC, Donald Trump-Town Hall, March 30, 2016.
“The briefing is detailed in the book, ‘A Very Stable Genius,’” Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J Trump’s Testing of America, pp. 136-138. New York: Penguin Press, 2020.
Photo of Donald Trump at Pentagon Briefing, July 20, 2017. (Public Domain.)
“The nation has been told by General C. Robert Kehler”: Testimony before the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on November 14, 2017.
“It was certainly unsettling when I went in to talk to the president”: Bill Barr, Fox News, March 8, 2023.
“I am your retribution”: Lalee Ibssa and Libbey Cathay, ABC News, March 24, 2023: ”Trump will stay in 2024 presidential race even if indicted, tells CPAC crowd: ‘I am your retribution.’”
Photo of United States General Mark Milley. (Public Domain)
“Milley was certain Trump had gone into a serious mental decline”: Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, Peril, p. xiv. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021.
“I win, Maureen. “I always win”: Maureen Dowd, The New York Times, August 15, 2015: “Introducing Donald Trump, Diplomat.”
“Poison”: “They’re poisoning the blood of our country”: Nathan Lane, Reuters, Dec. 16, 2023, “Trump repeats ‘poisoning the blood’ anti-immigrant remark.
“Vermin”: “We will root out . . . . that live like vermin”: Soo Rin Kim and Lalee Ibssa, ABC News, Nov. 13, 2023, “Trump compares political opponents to ‘vermin’ who he will ‘root out’ alarming historians.”
“Dictator”: “He says, ’You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’ I said: ‘No, no, no, other than day one”: Jill Colvin and Bill Barrow, Associated Press, Dec. 7, 2023, “Trump’s vow to only be a dictator on ‘day one’ follows growing worry over his authoritarian rhetoric.”
Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly: “He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life”: Marina Pitofsky, The Hill, October 16, 2020, “John Kelly called Trump ‘the most flawed person’ he’s ever met: report.” “CNN reported.”
Attorney General Bill Barr: “He is a consummate narcissist”: Lauren Sforza, The Hill, June 18, 2023, “Bill Barr: Trump is a ‘consummate narcissist.’”
Defense Secretary Gen. Jim Mattis: “He is more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine”: John Avlon, CNN, January 13, 2024 “Opinion: Listen to what Trump’s own officials have to say about him.”
“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her”: The New York Times, October 8, 2016 regarding the September 2005 Access Hollywood Tape: “Transcript: Donald Trump’s Taped Comments About Women,” including audio of Trump speaking.
“I’ve said that if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her”: Laura E. Adkins, Forward, “8 creepy things Donald Trump has said about Ivanka Trump,” including video of Trump making the above statement on the television program The View on March 6, 2006.
Photo of Mushroom cloud above Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. (Public Domain, U.S. Department of Energy.)