The story \u2013 including the mention of Maynard\u2019s interest in Jonestown \u2013 was picked up by several other news outlets, including The San Francisco Examiner<\/a> and InfNews<\/a>.<\/p>\n It should be noted that there are no Peoples Temple records listing Brisker\u2019s name, nor were there any government records created after the deaths that include him on the lists of dead or surviving members.<\/p>\n Politics<\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n In recent years, describing one\u2019s political opponent as the next Jim Jones or a political party as an incarnation of Jonestown has become increasingly common, and the practice has only increased with decisions made during the COVID pandemic (as well as the backlash to it).<\/p>\n \u2022 Perhaps the most significant example of this were the comments of Christine Todd Whitman, a moderate Republican who served both as governor of New Jersey and as head of the EPA during the Bush Administration. In criticizing her party leaders\u2019 effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election based on claims of voter fraud, efforts, she said<\/a> in December 2020, \u201cGOP support for Trump’s attack on American democracy: I keep comparing it somewhat to Jonestown. They’ve all drunk the Kool-Aid. It just hasn’t killed them yet.\u201d<\/p>\n She reiterated the comparison in October 2021, when she discussed efforts of \u201crational Republicans\u201d to reclaim ownership of their party. \u201cTrump\u2019s supporters have drunk the Kool-Aid,\u201d she said in an interview on NPR\u2019s Morning Edition on October 15, 2021. \u201cThey\u2019re not dying, but they\u2019re putting a stake through the heart in our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n Coverage of Speier\u2019s comparison appeared on numerous other websites, including Forbes Magazine<\/a>, Newsweek<\/a>, The Independent<\/a>, The Huffington Post<\/a>, and Fox News<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2022 Earlier in the summer, Rep. Speier compared the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to what happened at the Port Kaituma airstrip on November 18, 1978. In both cases, she says, she found herself lying on the floor, listening to gunshots, wondering if she would come through it. In a video published by ABC News<\/a>, Speier says, \u201cI thought in that moment, my God I survived Guyana, but I’m not going to survive this in the House of democracy in the country in which I was born.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Both of her comparisons \u2013 the U.S. Capitol attacks to Jonestown, and Trump to Jones \u2013 were echoes of statements Ms. Speier made in February, a few weeks after the aborted insurrection.<\/p>\n \u201cJim Jones was a religious cult leader, Donald Trump is a political cult leader,” Speier said in an interview with the Guardian<\/em> newspaper<\/a>. “As a victim of violence and of a cult leader, I am sensitive to conduct that smacks of that. We have got to be wary of anyone who can have such control over people that they lose their ability to think independently.<\/p>\n \u201cDonald Trump had a code for talking to these [extremist organizations],\u201d she added. \u201c\u2018There\u2019s good people on both sides,\u2019 \u2018We love you,\u2019 \u2018You\u2019re special.\u2019 He recognized that they were valuable to him, and they recognized that he could amplify their recruiting. It was a toxic brew of personal gain, and it put at risk the entire democracy of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n Her remarks were republished in The Hill Reporter<\/a> and on the RawStory<\/a> website.<\/p>\n Other examples from 2021 include:<\/p>\n \u2022 On two separate occasions shortly after the arrest of Jacob Chansley, known as the QAnon Shaman, for his participation in the January 6 insurrection, his lawyer expressed both his client\u2019s disappointment and his sense of betrayal in President Trump. Albert Watkins added<\/a> that his client \u201clikens the cult of Trump to the Jonestown suicides by more than 900 followers of Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones in 1978 in Guyana.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 The cult of Trump was also the subject of a commentary on a website devoted to clean energy. \u201c[Donald Trump] is the center of a personality cult, much like Jim Jones, David Koresh, and others,\u201d George Harvey wrote on CleanTechnica.com<\/a> in December 2020. \u201cAnd like them, he has been telling his followers to do things that are self-destructive. In the case of Jim Jones, it was drinking \u2018kool-ai\u2019 laced with cyanide. In the case of Donald Trump, part of it is showing allegiance to the \u2018Chosen One\u2019 by refusing personal protection in the face of a deadly pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Shortly after the 2020 presidential election \u2013 and with Trump and many of his supporters saying that he was robbed of a victory \u2013 the MishTalk website<\/a> commented that \u201cTrump built his cult followers very much like Jim Jones led 900 members of the Peoples Temple movement to Drink the Kool-Aid and kill themselves in mass suicide.<\/p>\n \u2022 In September, Salon<\/em> political writer Sophia Tesfaye compared<\/a> the actions of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott in banning local mask mandates as evidence \u201cthat the GOP’s death cult has worked its way down to the children.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cIn order to support and encourage an embittered, delusional old man, a mob of misguided Americans are fighting to expose themselves and their children to a proven deadly virus,\u201d columnist Cary Kimmel rote in the September 4 edition of The Lancaster<\/em> (South Carolina) News<\/em><\/a>. \u201cIt is especially frightening that this cultish behavior is encouraged and supported as a movement within a political party\u2026 We are now watching Jonestown in slow motion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 The reference to a slow-motion Jonestown wasn\u2019t the first. On August 10, an article on the Politizoom website<\/a> about political resistance to a vaccination to slow the pandemic was headlined, \u201cWith Covid, the GOP Is Literally Engineering a Slo-Mo \u2018Jonestown.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 On January 19, the conservative Hotair.com website<\/a> warned that the House Republican Conference\u2019s decision to oust Rep. Liz Cheney from her position as conference chair because of her vote to impeach former President Donald Trump was \u201cRepublican Jonestown.\u201d Expanding upon the label, the article added, \u201cTelling Trump he won\u2019t be penalized for anything he does is bad enough. Telling everyone else that they\u00a0will <\/em>be penalized for criticizing him is full Jonestown.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Another conservative news site resisted the comparisons. On November 23, 2020 \u2013 three weeks after the presidential election and five days after the 43rd anniversary of the Jonestown tragedy \u2013 MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough compared what Donald Trump was doing to the Republican Party \u2013 including \u201cPeople calling in to Rush Limbaugh, saying they’re ready to die for Donald Trump.\u201d Then Scarborough added, \u201cReally, is this Jonestown?\u201d In response, the Newsbusters.com \u2013 under the headline \u201cMorning Jonestown?\u201d<\/a> \u2013 suggested \u201cPerhaps the\u00a0Morning Joe<\/em> hosts have a point. Or, more likely, their fixations with burning ships and tragic cult massacres show how removed they were from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 Republicans weren\u2019t the only ones to receive the comparisons. In July, a Kentucky state lawmaker likened Dr. Anthony Fauci to Jim Jones, according to a story in the New York Post<\/a> and later republished on the Gruntstuff<\/a> website. In a tweet which she deleted within days, State Rep. Regina Huff, posted a photo of Jones with the caption, \u201cI persuaded over 900 individuals to drink my Koolaid.\u201d Alongside was a photo of Fauci with the caption, \u201cAmateur.\u201d Her reason for taking down tweet was the \u201cvulgarity\u201d in the response, although she also admitted that the meme evaluating Dr. Fauci and Jim Jones was \u201cin all probability too harsh of an analogy.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Fauci is \u00a0the director of the\u00a0National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases<\/a> who sometimes clashed with President Trump during the early months of the pandemic.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/\u2022\u2022\u2022brisker.jpeg\")
<\/a>\u2022 The rumor than a former National Basketball Association star died in Jonestown has surfaced once again. John Brisker, who played for three seasons for the Pittsburgh Condors in the American Basketball Association before jumping to the NBA\u2019s Supersonics for three years, was known as a scrappy \u2013 some said violent \u2013 player before he was released prior to the 1975-76 season. In early 1978, he boarded a plane to Africa, and was never heard from again. Among the rumors of his fate was that, because he had a great-aunt who on numerous occasions had invited him to join Peoples Temple and who herself died in Jonestown, Bricker died in Jonestown as well. He didn\u2019t, but it hasn\u2019t stopped stories from reappearing every so often about the possibility. The earliest known such story was from the June 23, 1985 edition of The Pittsburgh Press<\/a>; the most recent was from the Radar Fresh Intelligence website<\/a> on August 20, 2021.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/\u2022\u2022-speier-300x180.jpg\")
<\/a>\u2022 But the most-publicized example of this occurred in early August when California Congresswoman Jackie Speier \u2013 who herself was severely wounded at the Port Kaituma airstrip on November 18, 1978 \u2013 appeared on CNN<\/a> on August 2 to compare Donald Trump to Jim Jones. \u201cYou look at Donald Trump, a 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\u2019 congregation, the Peoples Temple,\u201d she said. \u201cThe only difference between Jim Jones and Donald Trump is the fact that we now have social media.\u201d<\/p>\n