Title: Drinking the Kool-Aid: Trump echoes Jim Jones by declaring “Don’t Be Afraid of Covid” | The Milwaukee Independent
Headings: Drinking the Kool-Aid: Trump echoes Jim Jones by declaring “Don’t Be Afraid of Covid”
Drinking the Kool-Aid: Trump echoes Jim Jones by declaring “Don’t Be Afraid of Covid”
“Don’t Be Afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate our life.” – President Donald Trump
“Go home, my darlings! Sleep tight!” – Reverend Jim Jones
“The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.” (February 24, 2020)
About The Author
Reggie Jackson

Content: At its peak there were thousands of members. As the media in San Francisco interviewed people who had become disenchanted with the People’s Temple and left, Jones became exceptionally paranoid. He convinced many to move to Guyana and build a town named in his honor, Jonestown. It was supposed to be an agricultural settlement where no one would have to worry about food or housing. The so-called utopian community would be troubled from the start. One third of those who drank the Kool-Aid and died were children. Jones had adopted several children of color and was a strong advocate for social justice in the 1960s. He had fought for integrated churches, neighborhoods, hospitals, movie theaters, and restaurants – building a strong following in the Black community. Jones promised to build a “rainbow community” according to one of the survivors, Teri Buford O’Shea. She fled Jonestown three weeks before the mass suicide.