How is the Republican Party like Jim Jones ?

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so."
Robert Heinlein

“Never let yourself be persuaded that any one Great Man, any one leader, is necessary to the salvation of America. When America consists of one leader and 158 million followers, it will no longer be America.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower

There’s been nothing like this in history. It’s kind of an outrageous statement, but it happens to be true, that the Republican Party is the most dangerous organization in human history. Nobody, not even the Nazis, was dedicated to destroying the possibility of organized human life. It’s just missing from the media. In fact, if you read, say, the sensible business press, the Financial Times, Businessweek, any of them, when they talk about fossil fuel production, the articles are all just about the prospect for profit. Is the U.S. moving to number one and what are the gains? Not that it’s going to wipe out organized human life. Maybe that’s a footnote somewhere. It’s pretty astonishing. Noam Chomsky

“One of the tenets of a cult requires a reliance on the group to be both the carrot and the stick of discipline. When the group itself keeps its members in-line, you are in an established place. In the ether of Twitter, Truth Social, and really every online community MAGA members find solace and community. Tribal identity, the most powerful force and middle of the needs hierarchy gives a sense of belonging. That requires a member of MAGA to “stay in line,” lest they be cast into the outer darkness of RINO village where all heretics go to die. School shooting? Don’t you DARE come up with reasonable solutions to curbing gun violence, you are expected to “own the libs” by wearing your AR15 pin just to shove it in their face. Have a nuanced position on immigration? Don’t say anything, or you’re for amnesty- a one way ticket to the lonely train. Every cult member fears this, but it’s just much easier to convince yourself of the tribe’s beliefs than to pretend, so you self brain-wash. Ya, this sounds super cult-ey right?” – Adam Kinzinger

COVID Anti-Vaxxers Aren’t a MAGA Death Cult — It’s Worse Than That (8/3/2021)

The Rise (and Fall?) of Trump's Viral Death Cult (11/22/2020)

The Republican Party has become a cult (2/18/2019)

‘Unhinged and desperate’: Conservative columnist likens Trump rally to gathering of ‘cult-like followers’ (2/12/2019)

The Republican Party is a cult, much like the one Jim Jones led, only their agenda is suicide for the entire planet. (1/22/2019)

On global warming, we have 12 years left until the point of no return (10/9/2018)

Thirty Years Ago We could have saved the planet (8/1/2018)

The most telling (and disillusioning) thing about studying human behavior from 2015-present, is the realization that the susceptibility to cult influence is not a rare phenomenon. Cults are a feature, not a bug, of human behavior — much more prevalent than previously thought.
— Dr. Jack Brown (@DrGJackBrown) April 27, 2021

Paul Krugman points out Republicans similarity to a cult, but the comparison goes deeper than that.

Former President Trump, an authoritarian, white nationalist, militarist who lies a lot, led his campaign rallies with the chant ¨build the wall¨ and ¨Mexico will pay for the wall¨. The crowd cheered. So now he is holding the government hostage for a bad idea motivated by fear, racism, and xenophobia. (Xenophobia often precedes a fortress mentality and cultural decline. *1) If he is successful, the Constitution is at risk.

Conservatives, like other fascists, (*2) don´t care about people. The shutdown left thousands without pay, DAKA kids in legal limbo, the Trump created humanitarian crisis at the border (a boon to the private prison industry) , or refugees from Central America (some displaced by US interventions.)

Republican Tax cuts extracted $1.5 trillion taxpayer dollars mostly for wealthy donors. Not only does that exacerbate wealth inequality, the root of many of our problems, Republicans also undermine health care, social security, Medicare, welfare programs, public employee benefits, education and profit from student debt. All extract wealth and keep people down.

Driving people into uncertainty and poverty tends to make them more religious and Republican. Telling them that immigrants are taking away their prosperity motivates the right and its racism. It works for the political right everywhere as it did in Nazi Germany and now in the EU.

To win elections as a minority, Republicans attack democracy: The press is the enemy of the people (except for Fox News.) Gerrymandering and voter suppression win elections. Packing the Courts work the ref for Republicans. Agencies are rendered dysfunctional by corrupt sycophants. Sadly, Congress has surrendered too much power to the President.

Republicans don´t solve problems: immigration, infrastructure, school shootings, opoid crisis, or global warming. Global problems require global engagement. Climate change denial may be suicidal for humanity. (*3)

Milos Zeman, president of the Czech Republic in discussion with Steve Bannon warned ‘Tell Trump you didn’t learn from Hitler. You can’t fight on two fronts. You can’t take on radical Islam and China. You will end up in the bunker, like Hitler.”

In a functioning democracy, immigration policy would be determined by orderly public debate resulting in agreement among branches of government. A President who can ignore checks and balances is a dictator.

David Leonhardt (NYT) pointed out there is plenty of reason to remove Trump. That´s the simple solution to the shutdown.

The Republican agenda, ever eager to cut social programs, has had a devastating effect on the middle class. Since Reagan busted unions, wages have fallen, families now need two paychecks, benefits cut, pensions all but disappeared, students have unprecedented debt that they cannot escape in bankruptcy. To make matters worse, R's want to privatize Social Security, roll back health care reform, revise Medicare so that it is a voucher program, cut head start, make education more unaffordable, cut life support for the vulnerable, make massive cuts to food stamps, but deliver tax cuts to the wealthy (the so-called job creaters).

We are now number 1 in the developed world in income inequality. The oligarchs have astounding wealth, but, guess what, they are not creating jobs.

Although Joblessness is a critical problem, Republicans have done nothing to address it. In fact, they cut jobs at all levels of government, blocked an adequate stimulus program, passed harsh new laws restricting unions from bargaining, stopped infrastructure improvement for highways and railroads . All of which assured worse unemployment percentages. The middle class is sinking fast, business will not expand because demand is weak.

Republicans withhold vital government functions to score political points.

Although Republicans have guaranteed wide suffering, they have also gone to great lengths to assure record gun ownership.

Unlike the framers of the Constitution, they don't like government. When in office they work tirelessly to make it fail. Not only did the Republican House not accomplish any legislation, they actually shut down the government demonstrating dramatically that they do not deserve to be in office. Many of them are from the old South, distrust people of color, proclaim states rights, carry the Confederate flag, and vigorously discuss secession. They are NOT patriots.

Polls show that Americans favor increasing the minimum wage, support background checks for gun sales, want no cuts to Social Security, would like immigration reform, but instead Republicans respond with voter suppression and opposition to virtually everything the public wants. Studies show that when the wealthy and public hold different views, that the Congress (and the Supreme Court) consistently side with the wealthy. We are no longer a democracy. Money rules.

Republicans act like they WANT the economy to collapse so that they can win the next election. They refuse to pay the bills for the wars and tax cuts that they put on the tab, they were prepared to default on the debt and, in the process, crash not only the US economy but the world's.

The Republican party serves oligarchs, like the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch and others, who own it. In the past, they brought us the criminal Bush administration with dreams of an imperial presidency, gratuitous wars, secret offshore prisons, illegal wiretaps, torture, the unlimited military, empire, secret government, and the dedication to corporatism (aka Fascism). All accompanied by the impoverishment of the American people and universal surveillance.

When Obama was President, Republicans engaged in extortion. Because they were only concerned about money, they ignored real problems that face us including crumbling infrastructure, failing schools, massive unemployment, accelerating poverty, unprecedented income inequality, nuclear proliferation and, in their willfully ignorant stance, insist that climate degradation is not a problem.

Now that Trump is President, deficits don't matter. They took a victory lap when they passed tax cuts for the wealthy at the cost of $1.5 trillion is debt plus draconian cuts to social programs.

The IPCC report was written by 91 authors and 40 review editors, and it features 133 contributing authors, 6,000 scientific references, and was subject to over 42,000 expert and government review comments before publication.¨ Trump doesn´t believe it. Republicans support him. If the Republicans do not accept scientific fact, they should not be in government.

Estimates are that we have 12 years left until the point of no return The U.S. is the only country not to sign on to the Paris agreement, yet this is a global problem that requires a global solution.

Evangelicals, mostly Republicans, look forward to the end times. That will validate their ideology.

If they get their way, the massive extinction event now underway will surely accelerate. Their legacy for the next generations will quite possibly be the end of humanity.

Republicans are like Jim Jones... only on a planetary scale.

When the owner of a cable network admits he lied to you, and their "journalists" and hosts lied to you, and you still believe what they're saying, YOU'RE IN A CULT. pic.twitter.com/gBrI4zokQ6
— Paul Carr (@cranky_yankee) April 24, 2023

Modern conservatism has become a sort of cult, very much given to conspiracy theorizing when confronted with inconvenient facts. Liberal policies were supposed to cause hyperinflation, so low measured inflation must reflect statistical fraud; the threat of climate change implies the need for public action, so global warming must be a gigantic scientific hoax. Oh, and Mitt Romney would have won if only he had been a real conservative. It’s all kind of funny, in a way. Unfortunately, however, this runaway cult controls the House, which gives it immense destructive power — the power, for example, to wreak havoc on the economy by refusing to raise the debt ceiling. And it’s disturbing to realize that this power rests in the hands of men who, thanks to the wonk gap, quite literally have no idea what they’re doing.Paul Krugman (9/8/2013)