Drinking the Kool-Aid

It is a misconception that Jim Jones’ followers willingly “drank the Kool-Aid.” The infants and toddlers were killed first, injected with a lethal mixture of cyanide, sedatives, and other chemicals. Their parents, helpless to stop it, were surrounded by armed guards and trapped in a psychological nightmare. By the time the reality of their belief system dawned on them, it was too late.

History has a strange way of telling a story where many of the elements just aren’t true. It wasn’t even Kool-Aid, it was a knockoff — Flavor Aid.

Even though we know better, we still accuse people of drinking the Kool-Aid. Someone so grounded in their belief that no matter what you tell them, no matter how much you warn them they are in danger, the realization doesn’t occur until it’s too late. Cultish.

What flavor is Red.

I enjoy the “debate” with people of opposing views on race, religion, and of course politics. I thank my mother for the words and the ability to put them together in a way that can lull you to sleep or verbally rip your soul from your body. I’m petty, so I admit to enjoying the latter much more. All in the name of trying to stop you from drinking the poison that may end in tragedy for you.

Drinking poison and hoping I die from it. Jim Jones called his concoction “revolutionary suicide.”

But what we often leave out of the Jonestown story is who those people actually were. By the time everything ended in Guyana, the majority of the members were Black, many of them working-class, many elderly, many women, many children. People who had lived their lives navigating a country that had never offered them safety, stability, or justice. The Peoples Temple did not initially present itself as a trap. It presented itself as the answer. It fed people, housed people, and brought Black and white members together in ways that felt radical for its time. It spoke the language of equality while offering something tangible, something immediate, something that felt like protection.

That matters, because it reframes the narrative. These were not people sitting around waiting to be led off a cliff. These were people making rational decisions based on the conditions they were living in. When a system fails you long enough, you become more willing to believe in something that promises to correct it.

Today, you have as much as one-third of this country, working-class and blue collar, looking for safety, stability, justice, and protection from the “others.” The reason you are stuck in your life is because the others are taking your jobs, getting things you have to pay for for free, and eating your pets.

And that is where the parallel becomes uncomfortable.

This weekend that man said, “It’s a good thing to have a lot of losers. I always like to hang around with losers, actually, because it makes me feel better.” The right will tell you he was talking about other world leaders, and they are right, see I can agree with you sometimes, but for a narcissist it is everybody in the room. Including you in the red hat. You who think the Affordable Care Act is great, but Obamacare is a leftist social program. He has built an entire political identity around grievance, around people who feel overlooked, disrespected, economically strained, culturally displaced, and searching for something that restores their sense of control.

Drink up.

The difference, and it is an important one, is race. Jonestown drew heavily from Black communities that had been historically excluded from opportunities solely based on the color of their skin. The current movement draws heavily from white communities that have a grievance, not against the government or the system, but against other people who don’t look like them. If you can convince the poorest white man that someone beneath him is the problem, he’ll fight to protect the very system that’s keeping him poor. One group was trying to gain footing in a system that denied them entry. The other is reacting to the feeling that the system is being stolen from them. Different histories, different starting points, but the same vulnerability exists in both places — the desire for certainty, for protection, for someone to say, “I’ve got you.”

Take this cup.

That is where ideology begins to harden into identity. The language changes, the facts become optional, and loyalty becomes the measure of truth. When that happens, it becomes easier to dismiss anything that challenges the belief, easier to reframe contradictions as strategy, easier to follow the voice that makes you feel secure rather than the one that makes you uncomfortable.

“I hate guys that are very, very successful… I like people that like to listen to my success.” All he does is talk about himself and his success. Kool-Aid sounds better than the Flavor Aid that is the reality.

Why do you think his entire administration would rival the cast of any reality show? Who will win Season 47 — Survivor: White House Edition? Kristi Noem and Greg Bovino have already been sent to Exile Island; will they get a chance to rejoin the tribe? Stay tuned.

Take another sip.

“You got a lot of losers, mostly losers, fortunately.” You may be asking how having a bunch of losers is fortunate. It’s simple.

Nobody likes losing.
But if you’ve been losing long enough, you stop recognizing it.
You start calling it strategy.
You start calling it loyalty.
You start calling it winning, even when everything around you says otherwise.

So if you assemble a team of people who feel like they’ve been losing their whole lives, and you put the biggest loser in charge, because he promised you that you would be tired of all the winning — then losing doesn’t feel like losing anymore.

It feels like faith.

And that’s the dangerous part.

Because Jonestown wasn’t about people wanting to die. It was about people believing so deeply in something that they couldn’t see the trap closing around them.

By the time the poison shows up, the choice is already gone.

It’s Flavor Aid now.

But give it time.

History has a way of cleaning things up, softening the language, making it easier to swallow.

One day, they’ll call it Kool-Aid again.