Trump rally attendee tells Fox News: "There’s nothing like seeing a cult" - Newsweek

A critic of President Donald Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement attending his South Carolina midterm rally compared the event to the Jonestown massacre during a brief interview with Fox News.

When a Fox News interviewer asked the man why he was there that morning, he responded: “Well, in the late 70s, I was a little too young to go to South America for the Jonestown Massacre. But this is as close as I'll ever get, so that's why I'm here. There's nothing like seeing a cult right up front.”

The attendee’s comparison invoked the 1978 Jonestown massacre, an extreme example of destructive loyalty to a charismatic leader. More than 900 members of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple died in Guyana in a mass murder-suicide directed by Jones, including hundreds of children.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Newsweek via email Wednesday that Trump remains the Republican Party’s “unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator” and is committed to maintaining the GOP’s congressional majorities.

“The choice has never been more clear,” Ingle said, describing the election as a choice between “doubling down on President Trump’s winning, commonsense agenda” and Democrats’ policies.

Trump was in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on Thursday to rally support for Republican Senator Darline Graham and other GOP candidates ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, as Graham faces an unexpectedly competitive challenge from Democrat Annie Andrews. On Wednesday, Fox News moved the race from Lean Republican to Toss-Up after new polling showed Graham, the sister of late Senator Lindsey Graham, and Andrews deadlocked at 48 percent, raising the stakes for Trump’s Thursday campaign appearance.

Trump encouraged Graham to seek her late brother’s Senate seat and has continued to campaign for her as the race has tightened in its closing days, including appearing at another rally for her last week.

“He was a great politician,” Trump said Wednesday of Lindsey Graham, before promoting Darline Graham as his elected successor. “She's got the gene.”

Since his political rise in 2016, Trump has maintained an intensely loyal political following through his MAGA movement, with supporters regularly turning out for his campaign rallies and forming a core constituency of the Republican Party. His critics have at times characterized the movement and its devotion to Trump as cult-like, a characterization his supporters reject.

Even former Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said the pro-Trump movement has become a "cult."

Speaking at The Texas Tribune Festival in September, Greene, a Trump ally turned critic, said: "When you vote for someone, not only are you supporting them, but you're holding them accountable.

"And if they can't be truthful and hold [Trump] accountable to his campaign promises that affect the entire country, then they're liars, and they're hypocrites and they're in a cult."

Newsweek has reached out to the Republican National Committee and the White House via email on Thursday afternoon for comment.

Republican pollster Brent Buchanan told Newsweek via email Wednesday that Cygnal’s polling suggests that voters identifying as “Trump Republicans” have declined slightly as a share of Republican voters over the summer and fall. In the firm’s late-October survey, 43 percent of Republicans identified as Trump Republicans, compared with 55 percent who identified as traditional Republicans, while 2 percent were unsure.

Buchanan argued that the combination of non-Trump Republicans and potentially persuadable independent voters means GOP candidates would benefit more from appealing toward the political center than focusing primarily on mobilizing Trump’s base.

“Considering non-Trump GOP plus gettable Independents is a way bigger group than MAGA Republicans, I don't think a base push helps us more than a persuasion to the center push,” Buchanan said.

That dynamic, he said, could prove particularly important in competitive Senate races, where Republican candidates may need voters who are dissatisfied with Trump or the GOP but are nevertheless willing to vote Republican.

“These Senate races will come down to whether the individual GOP candidate can reach into the center and center-right and give them a reason to vote Republican even if they're not super happy with Trump or Republicans,” Buchanan said. “Hopefully they hate Democrats more, hold their nose, and deliver a slight GOP win.”

Graham warned that Andrews would undo President Trump’s accomplishments if elected, as she rallied supporters ahead of the president’s appearance.

Speaking before Trump at his second rally in the state in two weeks, Graham praised the president for having “delivered what Washington promised for decades” on issues including law enforcement and border security.

But Andrews, she said, “would just throw it all away.”

Graham, at times using profane language in remarks reminiscent of the combative political style of her late brother, accused “liberals and socialists” of trying to move the traditionally conservative state to the left.

She called Andrews “batsh*t crazy” and accused the Democrat of running “deceptive ads trying to hide her radical past and rewrite her record.”

This is a breaking news article. Updates to follow.

Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Paul Donnelley.