Jackie Speier understands the danger of the Trump cult

On 6 January, Jackie Speier was one of scores of members of Congress threatened by the mob of violent Trump supporters and white supremacists who stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to overthrow the results of the presidential election.

Along with her peers, she was told to wear a gas mask and ordered to lie prostrate on the marble floor as the baying crowd pounded on the chamber door and the sound of gunfire rent the air. The terror of that day induced in her a flashback, to the events that brought her into politics in the first place when she lay bleeding from five gunshot wounds in the Guyana jungle, not knowing whether she would live or die.

It was 18 November 1978, and she had travelled to Guyana as part of a congressional investigation into the Jonestown settlement and its cult leader, Jim Jones. The fact-finding group of 24 were ambushed by cult members on a jungle airstrip; the congressman for whom Speier then worked, Leo Ryan, and four others were murdered.

Speier, shot five times and left for dead, had to wait 22 hours for help to arrive. She told herself as she lay on the tarmac that if she survived the ordeal she would devote herself to public service.

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The formative experience that gave rise to her political career gives Speier an unusually sharp perspective on the danger posed by the Capitol insurrection. She thinks of it as “groupthink”, saying that “when the groupthink is about overthrowing the government, then we’ve got a serious problem.”

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“Jim Jones was a religious cult leader, Donald Trump is a political cult leader,” Speier told the Guardian. “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.”

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Last month she wrote to Joe Biden and his newly confirmed defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, calling for a “new sense of urgency” following the “appalling events at the Capitol”.

In her letter, Speier told the president and defense secretary that she had become “increasingly alarmed” about the connections between violent extremist groups and military personnel. She warned them that current efforts to contain the problem were “insufficient to the threat from these extremist movements”.

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A recent analysis by CNN of the first 150 people to be arrested for participating in the Capitol insurrection found that at least 21 had military experience. Some were still serving, and eight were former marines with elite training in the art of warfare.

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“An Air Force Academy graduate was identified in his early life as an excellent military leader who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and here he is on the Senate floor holding zip-tie handcuffs.”

Prosecutors said Brock’s handcuffs were intended to take hostages.

Following the 2020 hearing that Speier convened as chair of the military personnel subcommittee, she proposed the creation of a standalone offense of violent extremism under the uniform code of military justice. The Pentagon supported the idea, but it was squashed at the insistence of Trump and with resistance from Republicans in the US Senate.

Now she plans to reintroduce the proposal into this year’s National Defense Authorization Act.

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Under the existing military code, service members have to be “active” participants in an extremist group to be disciplined.

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“So you’ve got a problem with lackadaisical enforcement of a law that allows you to be a participant in a white supremacist group, you just can’t be an ‘active’ participant.”

  

Just what does it take to be considered "active"?

Speier is urging Biden to use his executive powers to identify white supremacy and extremism as a specific threat within the military. She also wants him to sign an executive order that would ensure that all military recruits and those seeking top security clearances are screened for signs of violent extremist activity on their social media accounts.

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Speier said that all these measures were needed urgently even before 6 January. Trump’s open dialogue with extremist organizations had supercharged the need for action, she said.

“Donald Trump had a code for talking to these groups. ‘There’s good people on both sides,’ ‘We love you,’ ‘You’re special.’ 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.”