I recall the time I was 10 years old and watched the horrific TV footage of the 1978 Jonestown massacre. Jim Jones, a demented, unhinged and heavily medicated cult leader, presided over the murder-suicide of more than 900 people in the jungles of Guyana. Jones’ followers drank the Kool-aid, so to speak, a deadly cocktail of cyanide and drink mix. And those who were unwilling participants, including children, were forced to drink it as some perverted, demented act of “revolutionary suicide” or liberation through death.

Who could have imagined that Jim Jones would rise from the dead and be reincarnated four decades later as Donald J. Trump, president of the United States? This time around, the cult leader peddles orange Kool-aid for his red state base of followers, a snake-oil elixir known as hydroxychloroquine which he touts as a cure for coronavirus, albeit a fake cure. Trump even weaponizes and monetizes coronavirus itself, telling his supporters the pandemic is a hoax, as he finds ways to profit from the American carnage he created when he failed to warn the public of the ensuing catastrophe, sat on his hands and refused to take action to mitigate the damage. America is now the global leader of CVID-19 deaths, and the wealthiest nation in the world has no damn masks for people to protect themselves, no testing kits, and nurses walking around wearing garbage bags. Because that’s American exceptionalism. And neoliberalism. And vulture capitalism.

But something went askew when Trump’s soldiers decided to shout “Give me liberty AND give me death!” It’s one thing when Fox News calls a deadly pandemic a Democratic hoax, as irresponsible and potentially deadly as that may be; it is an entirely different matter when people in positions of authority turn conspiracy theories into policy, endanger lives for political gain, and weaponize a virus to meet their eugenicist goals.

While fake preachers kept churches open to get themselves and their flock killed, Jerry Falwell opened Liberty University in the midst of the plague, and students fell ill. Republicans are treating state-imposed lockdowns and social distancing like a school desegregation order. Anti-quarantine protests are both reckless and inauthentic - reckless because they mean more people will die needlessly of coronavirus - because facemasks are communist - and inauthentic because of the billionaires (see Koch Brothers, Betsy DeVos and Heritage Foundation) who are bankrolling these spectacles. Remember that a few hundred thousand or even a few million dead people never hurt any capitalists (see American history). However, it’s quite a different story when the majority of a nation of 330 million people stays home.

This is why we must return to work, to save American capitalism. GOP Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said grandpa had to take one for the team to save the economy, and there are more important things than living. Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has turned his state into a Mickey Mouse operation by opening up the beaches in the middle of a plague. Wisconsin Republican hack judges made people go out in the middle of a green cloud of death in order to vote in the primary election, and the Southern states such as South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia are open for business. So, now you can go to the movies, or the Waffle House or the gym, and get your hair or nails done in the middle of this biblical plague. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who stole his position from Stacey Abrams in broad daylight, has gone too far even for Trump, who thinks Kemp should slow down this whole reopening thing. Trump is like the Southern sheriff who allowed the lynch mob to break into the jail, kidnap the Black man and hang him from a tree.

This message goes out to the folks in Trumpland, the people who created this monstrosity. So, dear Billy Bob, Bubba Lee and Skeeter: Please claim your boy, this man-boy named Donald J. Trump. This malignant narcissist, mob boss and reality show host is fixin’ to get us all killed. Black folks had figured this out from the jump before November 2016, and now the entire country, if not the world, can behold this dumpster fire with their own eyes, because they’re living in it, and far too many are dying from it.

Trump is America, a toxic mix of graft, incompetence and white supremacy. Trump represents the evil triumvirate of racism, violence and greed, of which society refused to divest itself, however many times it had the chance. And now, the Devil is cashing in on this centuries-old investment.