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Eric Jones compares himself to Jesus Christ

Jones’s shamelessness and hubris knows no bounds

By Roberta Millstein

Recently, I came across a Facebook reel where Eric Jones compares himself to Jesus. Here is a screenshot of the text that accompanies the reel:

Screenshot from https://www.facebook.com/reel/1683293890472814 taken on 1 October 2026. Underlining is mine.

[Edited to add: Note that in an earlier version of this article, I wrote that this was the same text that is in the reel, but it is in fact a bit different — I don’t know if he changed it or not. In the video, Jones brings up a comparison of himself and Jesus turning over the table of the money lenders].

I must admit I was rather stunned by this. As someone who is not a Christian, I try to be respectful of religious differences and not to comment on other people’s beliefs. But this seemed above and beyond to me. So I wrote:

Looking at it again, I also notice Jones’s implication that Thompson, who has dedicated his life to public service and who is supposed to be his fellow Democrat, is his “enemy.” Nice. My point, which I didn’t express as well as I would have liked, was that Jones was not in fact speaking any kind of “truth,” much less “truth to power.”

But then I saw a reply from Sue Greenwald, which was much better than mine and really got to the heart of the matter:

Here is the text of Sue Greenwald’s comment, in case the screenshot isn’t readable:

Oh, so you’re saying that Jesus’ example told you to run a dirty campaign and to outspend Thompson two to one with money collected from your network of the new tech oligarchs, and your own venture capital fortune, not even counting the $3.9 million dollar SuperPAC support by your fellow high-rolling long-term partners and their spouses at Dragoneer Investments, the venture capital firm where you were a partner and stepped down only one month before entering the race?

And you have the nerve to justify this by referring to Jesus turning over the table of the moneylenders?

Jesus was a true revolutionary. When he turned over the tables of the moneylenders, he was turning over the table of the type of wealth extractors like the high-rolling venture capitalists, private equity investors and big bankers who funded your campaign and where you made your fortune that you’re trying to buy this election with.

This might be the most outrageous political ad I’ve ever seen. I feel so sorry for any good people who can’t see through the gaslighting.

Sue Greenwald’s comments are so spot on: the unscrupulous moneylender funded by other unscrupulous moneylenders, comparing himself to the person who called out the unscrupulous moneylenders. That really does take some kind of nerve.

Previously, Jones tried to invoke Bernie Sanders in one of his mailers, making it seem as though Bernie had endorsed him, even when Bernie has done no such thing. And Jones is running a campaign ad that uses a video of Barack Obama, making it seem as though Obama has endorsed him as well. Yes, there are little letters that flash for about one second, admitting that the ad is “not an endorsement,” an easily missed legal nicety that was absent from the mailer with the quote from Bernie. But of course, we all know that Obama is not in favor of all “young voices.” Yet Jones implies that Obama would be in favor of his campaign. Let’s also not forget the Jones video that Dolores Huerta appeared in, even though she had endorsed Mike Thompson.

Huerta. Sanders. Obama. Jesus. Who’s next?

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Comments

6 responses to “Eric Jones compares himself to Jesus Christ”

  1. Donna Lemongello

    I have to just laugh at Sue’s response, love it, and so “Sue”. Tell ’em…

    Reply
  2. Eileen Samitz

    What can I say except, Oh my God…what next from his holiness Eric Jones?

    I am enthusiastically voteing YES for MikeThompson and grateful every day, that he is running.

    Reply
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  4. John Smolenski

    I don’t know if the comment about the pastor is necessarily Jones comparing himself to Jesus. The idea of using Jesus as someone whose behavior we can emulate—to be more Christ-like, but not *be* Christ—is commonplace in teaching among Christians, especially Catholics. (Jones identifies as a Catholic, and I grew up Catholic.) It’s in the style of the parable teaching Christ does in the Gospel.

    However, it is notable to me that Jones identifies himself as a Christian here. Catholics *are* Christians—but not in the eyes of many evangelicals, who see the pope as literally diabolical and identify evangelicals as the only “Christians.” This seems like a possible signal to other “Christians” that he is in their group (even though that might exclude Catholics.)

    The thing that lept out at me, though, was talking about the money changers. Because who are money changers at the temple? Jews, of course, whose avarice outweighs any sense of piety they might have. This could be triple strength dog whistle antisemitism, especially at this moment. Antisemitism is so common and so public right now that he’s basically talking about the need to fight off rich Jews who love money more than God.

    Now—that is a simplified reading of that Gospel passage. But bigotry often relies on simplified elements of common stories to get a point across. Which is what seems we have here.

    The unanswered question, of course—how is Jones planning to get himself and his millions of dollars through the eye of the needle? I would love to know that answer.

    Reply
    1. Roberta Millstein

      Thanks for your perspective, John. I think it aptly brings to light yet more disturbing aspects of Jones’s remarks. Multiple antisemitic dogwhistles for sure. (This is the point where Jones will often say, but my wife is Jewish — to which I say, so what? JD Vance’s wife is Indian, but that doesn’t stop Vance from being a racist who is part of a racist administration). Adding in Sue Greenwald’s point that it’s Jones who ACTUALLY is the multi-millionaire moneylender, it’s utterly shameless deception, similar to the way he says he isn’t taking corporate PAC money when in fact there is a Silicon Valley Super PAC donating millions of dollars to his campaign.

      I see your point about trying to emulate Jesus rather than comparing oneself to Jesus. If it were a different context, something other than a political campaign, I might agree with you. Certainly plenty of people aspire to do what Jesus would do, and that is admirable. But here Jones is publicly using Jesus’s name to promote his campaign, and I think a reasonable interpretation is that he is trying to say that he is acting like Jesus and that Jesus is on his (Jones’s) side, just as he tried to say Bernie, Dolores, and Barack were on his side. Again, I am not Christian myself, but if I were, I think I would be even more disgusted than I already am.

      Reply
    2. Sue Greenwald

      I agree with Roberta. It’s about the context. This is a campaign piece by Eric Jones, from his campaign page on Facebook. It isn’t a spontaneous, private conversation. Campaign pieces are calculated. Jones has been criticized for the aggressive and often unfair content of his campaign (see the letter about this by Zoe Lofgren in the recent Davisite article.) He opens by addressing this criticism (“this style of communication doesn’t feel like me”), and immediately pivots to a “conversation with his pastor”, in which he is exonerated for his aggressive and often unfair campaign tactics by a comparison of himself with Jesus turning over the table of the moneylenders. He is saying that he’s forced to act like Jesus Christ, because he’s confronting power.

      That’s comparing himself to Jesus Christ. I hope people get the chance to listen carefully to this campaign video. Here is the link, provided he doesn’t change or remove it, as he often does:

      https://www.facebook.com/reel/1683293890472814

      Reply

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