Amid the grim and exhausting news maelstrom of Donald Trump’s 2016-2020 administration, we looked for moments of levity wherever we could find them.
These shards of schadenfreude—Pandora’s last gift to the world—always contain gibberish from the horse’s mouth.
One such example was when several television reporters asked Trump to name his favorite verse from his “favorite book,” the Bible.
“I don’t want to get involved, it’s a very personal thing,” he said with bravado.
Is he an Old Testament character or a New Testament character?
“Well…*slight panic in voice*…probably equal.”
Trump has not read the Bible, just as he has not read the Quran in Arabic or the works of Alexis de Tocqueville. American Democracy.
This 77-year-old prodigal son has a delicate relationship with the Lord. But it proved politically effective.Now he hopes to gain some financial benefit from whipping his own version Bibles are only $59.99 during Easter.
“He’s obviously never read the book, and my guess is that it wouldn’t have recognized the Sermon on the Mount,” moderate Republican commentator Charlie Sykes said as a cash-strapped Trump announced his latest of Fraud — said after working with country singer Lee Greenwood. god bless america Played at his rallies.
“The other irony, of course, is that Donald Trump, the great defender of Christianity, is hawking his $60 Bible at the same time he’s preparing to face criminal charges in court for having sex with a porn star. And then We have to pay it back to whoever it is.”
Liz Cheney, another Republican Trump critic, snapped on Twitter/X: “You shouldn’t be selling Bibles, you should be buying one.”
Atheists are probably the only ones who can take credit from this. If there was a God, Trump’s Bible might be on fire, as he shows in a promotional video: “All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have a lot of them. This is my favorite Book.”
But for some, the hard sell and Christian nationalism are as closely linked as the high street and rifle shops.
“The new far right in America is fueled by grifterism,” said David Farris, a political scientist at Roosevelt University in Chicago. “Weird podcast ads, doomsday prepper stuff, so when we’re used to it, the former U.S. President Selling a Bible doesn’t even seem weird.”
The website whipped god bless america The Bible states that this is the only version endorsed by Trump, who, as we all know, Autographed copy good book.
One Christian writer believes this exploitation of Christian faith may have crossed a line at Easter. Bradley Onishi, a religious scholar, former evangelist, and prepare for wara book about white Christian nationalism, tell MSNBC: “Some people are going to eat this up. As many know, Trump is clearly appealing to white evangelicals… He needs every vote in 2024 to return to the White House… Some of them will think this is Someone combines their faith with a patriotic element.”
But he added: “There are others, including evangelicals and other Christians, who would find this to be nothing short of blasphemous.”
Polls show, however, that Trump can count on significant support from the Christian right.
Newest pew research center The data shows that white evangelical Protestants have the most favorable views of Trump. Two-thirds have a favorable opinion of the former president, including 30% who have a very favorable opinion of him.
Recent polls suggest current President Joe Biden may be making gains slight progress Trump has a large share of the evangelical vote.
However, Thomas Gift, director of the Center for American Politics at University College London, said, “The evangelical community remains a key group among Republican voters. Although many still reluctantly support Trump due to concerns about his morality, They are unlikely to give up on him”. The reason he says that is because of the Republican Party’s record of supporting social conservatism.
“Trump appointed three conservative judges during his first term who helped overturn Roe v. Wade. That alone should be enough to win them over in 2024.”
University of New Haven political scientist Patricia Krause added: “Trump’s support among Christian evangelicals remains relatively strong for several reasons. One is that many of them believe he is” The chosen one.
“They believed that he was the person appointed by God to lead them and the country. It was not that they did not acknowledge his transgressions, they just believed that these were judged by God, not by them.”
This strange belief is reflected in the statement of the seemingly intelligent right-wing Christian and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who claimed that Trump may be a Modern Esther, a biblical figure who convinced the Persian king not to exterminate the Jews. He thanked God for Trump, “a steadfast friend of Israel.”
Zionist Christians who associate with Pompeo believe that the establishment of a state of Israel for the Jewish people is a prerequisite for the return of the Messiah. (Of course, this has nothing to do with the Jews: at the Second Coming, they will either convert to Christianity or go to hell).
In fact, there are competing or potentially overlapping explanations for Trump’s continued popularity among right-wing Christians.
Pew research shows that most people who view Trump positively do not view him as particularly religious, but rather believe that he supports religious people like themselves. Among those who have a positive view of Trump, only 8% think he is very religious, while 51% think he is somewhat religious and 38% think he is not very religious.
This supports a theory put forward by Tim Alberta, author of the book recent books For right-wing Christians, Kingdom, Power, and Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. He believes the religious right views Trump as a necessary evil.
explain their mentalityHe once said: “The savages are at the door, and we need a savage to stop them.” If Trump is not a convincing savage, then what is he?
Farris believes these issues have been trumped up in the minds of many of Trump’s Christian followers. The relationship was “fundamentally transactional, but they couldn’t accept that, so they made him into this ridiculous god-like figure as well,” he said.
Klaus noticed the hypocrisy. “The interesting thing about all this is that they hold their members to a standard – expulsion Jerry Falwell Jr. For example, at Liberty University,” he said, referring to Trump’s designated figurehead for the Christian right who was discarded like yesterday’s trash when his sex scandals came to light.
Trump appears to be attracting new voters on the religious right — Latinos.
According to statistics, about 10 million Hispanics in the United States identify themselves as evangelical or Protestant, and “about three in 10 Hispanic Republicans (28%) identify themselves as evangelical Protestant.” Pew Research Center.
Evangelical pastor Samuel Rodríguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), said evangelicals, the conservative bloc among Latino voters, are “more engaged than ever” in the election , which bills itself as the largest global Christian organization of Hispanic Christian leaders more than There are 40,000 churches in the United States alone.
"The evangelical Latino vote will be different this year than in previous years," Rodriguez said.
Sykes and others believe money is the primary motivation for launching the Trump Bible.
“He could have given these Bibles away during Holy Week. He said we should make America pray again. This is my gift to my supporters. Instead, he is marketing them,” he said.
Trump will receive a percentage of the Bibles sold and may use the proceeds to defend himself against accusations that he illegally paid hush money to porn stars.
If he gets rid of this charge and returns to power, Trump, with the help of a Supreme Court populated by far-right judges, will be able to enforce the dictates of the Christian right and fight the culture war on their behalf for the next four years and beyond.
Ultimately, in their eyes, it’s all for a good cause.
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