My reader may have heard about President Trump’s attempt to usurp the religious right’s power:
This didn’t go well:
Although Trump deleted the post — depicting the president in white robes laying hands on a man in a hospital bed, with a backdrop full of Americana — the damage is already done: Prominent MAGA influencers and Christian leaders took to social media to publicly air their distaste for the image and disappointment in the president.
“God, we might have made a mistake and accidentally elected the Antichrist,” Christian influencer Mandy Arthur wrote in a post on X.
“There’s not context where this is acceptable,” said Sean Feucht, a conservative Christian activist and longtime MAGA surrogate, calling for the image to be “deleted immediately.”
“A little humility would serve him well,” said Riley Gaines, a Turning Point USA contributor who opposes transgender rights.
“More deportations less Jesus comparisons,” said Republican National Committee youth advisory council co-chair Brilyn Hollyhand.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump claimed he didn’t know the image portrayed him as a Christlike figure and blamed the “fake news” for its negative reception. [MS NOW]
Being agnostic, I have my doubts about theological concepts such as anti-Christ. Speaking as a Western Civ human, though, I’d say the keyword here is humility, which is to say, What does President Trump lack?
We may see more of these sorts of messages. President Trump, in line with many such wannabe dictators, feels it necessary to scurry about suppressing power centers as potential threats to his own alleged power center, because, to these sorts of people, allies are always temporary, and as allies they are more vulnerable to Trump’s depradations than as enemies.
Note the last paragraph quoted, above. Shifting the blame to the constructed, or faux, enemy of the left of center in American politics reminds his offended allies of their shared adversary, shifting their attention from his own attack on themselves. Whether this is successful remains to be seen, and probably won’t be – events come at frantic speed from the President who still can’t deal with the Epstein Files, and has managed to kill thousands of Iranians in his desperate attempts to bury his presence in said Files. Especially for working dudes like myself and my reader.
If this sounds like the actions of a mentally ill person, well, yes. As a friend noted back in 2015 or 2016, he strongly appears to be a pathological narcissist. From such a position it’s not hard to understand that, for him, attention is great, but there’s a difference between attention via intermediaries, such as those quoted above and his personal corp of clerics such as Paula White-Cain, and the sweet, undiluted adoration of the masses, who come to the Trump performances, where, unconstrained by Holy Books, custom, or good taste, Trump can gather balm for a spirit that is only calm when it’s at the center of a hurricane of grasping greed.
As I noted, we can expect more of this in the near future.
