THE SUGGESTION THAT God protected Trump from a bullet is blasphemous drivel. Many supporters of former President Donald Trump claim that his survival of the recent assassination attempt was due to divine intervention.
Several described him as an angel. Trump himself told the Republican Party Convention recently that he stood before it “only by the grace of Almighty God”.
It would be tempting to ignore such blasphemous drivel. Over many years, Trump has comprehensively ruptured any tenuous connection between words and meaning, between posturing and truth. There can, therefore, only be limited value in analysing his ramblings. It is an easy segue from the “alternative facts” that discredited his first Presidency to the “supernatural fiction” on which he seems to be campaigning for a second one.
However, even if we shouldn’t treat Trump’s preposterous claim of divine intervention with the remotest seriousness, there are four reasons for us not to ignore entirely his latest pseudo-biblical claptrap.
First, Trump’s claim to be God’s chosen one can leave no one in any doubt about how he is approaching the November election or how he intends to govern if returned to the White House. Since he believes that he is an instrument of God, he will – in his own mind – be entirely free of any remaining constraints that normally apply to someone holding public office in a democracy.
If Trump is the choice of God to lead America, he will – if he loses again in November – undoubtedly dismiss, even more shamelessly than in 2020, the democratic choice of the American people. The fundamental principles of democracy, including independent courts, will count for nothing against the tablets of stone that Trump has brought down to his people from the MAGA mountaintop. It would naturally be unthinkable for a President endorsed from on high to be limited to a mere two terms in office.
Second, anyone who believes that they have been hand-picked by a deity has no reason to reflect honestly on the difference between right and wrong or to take any account of what the God they purport to believe in might actually have to say.
There can rarely have been anyone in public life more devoid of a moral compass than Trump. He is more influenced by the propaganda of the National Rifle Association than by the Sermon on the Mount. According to Trump’s philosophy, Jesus was obviously a “loser”. Strongmen like Putin and Xi, much admired by Trump, would never come out with that meek and gentle nonsense. Kim Jong Un would never be so dumb as to turn the other cheek. Now that Trump has accorded himself quasi-celestial status, the chances of him seeking humble guidance from any source of morality, religious or secular, are now zero.
Third, the notion that there is some God that intervenes to deflect specific bullets is mumbo jumbo. To accept that there is the slightest truth in such a heresy would strengthen the ludicrous and dangerous cult that Trumpism has become. If there were such a divine force in the world, specialising bizarrely in ballistics, it is hard to imagine that anyone could be lower down its list of priorities than Trump. One would have to assume, amongst many other things, that such a force went AWOL when genuinely admired American leaders — including Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers — became the victims of assassins’ bullets.
It is self-evident, to cite just one example, that the hundreds of children killed in mass shootings across the United States, made possible by supporters of the National Rifle Association, would be infinitely more worthy of benign interest from above.
Fourth, Trump’s claim to be the chosen candidate of some Christian God brings further discredit on those Christian churches and leaders who endorse him as a fit candidate to lead America. The basic thrust of Trump’s politics flagrantly contradicts the Christian gospels — his relentless disregard for the truth, his calculated divisiveness and extremism, his aggression towards migrants and other vulnerable people and his manifest amorality. In the face of his latest theological outrage, namely implying that he is somehow an agent protected by a divine Secret Service in the sky, the priests and ministers amongst his supporters, facilitators of his blasphemy, have been shamefully silent.
Trump supports the growing campaign to display the Ten Commandments in school classrooms across the United States. The Republican Governor of Louisiana has claimed that Trump’s would-be assassin would have been deterred if they had been so displayed. Apparently, the words “Thou Shalt Not Kill” on a wall would have been more effective than preventing an unbalanced young man from having easy access to lethal firearms.
Trump’s sexual improprieties inevitably remind one of the good news and the bad news that Moses reportedly announced to his followers when he presented to them the tablets of stone. The good news, he told them, was that he had negotiated the number of Commandments down to ten. The bad news was that Number Six was still in.
Trump’s disrespect for the Commandments doesn’t stop there, as further illustrated by his claim to have had the Lord’s protection last week. His supporters should take a break from their nonsense about displaying the ten traditional exhortations in educational establishments and remember instead that, according to their own professed beliefs, they should not take the Lord’s name in vain; or worship false idols.
Bobby McDonagh is a former Irish Ambassador to the EU, UK and Italy. He is an executive coach and commentator on subjects around EU and Brexit.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say