Two New York Times columnists from opposite sides of the political spectrum have similar columns out today warning of the dangers of Trump. First up (because I saw him first) is David French, conservative: The Greatest Threat Posed by Trump
[W]hat worries me even more is the change I see in ordinary Americans. I live in the heart of MAGA country, and Donald Trump is the single most culturally influential person here. It’s not close. He’s far more influential than any pastor, politician, coach or celebrity. He has changed people politically and also personally. . . . Polling data again and again backs up the reality that the right is abandoning decency, and doing so in the most alarming of ways.
This particularly includes the increasing willingness to contemplate, accept, and commit political violence — which, let me be clear, has always been more a part of the American landscape than we like to admit. (Starting with the Boston Tea Party, if not even earlier.) A third NYT columnist, Jamelle Bouie, made this point in another column up today: Trump Loves to Play With Fire:
This type of threat, directed internally against dissidents as much as externally toward rivals, is certainly not unique in American history. It has at least one noteworthy antecedent [Reconstruction-era violence].
What Trump has done is more than bring violence out of the shadows, more than make it a secondary tool. He has glorified it, demanded it, made it the first resort. So he calls his opponents “vermin” in a deliberate resurrection of Nazi language — and violence was also the Nazis political weapon of first resort.
French isn’t quite done. (And remember, he describes himself as a “conservative evangelical.”)
But most consequential of all is the religious response to Trump. On Dec. 20, The Economist reported on the astonishing number of Christian Republicans who believe Donald Trump is God’s chosen man to save America. . . . The result is a religious movement steeped in fanaticism but stripped of virtue.
Precisely. Before commenting further, let me bring up Michelle Goldberg from the other side of the political spectrum: MAGA Has Devoured American Evangelicalism
But there’s not going to be a post-Trump religious right — at least, not anytime soon. Evangelical leaders who started their alliance with Trump on a transactional basis, then grew giddy with their proximity to power, have now seen MAGA devour their movement whole. . . . From this wreckage has emerged a version of evangelicalism that sometimes seems like a brand-new religion, with Trump at the center of it.
Both columnists brought up the hideous video (which I will not link to): God Made Trump. That video is not a joke, but a harbinger. Trump probably believes it; he’s compared himself to Jesus in the past. Now he’s got many of his followers doing the same. Goldberg’s conclusion:
Those convinced that Trump is touched by divinity, however, are unlikely to think he needs another politician to shield him. “I think they are doing the same thing they did to Jesus on the cross,” one Christian voter told The Associated Press, speaking of Trump’s manifold legal troubles. It doesn’t matter what evangelical elites say. Trump’s acolytes want to see him rise again.
We are in a battle for America’s soul. And by soul I don’t mean something religious. I mean the essence of what drives us, what makes us human, what at heart is our vision of ourselves and the world around us. Over time, and especially since World War II, the United States has been moving, in fits and starts, toward a more pluralistic, secular society in which diversity is promoted, even celebrated, equal opportunity becomes more than just a catch phrase, freedom of religion can include freedom from religion, and racial, sexual, gender equality is a goal that is on the horizon and rising.
All of that is anathema (literally!) to a large portion of the country, be they White Supremacists, fundamental evangelicals, political opportunists, corporate robber barons — this is not an exhaustive list and the categories are not mutually exclusive. Trump has latched on to them — and they to him — and none of them will let go. Win or lose, Trump has already altered the terms on which our country functions.
But it goes beyond that. Trump is in it for himself. Certainly, being called the next Jesus or the gift of God feeds his ego (a bottomless pit there!), and part of him may well believe it by now, as he sinks further into the maelstrom of his madness. But his main goal is, and always has been, to get as much money as he can, to do whatever he wants without restraint, and — lately — to stay out of jail.
Many of his followers, even those worship him (see the photo above, <sigh>), have different goals. One group wants to squeeze more money; they will only clash with Trump if he tries to take their wealth as well as ours. It’s the religious fanatics who are the larger concern. They want America’s soul. They want to dictate to us what we can think. The group of Christians who call themselves Dominionists (see Who are the Dominionists backing conservative candidates?) want to turn the US into a theocracy. Trump doesn’t want that; he wants an autocracy, with himself as the autocrat.
There are already signs of the coming struggle between them. Yes, Trump gave them the Supreme Court that struck down Roe v Wade, but he has since wavered on how much of an abortion ban he favors — not out of any conviction, but because he knows a full ban is politically unpopular and would damage his chances of winning; see Trump considers federal abortion ban a vote-loser and is unlikely to support one. This will not sit well with those of his backers who want a total abortion ban, and want it for religious rather than (or in addition to) political reasons.
Circling back to my original point: Trump has destroyed whatever sense of decency and decorum used to exist in American politics, busting wide open a trend that has been growing for years — and which Democrats are only now, and perhaps too late, realizing they need to counter. Along with that, and deliberately so, Trump has made violence not just a legitimate tool of politics but the preferred one. He has also, and again deliberately, worked to destroy all our trust in our institutions so that we are left with only him.
But that raises the question: What happens when he does something even his followers cannot trust? What happens when — as it inevitably will — his lack of true interest in their religious doctrine so interferes with the intentions of some of his religious followers that they can no longer rely on him to do their bidding? What happens when one religious fanaticism runs up against another religious fanaticism, each convinced that only they have the true word of God? And each wants the power to force that word on all of us?
I still have hope that our country can find a way out of this that does not end up tearing us apart, though it’s hard for me to see one; we’ve been heading for this for too long to back out without a lot of pain.