The Bible Thumper

It brought a smile to my face seeing one of my religious conservative friends question Trump's latest venture.  He simply stated,

"A politician selling Bibles is very disturbing on many levels."

As my friend further elaborated in his comments, "it's wrong for anyone to manipulate people for money by using their faith," especially one that has such a xenophobic message as "God Bless the USA" stamped on the cheap leather cover.  

Most of us had a Bible given to us in our youth.  I still have the black King James Bible my mother gave to me when I started Sunday School.  Of course some of us preferred simplified texts like the New American Standard edition so that we don't have to wrestle with all that Olde English, but my mother didn't feel the language had to be diluted and sat with me to help decipher the anachronistic text.  I never did read the Bible from front to back but I have read large sections of it, including all of the Books of Moses, as I have struggled to understand the "Word of God."  It often seemed contradictory, so I have sought differing translations over the years to see if I was missing something.  Not so long ago, I bought Robert Alter's translation of The Five Books of Moses, as I felt this was the key to understanding the Bible.  The Old Testament anyway.  I also bought a facsimile of the Jefferson Bible, in which he offered side-by-side passages from the New Testament in the original Greek with Latin,  French and English translations to sort out the real meaning in the Gospel according to Jesus.

Trump's Bible offers no such illumination. It is merely a means to further promote his religious conservative creds and provide for his legal defense fund.  He's tried any number of gimmicks over the past year, including digital trading cards and golden sneakers, which gives you a pretty good idea where he comes from.

It's not surprising that his popularity among White Evangelicals has been waning.  It has reached a point where as many as 28% of this demographic group are seriously considering Biden in November.  You don't hear the press talking much about this but maybe they will after this failed Bible venture, as it threatens to blow up in his face like a candy-colored balloon.

Trump has lived in a privileged world since birth.  Yet, he tried to claim a certain affinity with religious conservatives by taking his oath on a Bible he said his mother gave him as a child.  His one attempt to quote it fell flat when he tried to evoke "Two Corinthians."  He still overwhelmingly won the White Evangelical vote in 2016, as religious leaders chose to endorse him over his rivals, many of whom were much better versed in the Bible.  That support continued through the 2020 election as you can see in this grotesque spectacle.  

Of course, the Evangelical community is not entirely conservative.  You will find liberal, environmentally active and gay Evangelicals, but they represent a pretty small cross section of this religious group.  Certainly not enough to make up 28% of these disgruntled believers, whose primary tenant is that you have to be "born again" to be welcomed into Christ's arms.  In other words, you have to admit your numerous sins and profess to make the effort to overcome them.  Not even babies are exempt from this due to the rather perverse notion of "original sin."

So how was Trump able to bypass this clause?  He never once admitted to his numerous sins, much less asked for forgiveness. When challenged he has always doubled down, which you would have thought a red flag among Evangelicals.  I guess Religious conservative leaders like Franklin Graham and Jerry Falwell Jr. figured it was better to play hardball than it was to challenge Trump's commitment, as they were tired of waiting for Roe v. Wade to be overturned and felt their time had come with Trump in the White House.

A few fortuitous events had to fall his way, like a Republican Senate blocking Obama's attempt to place a centrist judge on the court in place of the departed Antonin Scalia, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg failing to make it through Trump's term, which allowed him to place an unprecedented three judges on the Supreme Court, effectively creating a conservative super majority that will take years, if not decades, to overcome.

While Evangelicals were happy about this long overdue turn of events, they weren't all that happy about Trump being dragged through the courts, allowing everyone to see his grievous sins on full display.  He might have gained some sympathy if he admitted to some of his sins.  Instead, he lashed out at his accusers even when it cost him an additional $80 million.  All these legal fees started piling up, not to mention the bonds he had to post on the settlements if he wanted to appeal them.  

He's tried a wide variety of marketing ploys, the most successful appears to be taking Truth Social public, earning a whopping $8 billion valuation on its first day of trading.  Not so fast, DJT, as there is little to substantiate such an absurd valuation and most likely that stock price will come tumbling down in the weeks ahead, much like his poll numbers are already doing.  At the end of the year, he may very well be left with nothing.

Trump isn't so much the second coming of Christ, or Moses as he so often references, as he is the rise and fall of a con man you would expect to find in a Mark Twain short story.  Maybe a bit of that false glow is finally wearing off.  I suppose he felt he could get away with the Bibles as his adoring fans were thrusting them into his face to sign, which he gladly did.  Apparently, those Bibles fetch a much higher price.

Whatever the case, this whole experiment with Trump as a latter-day Messiah has been deeply disturbing and it is time Evangelicals wake up to the fact that the only interests this guy represents are his own.