Happy Easter to all those who celebrate it. This is the day where religious Christians celebrate the resurrection of the saviour of the world, after he’d suffered a particularly cruel and unusual punishment at the hands of his persecutors who hated him solely for political reasons. And a lot of other people who want to mark the occasion eat chocolate eggs.
Traditionally of course Christians take Jesus as being the saviour in question. However the less normal side of the often-Christian US Republican movement has decided that this year we should take someone else as being the 2023 instantiation of Jesus Christ.
From the AP:
Comparisons likening Trump to Christ were among the top online narratives about the Republican former president and his criminal charges circulating in the last several days.
Yes, inevitably, the wilder fringe believes that Donald Trump is in fact the 2023 incarnation of Jesus. This is based on the fact that he became the first US president ever to be charged with a crime last week, charged with 34 felony offences, mainly around conducting illegal financial shenanigans in order to try and hide some of his affairs and potentially secret children. Not something that I ever heard that the original Jesus was supposed to have done, but there we go.
Extra fuel was put on the fire of this rancid discourse by one of the movement’s favourite US politicians, Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose Twitter bio starts with the word “Christian” and yet still had this to say in a televised interview:
Jesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government. There have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments, and it’s beginning today in New York City.
McBride, a lawyer famed for representing folk who took part in the January 6th insurrection joined the chorus:
As Christ was crucified, and then rose again on the 3rd day, so too will Donald Trump
Honestly I think we’ve all had enough of Trump rising, especially poor Stormy Daniels. However, he never ever has had enough of talking so was more than happy to frame his arrest, which all started with him participating in various activities very much banned by the bible, as being an instance of religious persecution against Christians.
As Rolling Stone reports:
But then Trump switched gears, painting his legal woes in a frame of religious persecution. He argued that believers in “our beautiful Christianity” have been targeted: “We’re being discriminated against as a religion. We’re being discriminated against as a faith,” he insisted. “And we can’t let that continue.”
Of course many actual Christians are fairly disgusted at the idea that this breaker of a good number of the ten commandments is in fact an echo of God’s only begotten son. Some see it as American Christian nationalism taking many steps too far: “the heretical merging of American and far-right Christian identities to proclaim that only conservative Christians count as true Americans”, to quote the Reverend Nathan Empsall who understandably finds the Trump = Jesus take rather blasphemic.
The Reverend does see one parallel in the Jesus/Trump narrative, but one where Trump is cast into the part of a different actor.
Pontius Pilate, on the other hand, was a regional Roman dictator known not only for his cruelty, but also for his alliance with local religious leaders. The high priests were eager to collude with the governor, including to crucify Jesus, because it allowed them to keep their status and personal freedom. In turn, Pilate benefited by having allies who could keep his subjects in line and thus keep him in power. It was a great deal for everyone—everyone but the people.
It likely goes without saying that the Q fringe of the fringe claim to believe the omnipotent Trump has in fact orchestrated his own arrest, as some five-dimensional chess strategy designed to [waves hands] such that this own enemies will be destroyed.