I'm not kidding. Republicans are mapping godhood onto Trump. Not that they think he's Jesus, consciously, but the effect is that. It's the unconscious that's running the show. Ever been to a Baptist church? The experience lacks, let's say, artistic immediacy. Comes up short on beauty. Fails like fuck, really. And extreme Calvinists crave closeness to Jesus more than anything.
It's their entire purpose.
But there's that annoying wait, called 'life,' the prison sentence which we serve and to which we are sentenced by God. Life is not supposed to be nice. Suffering brings people closer to Jesus, especially Democrats, those fucking apostates, so let them suffer. If they die that's fine. They get to see Jesus, not having been saved. Catholics used art to feed that need for immediacy.
Music, images, statues, incense, all that. Calvinists called them idolators. Said Catholics were superstitious and such. But Baptists blew a fuse. Their craving for a less abstract (you as your immortal soul) and experiential form of religious rite has taken them to Trump (and snake handling, a close parallel) as the human embodiment of holiness and a personal connection to perfection.
Something more emotionally satisfying. We can debate the appropriateness of Trump. But I will point out that strict Calvinists have a big problem with 'good works' as part of the straw-man stereotyping of Catholics. Fear is part of the Protestant package at the extreme end because they're dualists. Good and Evil they're sure of, not much in between. Good works are a bad sign.
Trump has never done a good work in his life, a higher, more uncompromised form of holiness, so there's that to chew on. Add in Calvinist fatalism which, in one of its manifestations, means being rich is a sign of God's favor, the result of having lived a disciplined and godly life. Then add in authoritarianism and the arbitrary nature of salvation and so the arbitrary nature of authority.
Voilà, the cult of Trump.
So much is said, and so much is true, of that shitbag. Democrats are beating their heads against a wall trying to understand it within their model of reason and belief (not to rule it out) that they thought characterized both Christianity and Americanism. They were right but that's not where we are. We're in another world, of the idolatry and superstition Calvinists sought to avoid.
They're seeking beauty in Trump, through its opposite because they blew a fuse craving an immediate experience of Jesus. And there's another avenue, seeing Jesus through the coming of the end times, the apocalypse. I don't deny Trump is the man if you want to see the world go up in flames. So there's that. And go in peace now to love and serve the Lord, as religious people like to say.
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