Donald Trump is posing as our New Paschal Lamb

[jserraglio]

Donald Trump, Blasphemous Bible Thumper

SNL Cold Open March 30, 2024
https://youtu.be/RxhwjPgJGbU?si=A2oucqrKXA1k0FN8March 30, 2024

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A photo collage depicting Donald Trump holding open a briefcase, inside which is a single Bible.
Credit...Illustration by Sam Whitney

The New York Times
By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington.

On this holy weekend, one man is taking the Resurrection personally.

Donald Trump is presenting himself as the Man on the Cross, tortured for our sins. “I consider it a great badge of courage,” he tells crowds. “I am being indicted for you.” Instead of Christ-like redemption, he promises Lucifer-like retribution if resurrected.

In January, he put up a video on Truth Social about how he is a messenger from God, “a shepherd to mankind.”

Trump is, as the nuns who taught me used to say, “a bold, brazen piece.” He is a miserable human who cheated on his wives, cheats at golf, cheats at politics, incites violence, targets judges and their families and looked on, pleased, as thugs threatened to hang his actually pious vice president.

Yet, more and more, Trump is wallowing in his Messiah complex.

Two-Corinthians Trump wouldn’t know the difference between Old and New Testaments. So he may not realize that, rather than a sacrificial lamb, he is the Golden Calf, the false god worshiped by Israelites when Moses went up to Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments.

Just as the Israelites melted their ornaments and jewelry to make the calf, Trump is trading tacky products for gilt to pay gazillions in obligations. After his $399 golden “Never Surrender High-Top Sneaker,” Trump is selling a $99 “Victory” cologne for “movers, shakers and history makers” with “a crisp opening of citrus blends into a cedar heart, underpinned by a rich base of leather and amber, crafting a commanding presence.” A gold bust of Trump tops the bottle. (“Victory” perfume for women comes in a Miss Universe-shape bottle.)

Weaponizing his martyrdom, Trump is selling $59.99 “God Bless the USA” Bibles adorned with a flag and the chorus of Lee Greenwood’s song handwritten by the singer, plus the Constitution, Declaration of Independence and Pledge of Allegiance.

“Happy Holy Week!” he wrote on Truth Social. “Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible.”

David Axelrod says that, even as a secular Jew, he’s offended: “This is a guy who has violated 11 of the Ten Commandments.”

Trump posted a promotional video claiming “Christians are under siege” and vowing to “protect content that is pro-God.” He held up the Bible — recalling the appalling moment in 2020 when Ivanka handed him a Bible from her designer bag and he clutched it in front of St. John’s Church, opposite the White House, moments after the police tear-gassed protesters and journalists in adjacent Lafayette Square at a demonstration about George Floyd’s murder.

“All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many,” Trump barked. “It’s my favorite book.” Maybe the Bible has replaced that Hitler book Trump’s ex-wife said he kept by his bed. But it’s all a scam. Running for president is about enriching himself, just as when he peddled NFTs, steaks, ties, suits, bath towels, vodka, water, office chairs, Trump University and mug-shot mugs. He even sold pieces of the suit he was wearing when he took the mug shot.

“I want to have a lot of people have it,” Trump said of his Bible. “You have to have it for your heart, for your soul.”

Just what the world needs: a soul cleanse with a grifter Bible, where the profits could well be going to pay legal costs in trials about breaking commandments — bearing false witness to try to steal democracy, coveting a porn star, then paying the star hush money to keep quiet about the sex.

What could be more Elmer Gantry than that? As Sinclair Lewis wrote about his corrupt, power-hungry, narcissistic, womanizing preacher, “He had, in fact, got everything from the church and Sunday school, except, perhaps, any longing whatever for decency and kindness and reason.”

Religious snake-oil salesmen have a storied history in American literature and films, from Flannery O’Connor’s “Wise Blood” to Peter Bogdanovich’s beloved movie “Paper Moon,” about a conniving Bible salesman and his small helper. But it’s shocking when the charlatan might be in the Oval.

In her 2016 book, “The Confidence Game,” Maria Konnikova explained that we’re easy prey for faux Nigerian princes because of all the chaos in our world. “The whirlwind advance of technology heralds a new golden age of the grift,” she wrote. “Cons thrive in times of transition and fast change.”

If there is one thing Trump knows how to do, it’s exploit chaos he creates.

There has to be a yearning in the populace that the con man can channel; and, at a time when religion and patriotism are waning, people are searching for more. Unfortunately, these days that search often takes the form of conspiracy theories.

As Donie O’Sullivan reported for CNN, no sooner had the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore than a bunch of crazy conspiracy tales blossomed about terrorism, D.E.I., Obama, Israel and Ukraine.

Declining faith in religion and rising faith in conspiracies create fertile ground for a faker like Trump. If the profane pol is re-elected, we’ll all reap the whirlwind.

[barney]

And once again, I fall back in appalled bewilderment at the "Christians" who buy this message and this trumpery.

[Belle]

And once again, I fall back in appalled bewilderment at the "Christians" who buy this message and this trumpery.

It would be as simple as this; 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend'. No more complex than that.

[barney]

Sorry, that answer doesn't work for me. Christians are not supposed to support evil because it opposes another evil. The Apostle Paul is quite specific: shall we do evil that good may come? God forbid.

Christians are supposed to be against sexual assault, treason, lying, self-aggrandisement, corruption, fraud, boasting, revenge and every single thing Trump stands for. I have no hesistation in judging him as evil and his effects as evil. However bad the Democrats are, they are not evil in that sense.

[Belle]

Sorry, that answer doesn't work for me. Christians are not supposed to support evil because it opposes another evil. The Apostle Paul is quite specific: shall we do evil that good may come? God forbid.

Christians are supposed to be against sexual assault, treason, lying, self-aggrandisement, corruption, fraud, boasting, revenge and every single thing Trump stands for. I have no hesistation in judging him as evil and his effects as evil. However bad the Democrats are, they are not evil in that sense.

My aphorism is one of the oldest paradigm in the world, practiced by the Church itself (remember The Crusades?) and what ever expedient works. No difference this time.

[jserraglio]

My aphorism is one of the oldest paradigm in the world, practiced by the Church itself

We have finally hit a new low in high sophistry: trotting out the Crusades in a hypocritical round robin of Defend the Donald!!

Sorry, but that hound won’t hunt. The Pope himself, to be specific, Pope Benedict XVI in 2011, apologized for the Crusades and called them unChristian and shameful.

And then there’s St. Paul calling out the hypocrisy of early wealthy CINOs who humiliated the dispossessed among the Christians assembled for the Eucharist: "I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!'." —1 Corinthians

[diegobueno]

My aphorism is one of the oldest paradigm in the world, practiced by the Church itself (remember The Crusades?) and what ever expedient works. No difference this time.

Even as an April Fools joke this is pretty low. Here we've just finished a major holiday celebrating a man who turned away all expedients, even ones he wanted and begged his Father to allow him, in order to do what was right.

[Rach3]

PALM BEACH (The Borowitz Report April 1)—Donald J. Trump’s ambition to become the nation’s leading Bible salesman hit a snag when the entire first printing of his $60 Holy Book was found to include stolen nuclear codes.

The error reportedly turned up in the Book of Genesis, a source familiar with the publication said, when “Noah is loading the animals onto the Ark and just starts shouting random numbers for no reason.”

The source struggled to explain how the classified codes wound up in Trump’s edition of the Scriptures, but added, “Generally when there’s a screwup this massive, Jared’s involved.”

“They were down at Mar-a-Lago, mashing up the Bible, the Pledge of Allegiance, Lee Greenwood lyrics, and other things that were lying around,” the source said. “Mistakes were made.”

According to the source, the recall of the Trump Bible is expected to “totally wipe out” the gains the indicted businessman made in the stock market last week and has rendered him “ketchup-throwing mad.”

“He’s furious that he has to take the nuclear codes out of the Bible,” the source said. “It’s the only part he’s read.”

[jserraglio]

(The Borowitz Report April 1)—Donald J. Trump’s ambition to become the nation’s leading Bible salesman hit a snag whenever the entire first printing of his $60 Holy Book was found to include stolen nuclear codes.

C’mon, man, cut the Donald some slack. He probably just mistook the nuke launch code (BTW, it’s 987, 654,321, BOOM!) for the valuation he had Allen Weisselberg give the bank for Trump Tower.

[Rach3]

MAGA IQ test : Trump's campaign afraid MAGA will forget to vote or get the date wrong.NYT today:

"National Republicans want to persuade their voters to cast ballots early, in part so they don’t forget on Election Day. Trump’s misinformation about mail voting has complicated the pitch."

Hilarious, even Borowitz Report would be amazed.

[jserraglio]

Wise move!

The typical Maga IQ = MTG’s sperm count — which ranges anywhere from 50 to 75 depending on how close she gets to LOB.

[Rach3]

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report April12,2024)—Prominent legal experts believe that defendants who are innocent of a crime will usually do everything humanly possible to delay their trials.

Professor Davis Logsdon, who teaches a course about the behavior of innocent defendants at the University of Minnesota Law School, said that “if a defendant is strenuously trying to have his trial delayed, there is no clearer evidence that he is innocent of all charges against him.”

“Generally speaking, people who have done nothing wrong want to push the day when their name is cleared as far into the future as they can,” he said. “They will spend a massive amount on legal fees to have a cloud of suspicion hover over them for as long as possible.”

He said that there are “other signs” that a person is “completely innocent,” including “claiming immunity from all charges, defaming the judge and his or her children, and calling the trial a ‘disgrace’ or a ‘witch-hunt.’”

“If someone does all of those things, it’s so obvious he’s innocent that the case should be dismissed immediately,” he said. “The fact that such a trial is allowed to proceed is worrisome proof that our legal system is broken.”