Alan Zendell, January 31, 2019

Yesterday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders told the Christian Broadcasting Network that “God wanted Donald Trump to be president, [and] … he has done a tremendous job in supporting a lot of the things that people of faith really care about.” Of all the hypocrisy, hyperbole, and outright lies this administration has perpetrated, that has to be the most outrageous.

I have no wish to offend the minority of Americans who believe our daily lives are directed by divine guidance. It’s not something I believe, but after all, our republic was founded on the basis of religious freedom, speaking of which, if Sanders is right, the Judeo-Christian God must hate Muslims.

Let’s assume for a moment that her notion that there is a supreme being who actually cares who wins our elections is correct and take her at her word. Think about what that implies. Pope Francis, who is the nearest thing the western world has to an expert on God’s will, has called Donald Trump immoral and unchristian on a number of occasions. He described Trump’s obsession with walls as a symptom of “the fear that makes us crazy,” and said that if he were truly pro-life (instead of using that phrase to pander for votes) Trump would join the rest of the world in trying to mitigate the effects of climate change and seek to protect innocent young immigrants who are undocumented through no fault of their own.

Does Sarah think God caused Trump to believe the lie that millions of people in Central America love nothing more than raping and murdering Americans, and are willing to march over a thousand miles with their spouses and children just to create mayhem? Does God condone Trump’s attitude and treatment toward women?

If I recall my Old Testament, when God saw his people succumb to pride, arrogance, and narcissism he punished them by scattering them to the winds, each group with a different language so they could no longer communicate and conspire to achieve godhood for themselves. Does Sanders think that same Old Testament God would select someone like Donald Trump to lead the most powerful nation in the world? Would He favor someone whose most notable attributes are the same ones that caused the survivors of the Great Flood to build a tower to heaven in order to subvert God’s ends? If God used confusion and divisiveness to punish his errant flock, does Sarah Sanders believe He would favor a leader who dealt exclusively in those tactics?

Maybe Sanders assumes God believes that the end always justifies the means, that the mission God has given Trump is so critical that He was willing to suspend all the normal rules of behavior to enable him to accomplish his goals. Thus, His minion on Earth was given a free pass to ignore morality and ethics, to lie and confound, to behave as though he never heard the word integrity. Oh wait, where have we seen those characteristics before? Sanders must believe that to be an effective leader in the fight against Satan, you have to be equally ruthless and devious. Let’s see if Trump qualifies. Imagine him filling out a resume based on the seven deadly sins.

Pride – Trump’s wins hands down; Envy – it drives Trump crazy when someone else has what he wants, thus his attraction to dictators like Putin and Kim; Gluttony – no amount of opulence is enough for Trump; Lust – his boasts of his alleged sexual prowess speak for themselves; Anger – his knee jerk response to anyone who disagrees with him; Greed – amassing greater wealth has been his only guiding principle throughout his life; Sloth – the final piece of the puzzle, never study, read or consult when you can wing it.

Looks like we have a winner!

It’s said that Sarah’s God works in mysterious ways. Maybe she’s onto something. If Trump seems more like the Antichrist than a Christian, Sanders must believe he was put here to be a twenty-first century serpent, tempting us to practice everything God abhors. If our Eden is Earth itself, and Trump is simply a tool, a means of testing us to see if we can be trusted to preserve our Garden for future generations, what happens if we don’t pass muster this time? Will humanity be banished from a planet rendered uninhabitable?

I don’t know if Sarah Sanders is capable of such deep thoughts, but if she truly believes Trump was selected by God to lead us, what else makes sense?