Alan Zendell, July 16, 2024

Apparently, the theme of the Republican Convention and for now, the Trump campaign, is that Donald Trump was chosen by God to save America. That sudden switch in tactics may have been entirely a result of Saturday’s failed assassination attempt. Powerful MAGA Republicans like Tim Scott (R-SC) and J. D. Vance, who is Trump’s running mate, claimed that God directly stepped in and made the assassin miss. I find that horrifying, not only because it supports the idea that Trump intends to turn America into a Christian oligarchy of billionaires and clerics, but because Trump himself, as Pope Francis told us in 2016, couldn’t be less Christian or more immoral.

For devout Christians who truly believe that belief in Jesus Christ can forgive even the most venal of sins, that probably makes sense. If I were a political strategist who believed that the majority of Americans believed in God and interpreted the Bible literally, I might propose just such a strategy. Who, after all, is less deserving of forgiveness than Trump? Americans love underdogs and repentant sinners, but casting Donald Trump as the second coming of Mary Magdalene is comical.

Yet, the Republicans, who have shamelessly pandered to Christian Evangelists since Ronald Reagan’s election, believe this will carry the day. Tim Scott as much as said The Devil sent the assassin and God stopped him. What a change from 1960 when Republicans attacked John F. Kennedy’s candidacy by asking voters if they wanted the Pope making decisions in the White House. What an even more profound change from our Founders, and most of the earliest Americans, for whom religious freedom was what drove them to cross the Atlantic.

I don’t think it will work for two reasons. First, religious extremists, most right-wing extremists, for that matter, always overreach when they smell power, and it always backfires. More to the point, the vast majority of Americans won’t buy it. Gallup has been asking Americans if they believe in God and if the Bible is God’s word for decades. His surveys usually report that at least 80% of Americans say yes to the first and more than half do to the second. But – and this is a huge but – if Republicans actually believe that, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d love to sell them.

There are some questions that invariably cause most people to lie. Did you eat the last cookie? Were you speeding? Do you cheat on your partner? I believe more people lie when asked about their religious convictions than on any other subject. It’s possible that the circles I travel in are atypical, but most of the people I know are either some version of agnostic or atheistic. Some of my friends are devoutly religious, and obviously sincere in their beliefs, but I’d bet my life that not one of them thinks the failed assassination of Trump had anything to do with God – in fact, they think of him as the Antichrist.

If this is what Trump’s handlers meant by a gentler version of himself, it makes me laugh. I can’t imagine anything more cynical and ridiculous. If you were walking through the woods and you met a wolf dressed like a sheep, would you be fooled? If I told you that a man who’s had no respect for law or religion throughout his life was our savior anointed by God, my guess is you’d avoid me from then on.

This is no joke. The MAGA Republicans have driven themselves right onto the cusp of absurdity, which is a far worse outcome than simply getting trapped in a cul-de-sac. If the Democrats get their act together, whether they force Biden to step aside or not, they can and should win this election. They need to remind voters of what Trump really is at every opportunity, and he has given them more ammunition than they could ever use. His love of the television camera and his even bigger love for adoring crowds, combined with having fewer filters than a charging bull have left his opponents with hours of self-damning videos and speeches. President Biden keeps telling us that the election is an existential crisis for our democracy, and he’s right. His talented campaign staff need to step up and act like it is.

If I were writing Biden’s speeches – don’t laugh, I have a nephew who wrote speeches for Hillary Clinton – every one of them would be a direct attack on Trump’s actions and character using his own words and gestures. Voters will see an unending stream of Trump’s crimes and misdemeanors, and in the end they will convict him where the Senate could not. And after he loses, there will no longer be any time sensitivity to pursuing his indictments and trials. Defeat him in November and justice will eventually prevail.