Donald Trump has survived an assassination attempt. A blatant one caught on national television. This was not a foiled attempt where the FBI swooped in under the advice of the Secret Service.
Yesterday a man climbed an edifice with a rifle in hand, bent on ending the life of a former president, and nearly accomplished his mission. His aim might’ve been on the spot had Trump not been as animated on stage. The round that was meant to pierce Donald Trump’s head ended up taking a snip out of his right ear instead. Many of us come close to death in life but very few come this close, under these circumstances, and get to live to tell the tale.
What now? The gunman is dead. A civilian was killed. Others injured. What happens now? Where does America stand on the issue?
More pressing is the issue of what happens to Donald Trump now that he has survived an attempt at his life. More so the image people create in their minds about him? Or perhaps the image he implants in their minds?
You see, we can postulate and play the fiddle in our minds as to what would have happened had Abraham Lincoln survived his assassination. Say, what type of man would he have been had John Wilkies Booth missed that day? We can imagine that Booth would have been apprehended, tried for the attempted murder, and sentenced to life in prison. Lincoln, I assume, would have gone on to see the end of the American Civil War, leading the Reconstruction Era efforts with Frederick Douglass at his side, enacting the 40 acres and a mule policy in the Deep South to afford previously enslaved Black Americans the right to freedom, land, wealth, and the right to work and vote. Lincoln would have lived a troubled albeit successful life as the most radical Republican in the history of this nation.
He would have loved his wife into his senior years and died at the ripe age of 90 or something along those lines. We might even have pictures of him with some Black civil rights leaders from the 1870s and 1880s. Lincoln would have gone the distance to destroy the Ku Klux Klan before the violent group could take hold of the American conscience after the Civil War.
We can, understanding Abraham Lincoln’s character, conduct, and numerous interactions with public figures, politicians, clergy, and civil rights leaders, that he would have led a moral life after an unsuccessful attempt on his life. Even when conversing with political enemies Lincoln exuded calm and care. Instead of holding Confederate generals responsible for their treasonous rebellion against the United States of America by imprisoning them and having them executed for their crimes, he opined that they be reintegrated into the country without delay or bitter sentiments in mind.
I disagree with his choice here. I would have dealt with these traitors differently. Hence why I am not a president and he was.
But what of Donald Trump who, considering his history and vitriol of violence, initially against women in the bedroom and later verbally against anyone who dared stand up to him?
Donald Trump has a history of being malignantly cruel toward his family members, current and former wives and lovers, current and former employees, and business partners. All of this before he strolled down the escalator of his Trump Tower to announce his candidacy for the president of the United States of America.
He was known for his callousness, greed, impatience, and promiscuity, as court documents recently revealed. His conduct matches that of a child when he is disappointed with someone’s performance. He is not known for being a kind and merciful man. Social media has platformed his numerous interactions with the public, scolding, mocking, and bullying people with less power and influence than him. He has derided the women he has sexually assaulted, calling them ugly, unattractive liars. He has mocked people with neurological problems. He has mocked veterans, John McCain among them. He has mocked immigrants and their countries, knowing his wife is an immigrant, as was his mother. He has dehumanized Black Americans. The list goes on.
No one is safe when Trump is angry, disappointed, sad, or just bored. Their lives are at stake whenever they attempt to hold the former president accountable for just about anything that he has done wrong.
Therefore, what happens when a man of such influence and power, whose heart is black with bitterness and hate for everyone who doesn’t worship him, survives an attempt on his life?
I pray that I am wrong. I want to be proven wrong about what I will postulate next.
Donald Trump is seen by millions of Americans as a humble messiah. A billionaire who abandoned his billions to lead a broken nation. A step down from his pedestal of power. A leader sent by God to restore America’s greatness in the world. Bring America back from its financial and national embarrassments to a state of glory, power, and impunity in front of its enemies.
This attempt at Donald Trump’s life will turn him from a humble messiah figure into an actual messiah for many. His followers will now become his disciples, adhering to his every word as if God were speaking through him.
Hagiographies will be performed to turn him from a devilish man into a saint, if not a demigod.
Men and women of character who endure trying times become better people because their character allows them. It pushes them to unify a troubled, broken, and fearful family, community, or nation.
Donald Trump is not known for encouraging people in trying times. He is not a unifier, he is an instigator-in-chief who knows no bounds on just how low he will go to defame, disrespect, and destroy.
Whereas Lincoln would potentially forgive his enemies to save the union Donald Trump is the kind of man who will condemn an innocent man to save face. If you don’t believe me, consider the ad he took out in the 90s calling for the death of five Black teenagers who had been accused of raping a white woman in a New York City park. The five teenagers were later exonerated. Trump, although a wealthy and influential man then, had no executive powers in hand to move the chains to execute people. But, should he become the president of the United States once more, he will.
Surviving this attempt on his life has solidified his godhood in the minds of his most devout followers. Previously, he boasted that he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue and nothing would happen to him. In time, he will call for his followers to do the same to AOC, Nancy Pelosi, Anderson Cooper, or whoever he dislikes, and they will go out of their way to follow his orders.
Cult leaders seldom come out and verbalize their desires. They insinuate it to their followers who understand that which is spoken and they carry out the crimes thereafter. They do this to deny all culpability in a crime. The difference here is that Donald Trump called and still calls for violence, repercussions, consequences, and the devastation of his political and personal enemies because he does not fear accountability.
And, if elected again, he will be able to carry out just about any crime in mind and never face the consequences.
When interacting with Trump followers, you can decipher that the sentiment they carry is one of sheer delusion and an unspoken willingness to become martyrs for their leader.
Whereas the conversation should carry on along the lines of “let us unite for the future of the Union” it has become “this is a fight between left and right. Good and evil!”
Evil is the political opposite, which, in real life isn’t so opposite at all. The people they work alongside, attend church with, shop beside, drive with, and reside in their communities, are regular everyday Americans who just want what they want: a better America for all.
But what Donald Trump has done, as many strongman (Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Hussein, Gaddafi, etc) types have accomplished before him is to animate, animate, and animate the fears and baser desires in people to turn rational thinking individuals from model citizens into ravenous brainless mobs.
America may never become a fascist state because it is too grand and its democratic literature too old and established for the country to fall into this dark recess. But America doesn’t need a fascist leader to sanction an extrajudicial order to have a political leader from abroad killed. It has, under the banner of democracy and freedom, executed untold numbers of public and private citizens of developing nations for decades. It wouldn’t be difficult for America to create a narrative about their internal political enemies that portrays them as domestic terrorists.
Donald Trump, a vile and morally corrupt man, imbued with power is a recipe for disaster. Now, the same man, imbued with power, the potential for a second term, one wherein the Supreme Court judges have given him total impunity, and in light of this, he now survives an attempt on his life, will become the world’s most dangerous leader since Hitler took control of Germany in 1933.
I do not believe Donald Trump is like Hitler in the sense that I do not believe Donald Trump is an intelligent man. At least the German Fuhrer was savvy enough to know when to shut up and when to speak, and when he spoke, he swayed the mob with impunity.
Trump is crass, a dud, an impetuous child man with an inferiority complex. He has brushed shoulders with everyone his followers hate, he has befriended the kind of men his followers accuse his political enemies of being, and he has done to women, and potentially to children what his followers accuse liberals of daily.
I remind you.
America does not need to descend into a fascist state for political violence to overwhelm the streets. All it needs is a demagogue. These leaders exploit the weaknesses found in democratic states to imbue them with absolute power.
And nothing turns a demagogue into a demigod quicker than an assassination attempt.
Donald Trump’s evangelical followers viewed him as a modern-day Cyrus. A leader of questionable character chosen by God to usher God’s people into safety and stability.
They will now portray Donald Trump as a messiah, a god-man with divinity on his side to usher the country, namely, white evangelicals, into prosperity and cultural hegemony for as long as they can hold onto power.
And anyone who stands in his way, in the way of his followers will suffer the wrath of gods anointed to the United States of America.
I pray this man is voted into ignorance and anonymity. I pray he dies of old age in his overpriced Mar-a-Lago paradise, away from the spotlight and a microphone. I pray he lives on long enough to think about his many wrongs and moral failings. I pray he repents and turns to God; that he confesses his many crimes. It’s not like he’d ever go to prison. That has been made clear so far by the inept state of America’s justice system.
I pray Donald Trump disappears from the limelight save for the fact that he announces his defeat in the coming election. I pray he will spend most of his free time with his now third wife. I pray he will give his time back to his children. That he focuses on his family and not the nation. The nation will survive. It may even thrive without him. Nations struggle financially even under the leadership of good men. (Consider President Jimmy Carter)
But strongmen, these demagogues, seldom listen to good council until they’re being dragged out of a palace or some dungeon or cave by revolutionaries after making themselves emperor kings. (Consider Gaddafi, Hussein, or Ceausescu)
And by then, it will be too late.
As evangelicals shout their praises for their wounded messiah I ask that you go out and vote this man out of office for life. Joe Biden is a flawed and failing old man who may end up becoming the first US president to die of old age while serving as the president of the nation. Should that be the case, I am confident that his successor, the VP will lead the nation competently. So voting for Biden, although a painful act in the face of his crumbling mental state, is a healthier alternative for the Union than voting for Donald Trump.
But, should Donald Trump win a second term, you can bet your nuggets his followers, his disciples, and his most loyal apostles will do everything within their power to make you bow, kneel, and shout All Hail Emperor Trump!
And America’s white evangelicals will force you to obey.
Lest you forget.
It was Christians who voted Hitler into power.
Christians fought a Civil War for their right to own Black slaves.
Christians fought and scalped indigenous peoples in the Americas to take over their lands for God, church, and country.
Christians started the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Christians colonized the world when they had the power to do so.
Christians disrupted global spice and silk trade in the East, by murdering local leaders in India (Vasco Da Gama) and instigating civil wars in Africa and Asia to maintain control of global wealth and power. (Damn the Portuguese of antiquity!)
Christians, too, burned men, women, and children at the stake. A mere accusation of heresy was all that was needed to mobilize a Christian mob to rip people to shreds.
Christians drowned women accused of witchcraft.
Christians lynched Black Americans accused of making eye contact with white women.
Christians did not invent torture but they made it into a sport so dastardly effective that men preferred a swift execution under the guillotine than to be at the mercy of a Christian torturer.
Christians paid for and participated in the numerous Crusades into the Middle East to rape, pillage, and murder Muslims in the name of Jesus.
Christians invented the concept of race and later disseminated this concept into their politics, establishing racial supremacy for white people for centuries. A social detriment we are still struggling to dismantle today.
Christians agreed to firebomb Hamburg, Leipzig, Berlin, and Tokyo, killing untold numbers of innocent men, women, and children.
Christians agreed that dropping two atomic bombs on Japan was not only the right thing to do but also the morally necessary thing to do to end a war.
Christians have behaved unChristlike for the sake of Christians. For the sake of power. The sake of control. The sake of land. The sake of writing history in such a way to make them the champions of God’s history on earth.
I say these things not to dog nor defame the name of Jesus, my personal Lord and Savior, but to remind readers that Christians, too, are just as capable and very much able to commit the worst of crimes for the right leader, if asked.
America is there, once again, at the cusp of another great event in history where it can stand up for the Union, against a god-king, or, if it will, as history has shown numerous times, act like an evil empire ruled by an evil emperor.
All Hail Emperor Trump?
Lesser men have been turned into saints for less.
All Hail Emperor Trump?
Time will tell.
Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. – Proverbs 31:8 NLT
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