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Trump as “Dictator on Day One” Resonates with the Religious Right*
According to the Holy Book, Christ raised the dead, made the deaf to hear and the blind to see, walked on water, and turned water into wine.
Trump redirected Hurricane Dorian’s trajectory in real time on national television with a Sharpie.
More important than Trump’s miracles is the abiding conviction that despite his serious flaws — or maybe because of them as a test of people’s faith — god chose and anointed Trump to do his sacred work. A large swath of Trump’s discipleship defines that work as merging America and Christianity, fusing Christian principles and teachings with government and the rule of law, and affording only qualified Americans — the worthy ones — full rights and responsibilities of citizenship. In their minds, the country is headed down the wrong path at breakneck speed: abortion; same-sex marriage; transgender rights; woke liberals, secularists, and humanists; people from shithole countries; lesser races and ethnicities; atheists, Muslims, and Jews; gun restrictions and removal. Doing god’s work, Trump set about to right those wrongs and was illegally prevented from completing his divine calling. If a majority of citizens are taking the country in the wrong direction and at such speed, democratic principles and institutions must give way to Trump, flaws and all, whom god chose to bring…