It is now amply established that Donald Trump’s surprise election victory was tainted in part by ham-handed interference from Russia–a campaign that, by all accounts, was ordered by Vladimir Putin himself. But that’s not what the religious right would have you believe. Ever since Trump’s upset victory, they’ve insisted to anyone who would listen that Russia didn’t hack the election–God did.
Franklin Graham, for instance, asked his Twitter followers if it was possible that God hacked the election before emphatically declaring that God did indeed show up for Trump. Jim Bakker indicated that it was God’s will that Trump win–and any county who voted against Trump better watch for the lightning bolt. He also claimed that any suggestions that Russia hacked the election were only being made by people who hate God. But even before then, a number of fundies have insisted that their prayers turned a certain Hillary win into a Trump upset. And on, and on, and on.
As a radical-lefty charismatic/pentecostal Christian who proudly supported Hillary, this sort of talk makes my stomach turn. I believe that God uses people whom most of us don’t expect to be used. But let’s consider what you would have to believe in order to think that God somehow put a thumb on the scale for Trump.
For one thing, you would have to believe that God intervened to put a guy who finds it acceptable to plaster a private cell phone number on social media, mock the disabled, condone violence at his rallies, and degrade women, among other things. Somehow, I can’t see God honoring any of that.
But apparently the fundies did. After all, as we all know, Trump would have never survived the Access Hollywood tapes because Graham, Bakker, James Dobson, Ralph Reed, and others made their followers think that such little things as respect for women didn’t matter as much as ending abortion and marriage equality. Can you say “rationalization?”
Moreover, you would have to believe that God was so determined to put Trump in the White House that he inspired a cabal of rogue FBI agents to engage in unethical and criminal behavior to deny Hillary the presidency. Remember, folks, these agents told two Trump confidants about emails they found on Huma Abedin’s computer before they told their boss, FBI director James Comey, about them. They also cobbled together a search warrant whose “probable cause” was the fact that Hillary and Abedin were emailing back and forth, and didn’t bother to give Abedin a copy even though FBI procedure and basic decency required them to do so. Again, I ask–would God honor any of this? I doubt it. To my mind, it borders on blasphemy.
One of my close friends, who like me is a radical-lefty tongue-talker, suspects that God is actually using Trump to deliver a sobering message to the religious right–seeking power at all costs couldn’t be further from his plan, and he won’t honor just anything or anyone with an “R” next to it. Another equally plausible theory bandied about among my friends is that God is using Trump to force us to confront the division in this country head-on.
If the former is the case, a number of them may be about to learn that lesson first-hand. Trump has reportedly given his evangelical advisory board so much influence in picking his administration that even some longtime culture warriors are surprised.
The religious right has hitched its wagon so securely to Trump that when–not if–he is either forced to resign or is removed from office, it will feel the blowback in full. It would serve them right for deluding themselves into thinking God is so determined to reassert his authority in this nation that he would put a guy in the White House who is the most unqualified presidential candidate in recent memory.
(featured image: screenshot via Twitter)
