The image posted by Dear Leader of himself as a Christ-like figure the other day came as no surprise.
It was, in context, expected. D.J. reposts self-celebrating AI slop on a regular basis, particularly when he's trolling those who oppose him. Remember him, in a crown, dropping excrement on No Kings demonstrators as he flew overhead in a King Trump jet? Remember the video of Gaza rebuilt as a vacation paradise, with a golden statue of himself at the center of it all?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
This was no different. The context of this post involved conflict with a Christian religious leader, meaning the President of the United States was in the middle of a feud with the Pope. Yes, that Pope, Leo XIV, whose congregation is slightly larger and more influential than mine.
The Pope had noted, as leaders who actually follow Jesus are wont to do, that war is a horror, and that our little excursion in Iran seems to have none of the hallmarks of a Christian moral action. It is transparently venal, incoherent in purpose, and has been accompanied by rhetoric...from America's President...that has been nothing short of genocidal. "Genocide" gets thrown around a whole bunch lately, I'll admit, but when you publicly threaten to destroy an entire civilization, that seems pretty on the nose.
In response to that critique, our President described the Pope as an unpopular nobody, who hadn't WON IN A LANDSLIDE. Also, the Pope was soft on crime. It was into this particular tiff that he pitched out the AI generated image, which pretty much every single human being on the planet immediately recognized as Trump-as-Christ.
Again, having a pretty solid sense of the state of our President's personal relationship with Jesus, this didn't surprise me in the least. It was just par for his course, standard-issue trollery, the sort of thing that amuses him. But for his deeply conservative supporters, those who have mistaken him for David or Cyrus, it was a startling slap in the face. Not that he considered their feelings at 2:45 am in the morning, but reflecting on the feelings of others isn't one of his spiritual gifts.
The condemnation was swift and universal, as were calls for an apology for such an obviously blasphemous act. These calls didn't come from the usual liberal and lefty suspects, but from the deeply orthodox, the evangelical, and those who consider themselves fundamentalist. They looked at the image he shared and found it powerfully and shockingly offensive. This was understandable. We all saw the same thing.
It being a Tuesday at the time, Trump deleted the post. But what he did not do was apologize. To repent is to show weakness, or so he has repeatedly shown us he believes.
So instead, he lied.
He claimed he'd looked at the above image, and thought it was him as a doctor. Which is why the American Medical Association was so very upset by it, right?
His excuse was a transparent falsehood, an obvious and flagrant lie. It doesn't make any sense in context, and is an attempt to hide behind the deep veil of subjectivity.
No-one, but no-one, looked at Trump's shared image and thought, look, he's a doctor. Including, I will be so bold as to contend, the man himself.
As a pastor, I get lied to. I'm aware when, for reasons of shame or pride, someone comes to me with a story that ain't quite right. Most often, they're lying to themselves too, recasting their actions in ways that avoid a real assessment of their own sinfulness.
My expectations for Trump are, well, they are what they are. He lies like a wayward and untaught child, and it breaks my heart a little bit. But I'm not the intended audience for this particular falsehood. Christians who gave him unchecked worldly power are. When directly asked for an apology by leaders and pastors in that group, he couldn't do it.
He lied directly to them, explicitly to them, telling them something that is so improbable that they know...just as we all know...that he is dissembling instead of repenting. That he is saying they just didn't understand, that the fault for this misunderstanding lies in their interpretation of the image, not his.
He has his truth, after all, and they have theirs.
Because really, what is truth?
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