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Despite a mountain of indictments and relentless media assaults, Donald Trump remains wildly popular with a large portion of the American people. Despite his history of sexual promiscuity, dishonesty, and exaggeration, despite his evident fickleness, recklessness, narcissism, and vulgarity, millions of Christians will vote for him if he’s on the ballot in November. Self-identified evangelicals who aren’t active churchgoers are his strongest supporters, but there’s plenty of enthusiasm among committed Christians and Jews, too.
Some have explained this phenomenon by charging that evangelicals have adopted a religion of power, exchanging Messiah Jesus for Messiah Donald, the “savior” of America. No doubt there’s slippage and rationalization among Christian Trumpists, but that can’t be the whole story. Nor is it a matter of dispassionate political calculation, as if Trump were marginally better than the other bad options. Christian support for Trump isn’t grudging but fervent, often gleeful. It won’t do to dismiss these millions as deluded hypocrites or hordes seething with anger. Most are old-fashioned Americans, good, churchgoing neighbors with jobs, children, and hopes for the future. Only a sociologist could suspect them of harboring authoritarian tendencies.
I don’t share the enthusiasm for Trump, but friends and millions of fellow citizens do, and I want to understand what they see there. I’ve found René Girard’s theory of sacrificial crisis and scapegoating helpful in grasping the political rationality at work in the pro-Trump ardor. As a friend likes to say, it’s all in Girard.
According to Girard, human desires are “mimetic.” We desire things because others desire them. We want to Keep Up With the Joneses and Be Like Mike. Problem is, many things can’t be shared. If two men desire the same woman, they cannot both have her (at least, not in epochs of sexual sanity). They become rivals, forming a classic love triangle. With all scarce resources, when desire doubles itself, it inclines toward violence.
Continued below.
Some have explained this phenomenon by charging that evangelicals have adopted a religion of power, exchanging Messiah Jesus for Messiah Donald, the “savior” of America. No doubt there’s slippage and rationalization among Christian Trumpists, but that can’t be the whole story. Nor is it a matter of dispassionate political calculation, as if Trump were marginally better than the other bad options. Christian support for Trump isn’t grudging but fervent, often gleeful. It won’t do to dismiss these millions as deluded hypocrites or hordes seething with anger. Most are old-fashioned Americans, good, churchgoing neighbors with jobs, children, and hopes for the future. Only a sociologist could suspect them of harboring authoritarian tendencies.
I don’t share the enthusiasm for Trump, but friends and millions of fellow citizens do, and I want to understand what they see there. I’ve found René Girard’s theory of sacrificial crisis and scapegoating helpful in grasping the political rationality at work in the pro-Trump ardor. As a friend likes to say, it’s all in Girard.
According to Girard, human desires are “mimetic.” We desire things because others desire them. We want to Keep Up With the Joneses and Be Like Mike. Problem is, many things can’t be shared. If two men desire the same woman, they cannot both have her (at least, not in epochs of sexual sanity). They become rivals, forming a classic love triangle. With all scarce resources, when desire doubles itself, it inclines toward violence.
Continued below.
Why Trump Is Still Wildly Popular | Peter J. Leithart
Christians support Trump the anti-scapegoat, for better or for worse, because he embodies a refusal to acquiesce.
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