The last temptation of Donald Trump: How he lured evangelicals to follow Satan
The last temptation of Donald Trump: How he lured evangelicals to follow Satan
Donald Trump has tempted evangelical Christians just as Satan tempted Jesus — except this time it worked
Summary
Evangelical Christians have fallen prey to the temptations offered by Donald Trump, similar to those faced by Jesus in the desert. Trump has offered evangelicals wealth, protection, and power, leading them away from the teachings of Jesus and closer to the path set forth by the devil. The evangelical church has submitted to Trump, moving further from the values of serving the poor, healing the sick, and loving neighbors.
I don't want to sick anyone too badly but it was Reagan who tricked them onto the path of evil.
(and Satan is a pretty decent cat, on balance)
For evangelicals, you can take anything, put a Jesus sticker on it, and they'll love it.
Bad chicken sandwich, Jesus sticker. Love it! Dog poop, Jesus sticker. Love it! Trump, Jesus sticker. Love it!
Just curious, has everyone caught up yet? As in, have we realized and internalized that religious people don't believe in god or heaven or anything like that?
Because just look at at-risk individuals and think about how certain contexts can shape numerous people.
Look at trauma and how it affects the psyche.
Look at how humans living in extraordinary environments radically change their behavior.
And then notice how you can't detect any "god" or "afterlife" in a Christians psyche, or their behavior, or their flock. Just people acting similarly to everyone else, except we don't pretend to have "the answer to life is god" and "being bad means burning in hell for infinity." It's so god damn obvious but to be fair it took around 30 years for me to "grok" that Christians are operating entirely on aesthetics.
I'm from the Bible belt and in my experience these people absolutely believe in God and heaven, but probably very little past that. These people mostly have a "vibes based" understanding of their religion but many of them believe it to their absolute core. Most don't read the bible past the popular verses and even less actually analyze what the text is saying, but that by no means indicates a lack of belief. It's important to remember that their actions may indicate a lack of belief in the morals they espouse, but that's cognitive dissonance not secret non-belief.
And they shouldn’t bother reading anything that old and outdated, all religious texts are inadequate for addressing societal issues without regression or conservatism. Look at what’s happening to lgbt+ folk, none of this is okay, and religion is to blame
As tempting as it is, don't lump us all together like that. There's a good contingent of is that's like "if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a fucking antichrist."
I always found This article to be the most prophetic
Evangelicals have always loved the devil
Evangelicals have always been garbage people, and Trump is the latest god of their bullshit.
The article supposes they were good people at one time. No they weren’t.
Oh I don't think you get to paint the church in a positive light. It's been a very long time, if ever, since organized religion has been a positive force in the United States.
Say what you want about organized religion in the US, but without it we'd have never had the Salem witch trials. And then, where would we be?
He didn't, they already were.
None of these figures are real.
Can we please focus on reality?
It's not a person, it's a concept that describes the evil inside us, and of what we have to be wary of.
I'm not religious, but I understand a metaphor when I see one.
I'm pretty sure the Bible warns about those hate preachers as well.
And yet they're this close to turning a 300 million people, seemingly democratic, developed country into a fascistic theocratic dictatorship.
I was raised southern baptist. We went Sunday mornings, nights, and Wednesday nights. I walked out of that grift the night that the preacher was confronted, in front of the congregation, for having an affair with the lead deacon's wife. It opened my eyes to all the hypocrisy, grift, and racism of organized religions. Especially the leaders of said religions! I've been saying that if these so-called "Christians" follow the orange shitbag douche so easily, then they'll trip over their tongues to follow the antichrist.
This. It breaks my heart that my family pushed me so hard to follow the teachings of Christ, and somehow this living symbol of greed, gluttony, thievery, adulterous behavior, and any other imaginable sin, has became their leader.
Thou shall not do shit unless it’s Donald Trump doing said shit.
I was warned about the promises of the Antichrist when I was a kid, and I swear to god my whole family would stand in line for a week to get the mark of the beast on their forehead if Donald Trump said it was the mark of I love religion and Jesus (tm) for only $599.99.
They’re constantly hounding me to take my kids to their church like I’d be the one to send them to hell if there was such a place. They used to preach about love. The same church goes on about “trannies” and “the gays” and how the world is going to hell now.
Now there’s a fake political ad going around where the audio is edited to have a heckler scream “Jesus is lord” and Harris says something like, “you guys are at the wrong rally”. What the heckler really said was, “you lie!”
Doesn’t matter, goddamnit. That shit should be illegal. How is it legal to edit audio for a political ad and lie outright?
I grew up in the Assemblies of God denomination. When I graduated from high school, I left home to go to college, expanded my horizons, and ultimately ended up deconstructing my religious beliefs. I have considered myself to be an atheist for more than 20 years, but I still have strong ethical beliefs that basically parallel the Christian teachings of empathy for the marginalized and the disadvantaged.
For the past 8 years, I've watched my "decent Christian" family slide further and further into Trumpism. They are unrecognizable as the people who taught me the value of Christlike behavior.
Most days, I feel like I'm a better Christian than they are. I've wondered for a long time how the same people who instilled those values in me have been led so far astray.
I recognize in hindsight that they were motivated by fear of God rather than love for their fellow humans. Fox News and Trump have preyed on that fear and gradually expanded it until it has turned to hatred of anyone who doesn't look or vote like them.
Yea. I totally understand. I'm in the medical field and I was telling one of my patients, wouldn't it be great if we, the people, bypassed the house and senate to pass a law to make it illegal for lying by ANY politician. If a politician lied, they immediately forfeit their office. If they are running for office, they are dropped out of the race. If you aren't running but are speaking promoting a politician, then make it a very heavy fine based on income with a prison sentence for each individual lie. If it's a media person, the fine would be based off the person's income, then fine the company based off it's year profit, and then prison for that person and the executive producer. And yes, I know, I know; free speech, how do you prove that a person knowing lies, yada, yada, yada. 1) We have free speech, but you can not yell fire in a crowded theater. That puts the public in danger. I would argue that politicians lying and disinformation puts the larger public in more danger. 2) This would stop obvious lies. No more fake figures being thrown out trying to make their lies sound like the truth. Politicians would have to have proof before they spout their shit. No more editing of video or "spinning" by so-called "news" channels. No more deep fakes - disinformation by Americans or political groups. No more 'FEMA spent all the money on immigrants'. No more the economy is the worst in the world. (Rather you believe it or not, we currently have the best in the world.) No more illegals are voting, the election was stolen, ect. If they say shit, they would have to have proof or they get a boot in the ass to kick them out the door. This would go for any party, any office. Federal, state, and local. I truly believe that this would benefit every citizen of every party. It sounds extreme, but it would definitely stop politicians and talking heads from spewing bullshit that harms our country.
Well there's a reason the S in SBC stands for Southern and racism is exactly that reason lol.
Trump is a truly vile person. The recent Epstein tapes detail how he'd arrange extra-marital affairs for his "friends" so he could tell their wives about it and get them to cheat with him in revenge. Apparently one of his kinks was banging his "friend's" wives.
Even Epstein the pedo thinks Trump is a notably horrible person.
That's who Evangelical Christians are supporting, who they claim was saved by God to lead America. It boggles the mind.
Ohh, Trump is the antichrist. End times confirmed?
Growing up Bible-literalist religious and reading Revelations, I always had trouble with the idea that so many people would follow the antichrist, but that part seems so much more believable now.
Every now and again they're completely blatant about mocking that portion of their base.
Well I dunno if he is an anti-christ. There never is a specification that there is a singular anti christ and they are often pluralized. There's a pretty low bar to be an anti christ and they aren't particularly a big deal. Basically according to script anybody who denies Jesus as being the son of God is an anti-christ and that's pretty common. Any given day you'll encounter a half dozen anti-christs. "The Antichrist" as in the one big one though isn't super specified in character and there's a bunch of options of not goodos who could fill the role
There is a separate nasty called the “the man of sin” and “son of perdition.” supposedly he will come at a time of a general apostasy, deceive people with signs and wonders, sit in the temple of God, and claim to be God himself. And a "Little Horn" (which I am not unconvinced just is a reference to a tiny dick) setting himself in the wing of a temple acting as though he is a divine authority and causing devistation of the Holy land... Which could fit?
Now I know what my pseudonym will be if I'm in a black metal band.
It's a bit of a stretch, but yeah
My parents are religious and pretty conservative, but even they've pointed out that a lot of people are worshipping Trump as a false Christ
Idk, I don't see peace in the middle east happening any time soon.
Although I guess Trump glassing the whole region would technically be peace.
No one is a Bible literalist and regardless Revelation is largely revenge fantasy against Rome for destroying the second temple...
Regardless, you won't find "the Antichrist" or any Antichrist in Revelation, it's only mentioned in the Johannine Epistles.
They were never about being Christian. They stood against Martin Luther King when he was alive and were all for bombing Vietnam back to the stone age. Sixty years later they are still the same.
This is an important thing to note: when the civil war ended, when women's suffrage was achieved, when equal rights were passed--it's not like a magic wand was waved and the inherent hatred driving those policies is gone. There are tons of old racists/misogynists that are still salty over those things to this day 🫠 (not to mention generations of offspring that carried their bigotry into the present day)
https://daily.jstor.org/when-cities-closed-pools-to-avoid-integration/
Many cities closed public swimming pools rather than have them integrated.
Doesn't their own book actually warn against someone like this? But I guess it's not like they ever read the whole thing...
Trump fits the Christian mythology of the antichrist to a t.
Gosh. It's a good thing all these these old articles and videos about him being the antichrist are missing a key moment. The antichrist has to survive an attempted assassination in which he receives a wound on the head. Good thing that didn't happen recently.
The worst thing about being an atheist (or a theist with a good religious education) is not being able to tell yourself these people are going to burn in Hell.
The description most Christians give for "hell" is so unimaginably horrifying I'm glad no one is going to. There is nothing anyone could possibly do that would justify punishing them for "eternity" with no hope of end or of trying to atone for it. Eternity, where a thousand, a million, a billion years of excruciating torment would be nothing. For something they did over some 80-year period.
Torment as "justice" in general isn't my thing either.
About the only thing that makes sense to me, is that hell is just a purgatory in reality. You're there until you learn from your mistakes
Or alternatively that earth/our universe is the purgatory, which kinda would make sense with why suffering is part of the world. The funny thing is is that it would make earth "hell" in this instance
An understanding of hell that is full of suffering, pain, and hellfires like in the mainstream makes absolutely no sense to me
Trump is a Christian charlatan, anyone can see that.
In the face of overwhelming evidence against the fables in their book, even a charlatan offers comfort that they're still special, still virtuous and righteous.
It's a sad state of affairs for people who are willfully ignorant, terrified they might not be as special as they think.
This argument hinges on the premise that churches aren't evil to begin with.
People who have fallen for one grift are prone to falling for others.
Raised within a grift. Never having been encouraged to think outside the grift. Essentially, they are part of the Borg. I'd feel sorry for them if they weren't so completely dangerous to anything that isn't them.
A group of people who believe in sky daddy are suseptible to manipulation...weird.
It isn’t even believing in sky daddy, rather it’s believing that one of his sky children has been specially appointed to interpret sky daddy and that you should give that representative all your money, time, and choices.
If our only problem was that people pray to sky daddy and look inward for answers, we wouldn’t have a problem. It’s the religious authority figures who seem to do most of the radicalizing.
No, it's just as basic as the OP let on... Going to church every Sunday indoctrinates the, "appeal to authority" logical fallacy. The very premise that the religion itself is the source of truth in the world is the trap that leads people down the road of falling for charlatans and other scam artists.
All it takes is for their priest or pastor to endorse (directly or indirectly) any political view, candidate, or person/product and "the flock" will adhere. To not adhere is to deny the authority and thus, the religion itself. That often also means expulsion from their community and very real other social and sometimes worse consequences.
The only "escape" is to simply not participate which actually resolves into two scenarios:
- An honest one where the former adherent admits that they no longer believe (the authority; not necessarily the entire religion).
- A dishonest one where conformance and piety is claimed and faked as a sort of performance art. After all, who can deny piety exists in an individual? It's all in their head. This method can be quite profitable if you have no scruples! (For example, a Jesus fish in an official company logo/slogan... That's basically the modern day version of the money changers in the parable of the money changers!)
At an even more basic level, going to church and claiming publicly that you adhere to a religion like evangelical Christianity opens you up to be scammed. Since there's no official tests or regulations regarding what counts as "Christian" literally any scammer/scummy company can claim to be Christian and thus, "on the team".
Christ's teachings are pretty clear that everyone is on the same team and not to favor one group over another based on ethnicity (and by extension, religion) as given by the parable of washing the prostitute's feet. However, that's not really taught much in evangelical churches these days! In fact, if your pastor isn't bringing that up right now--as Trump promises to intern immigrants, forcing them away from their families/communities--with regularity they're probably in that second camp I talked about: Faking piety for profit.
Personally, I don't find Evangelical support of Trump all that surprising.
When you get down to brass tacks, this is an election between two candidates. Almost no one is going to look at those two candidates and find a perfect fit. It's quite possible that people won't even find a good fit. But, they have three choices, either one of the candidates or not voting at all. The latter of those choices is pointless, if one has policy preferences that they want to achieve. That only leaves picking the closest fit among the two candidates.In may corners of Lemmy, and in this community specifically, there has been a very strong push towards the sort of "vote Blue, no matter who" message, which has been around for several cycles. And this message is not wrong. Harris's position on the war in Gaza has a lot of detractors. But, the choice is not between Harris and someone with a better position. The race is between Harris and Trump, whose position on Gaza is likely worse for those detractors. If those detractors don't want things to get worse, they pretty much have to accept the situation as is, vote Harris and push for changes. And I suspect a lot of folks will support Harris, some enthusiastically, in spite of that policy difference. Because they will find other policy positions that they strongly support are also supported or championed by Harris. Better a flawed candidate that one which is diametrically opposed to the policy positions which one holds most dear.
The thing which seems to be forgotten by folks who wonder "how can Evangelicals support Trump?", is that this same problem cuts both ways. The people who hold GOP aligned policy preferences hold those beliefs just as strongly as Liberal/Progressive folks hold their own. That they would fall into a "vote Red, no matter who" mindset should not be surprising at all. And for Evangelicals, I'd argue that this mindset may be even stronger. These are folks who believe that, not only does this life hinge on their actions, they also truly believe that the here-after does as well. As much fun as we might make of people for believing in an invisible sky-wizard, they really, really believe all that stuff. And their entire self-identity will be built on the version of that belief system. And let me stress that it's specifically "their version of that belief system". The various versions of the Christian Bible have a lot of ambiguous and contradictory stuff in them. It's easy enough to dig out justifications for nearly any positions one wants to take. And Trump's messaging has been pretty well aligned with the mainstream Evangelical version of policy positions on all the major topics. Harris's positions, on the other hand, are in direct oppositions to those positions.
Why does that matter so much? One of the deeply important policy positions to Evangelicals, for several decades now, has been overturning Roe v. Wade. And for all the shit one might say about Trump, he actually got that done. Nixon, Regan, Bush, and Bush all failed in that one, paramount goal. Trump, did it. Stop and imagine for a moment, a politician whose personal life you find distasteful, yet they managed to accomplish the one single policy goal you hold above all others, would you go vote against them? Especially when their opposition is loudly campaigning to undo that major policy win for you? Oh, and that opposition is also campaigning against just about every other social policy position you hold. Anyone saying "yes" to that question is bullshitting themselves.
Now, is Trump going to get anything else done for the Evangelicals? Who knows. But, Harris certainly isn't and she's actively hostile to their worldview. And Trump already got "goal number one" done. It seems like a reasonable bet that someone who already won the top line fight might win a few of the other ones as well. And all that "fascism, threat to democracy stuff"? Ya, that's just liberals whining because they are losing. It's Godwin's Law in action. The lawsuits and criminal convictions, that's just liberals weaponizing the DoJ to stop Trump, since they can't stop him legitimately. And Trump's past as a horrible person? A personal turnaround story of a "lost soul coming to Jesus" is damned near a foundational myth of Evangelicalism.
No, Evangelicals supporting Trump is neither surprising, nor unexpected. And you can bet they will latch right onto the next GOP candidate to come along. And it's not all that hard to understand. If you have ever bought into any version of "vote Blue, no matter who", then you are intimately familiar with the same logic. From their perspective, the US is in the grips of an existential crisis which is being perpetrated by Democrats. The very foundations of their self are "under attack" as society moves further and further away from their central truths. And, from my own perspective, I don't see that there is really any way to convince those folks otherwise. Trump isn't the Devil in the desert tempting Jesus. To them, he's the flawed man who is going to save their version of the US the only way he can. He's a vigilante, bending or breaking the rules, because the rules are stacked against "the righteous". That's the mindset you are up against.
I like this take, but it's missing something.
I'm half joking here, but what I'm hinting about is really reactionary politics in response to the polycrisis.
This is the most intelligent take i have read on this in 8 years...
@sylver_dragon @MicroWave I think your conclusions are accurate, particularly in the evangelical view of Trump as a “flawed vessel” that will still carry their religious water. But what always pisses me off is the absolute refusal of those same evangelicals to even begin to entertain the notion that Barack Obama, or now Kamala Harris could also be imperfect in their eyes, but still be the best choice to lead the country. Their minds are closed and locked.
…and that has to do with echo chambers.
Not only do they have pastors in church reading specially selected passages of scripture (often out of context) and preaching the message of the GOP instead of the message of Jesus, but the TV and radio stations they watch and listen to, and the social media groups they’re in all are focused the same way. And all these places share the same “I have the answers; listen to me and everything will be OK for your soul” approach to life, which is easier than continually having to apply your own critical thought to the barrage of information we’re otherwise exposed to in modern society.
Also worth pointing out where you say “their minds are closed and locked” — in biblical language, the cultures of the time thought that people thought with their hearts. So all those “their hearts were hardened” scattered throughout the Bible? They’re talking about the exact same thing you are… and it’s never a good thing.
Tax the church. That’s the only way forward
He found the most disgusting and vile christians to pull the rest down is all he and foreign governments did.
Secret: they're all disgusting and vile
These are his followers.
Not so fun fact about this study:
He ran tabletop workshops, basically like Risk, and every time the Authoritarians had control of the world, they nuked it wiping everyone out.
#VOTE!
It's really not surprising. To be an evangelical you have to consistently deny reality, so a man who embodies everything opposite of purported christian values becoming the messiah figure isn't unusual for the ethos. I don't understand how they all live with cognitive dissonance every day but apparently they make it work.
He is the most hateful person.
They have been primed to follow the anti christ their whole lives.
They worship money and power, the corruption is almost complete. Basically they are the empire, and we are the rebels. May the Jedi, rise again.
I recommend reading One Nation Under God by Kevin Kruse. It’s a deep dive into the history of US capitalists intentionally corrupting evangelicals to serve capitalist political ideologies.
Bullshit.
Trump is not Satan.
Satan wouldn't have anything to do with that evil fucker.
Makes sense to me. Just like the most moral army in the world has a hall pass to brazenly commit genocide, bulldoze American activists, and murder journalists, so too do the evangelicals have the right to abandon all of their espoused beliefs to support a fraudster, rapey racist. All for the pursuit of christo fascism and “pro life” beliefs that only became a part of their identity in the 70s/80s