<nettime> In God We Tryst

[Joseph Rabie <joe@overmydeadbody.org>]

IN GOD WE TRYST


Donald Trump prophesized massive voter fraud months before the elections, and so it came about.

A great many supporters, proclaiming that they act in God’s name, have elevated Trump to a figure of biblical portent. It is urgent to interrogate this modern-day stranglehold of fundamentalist religion over society in the US (and elsewhere).

If God did exist, Donald Trump would represent a particularly accomplished brand of godlessness. Who knows if he even believes in God - in all likelihood, the only divinity he recognises is his own. Whereas Jesus was capable of turning water into wine, Trump is capable of turning falsehood into fact. Thus he probably believes profoundly, sincerely, that the election was rigged in his disfavour. How could he not have won? How could it have been otherwise?

Fundamentalist churches that turn a blind eye to Trump’s moral high jinks are spared no critic for their hypocrisy. It is worth it for what they get in return, such as a Supreme Court loaded with ultra-conservative judges. Bundled with pro-gun, pro-life, climate denying, racist, white suprematist politics. Yet the stakes are much higher than such mere earthly concerns, for the church’s indulgence towards Trump is part of a far greater plan, in which the ex-president was to play a prophetic role as an agent of the Second Coming, no less. Thus Trump is identified with the Persian king Cyrus who, according to the Bible, released the Jews from exile in Babylon. Trump’s support for Bibi Netanyahu is projected onto a vision of a Greater Israel that accords with biblical prophesies announcing the advent of the Last Judgement. (The prevalence of antisemitism in fundamentalist circles, along with the fact that Jews will have to accept Jesus as their saviour in order to be included, does not seem to bother the Israeli right.)

For those who traffic in such fantasy (for many in the church, it would appear, with sincerity), and base foreign policy on it (Trump, manifestly, by opportunism), then fake news, alternative truths, become the common fare of a magical reality that they can impose with the gravitas of conviction. For devout people, for whom the scriptures are to be interpreted literally, for whom miracles happen and prayer has agency, who adhere to the “fact” of the universe being created in six days or Jesus being crucified and resurrected to expiate their sins, such beliefs are elevated to the rank of incontestable truth. And the same, biblically-sanctioned “truthification”, applies to QAnon’s insane fictions slandering Hilary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

For rational people, such religious belief is not to be taken seriously, it is the butt of jokes. The modern scientific world-view has rendered the divinely-mediated, faith-based worldview terminally obsolete. Those who believe such things are fools; those who purvey them disingenuous manipulators profiting from the myth that they are God’s right hand men.

But what about “irrational” people for whom biblical myth constitutes not a fiction, but a God-sanctioned, unadulterated historical foundation that informs and guides the realities and events of present times? How big a part does religion really occupy in the lives of people in the US? What part does religion play for those who stormed the Capitol? Might one postulate that certain populations are under the sway of a sort of Sunday School mindset, which competes against the rationality conveyed by secular schooling? People who, though they may for the most part not be overtly religious, did at an early age become intimate with a Sunday School transmutation of God, kindly and vengeful, childish and parental, that got under their skin and colonised their minds with a presence, an assurance that God would always be on their side…

The extreme right is referred to as fascists, and this has me wondering, for though they share certain attributes in their suprematist beliefs and thuggery, how assimilable are they to the original Fascism of the mid-twentieth century? The basis of Fascism is the individual’s absolute subordination to the state, quite the anathema given the libertarian penchants of these groups, whose version of “Make America Great Again” has little to do with political grandeur, and very much more with a tribalist nationalism promoting Donald Trump as its warlord.

Perhaps, in terms of fascism, fundamentalist religion is what is being substituted for the state. Aiming for the victory of a totalitarian Kingdom of God where libertarians might happily hold sway.


Stay safe, Joe.



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