“God looked at the paradise he planned to create [la Terre] and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God gave us Trump. »
The viral video is exceptional for at least two reasons. Firstly because it is resolutely first degree. The narrator is convinced that he is revealing a divine truth. Trump, he said, “is a shepherd for humanity who will never leave or abandon them.” Then because it was launched by Donald Trump himself, on his social network, a few days before the Iowa caucuses, the first step in his re-ascension to the presidency.
The question arises: in what universe can a candidate seriously think of obtaining votes by claiming to be chosen by God? This universe exists, unfortunately, and in particular in Iowa. In concentric circles, there are the American people, currently divided almost exactly into two camps, between Trump and President Joe Biden.
Within the Republican electorate, there is a strong majority of convinced Trumpists who continue to claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Within this majority, we find evangelical Protestants, overwhelmingly favorable to Trump despite the former president’s many deadly sins. Then within these evangelists, we find the Christian nationalists.
Jon Dunwell, a moderate evangelical pastor and Republican congressman from Iowa, described the phenomenon to New Yorker to be saddened by it. “This faction rejects the idea that Christian conservatives should simply try to elect people who reflect their views and influence government. Rather, their belief is that Christianity should be the supreme religion of the United States and that all should be judged by submission to it. » “Forget the Constitution,” they say, “it’s a dead document. You are first of all a Christian. »
“It hurts my soul,” adds Dunwell. These Christians, they call me a boomer. They say my generation of Christianity is the reason America has gone bad, because we weren’t bold enough to grab the sinner by the neck and throw him to the ground and impose God’s law. And that, to me, is scary. It’s a bit, if I can use that word, Talibanist. »
He can: for this new generation of crusaders, it is the Christian version of the desire of radical Muslims to extend Sharia law everywhere.
The adoption in Iowa and elsewhere in Republican states of laws banning abortion and criminalizing mothers and doctors who perform it, including in some cases those who help women obtain abortions in a neighboring state, obviously stems from this logic of uncompromising application of divine law. It is also an element of the increasingly palpable thirst, in the electorate, for the rise of an autocrat.
The Public Religion Research Institute revealed last November Americans’ reaction to the following statement: “Because things have gotten so out of control in this country, we need a leader who is willing to break some rules if that’s what what is needed to rectify the situation. » A majority — 60% — says they disagree with these comments. But 38% say yes, including 48% of Republicans.
The institute took it a step further by polling the public on this assertion: “Because things have gotten so out of hand, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country. » More worrying than the support expressed is its strong upward trend (the same sentence was submitted to respondents in 2021). Overall, 23% of Americans think violence might be necessary, 8 percentage points more than two years ago. Among Republicans, it’s 33%, up 5 points. Among white evangelicals, 31% (+7).
The problem is that it is not a referendum: violence is not expressed when 50% + 1 of citizens think it necessary. It is enough for a minority to find it acceptable for a minority of this minority to take action. This is why the America of 2024 is literally sitting on a powder keg. The question is not whether violence will erupt after next November’s elections if Donald Trump is declared defeated and he claims — that is a certainty — that the election was rigged. The question is what the scale and duration of this violence will be.
Trump obviously sets the tone. He promised, if elected, to grant a pardon to all participants in the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol, who according to him are patriots, true defenders of America, models (to To date, 1,265 have been charged, 718 have pleaded guilty, 467 are behind bars). A major semantic threshold was also crossed last November when Trump decided to designate these prisoners as “hostages” of the Biden government. Like Rambo freeing the prisoners of war, he intends to tear them away from their captors. (In the virtual picture cards he sells to his supporters, as well as on flags waved at his events, Trump is seen in clearly Rambo-inspired attire, super-abs included.)
A final word on the contagion of Trump in our country. A majority of Canadians would vote for Democrat Biden (67%), as usual. But there is still one in two conservative voters in the country who would support Trump. It’s a lot. This is also true for half of men aged 18 to 44.
But not in Quebec, where 76% of us reject Trumpism. Proving once again that Quebec, distinct, is most often the Republic of common sense.