Tuesday
According to the Washington Post’s Philip Bump, Donald Trump surviving an assassin’s bullet has elevated him to messiah status amongst certain of his evangelical supporters. One of the problems of such reasoning was voiced by Voltaire 265 years ago.
In his article, Bump reports that some supporters in Congress and on social media
have shared Bible scriptures and illustrations showing the Holy Ghost deflecting the bullet. Internet celebrities such as boxer Jake Paul have called the moment proof of “who God wants to win,” and posters on TheDonald, a far-right message board unaffiliated with Trump, have mentioned God seven times as often as they did in the week before the shooting, a Washington Post analysis found.
Trump, as they see him, has been anointed by God to save a troubled nation, and apparently Trump is in agreement. Here’s what he had to say in a recent television interview with Dr. Phil (McGraw):
“Is there a reason you think you were spared?” McGraw asked.
“I mean, the only thing I can think is that God loves our country,” Trump replied. “And he thinks we’re going to bring our country back. He wants to bring it back.”
“You believe God’s hand was in this that day?” McGraw asked a bit later in the discussion.“I believe so, yeah, I do,” Trump replied.
“And you talk about the country; you believe you have more to do,” McGraw followed up. “You weren’t done. You were spared for a reason.”
“Well,” Trump said, “God believes that.”
Bump then raises the objection that Voltaire voiced in his satire Candide. Why, he asks, did firefighter Corey Comperatore, who was struck by one of the bullets, have to die? He adds wryly that the question went unaddressed by McGraw or Trump.
It does not go unaddressed in Candide. In Voltaire’s scorching satire, a Dutch sea captain has just robbed Candide of many of the jewels he acquired in El Dorado:
Candide followed in a little boat to join the vessel in the roads. The skipper seized his opportunity, set sail, and put out to sea, the wind favoring him. Candide, dismayed and stupefied, soon lost sight of the vessel.
“Alas!” said he, “this is a trick worthy of the old world!”
It so happens, however, that Candide, upon booking a second ship, comes upon a sea battle where a Spanish vessel is attacking the ship of the thief. He watches as the ship goes down, along with “the immense plunder which this villain had amassed.” Candide sees the same hand of providence at work that Trump’s evangelical supporters saw in his case:
“You see,” said Candide to Martin, “that crime is sometimes punished. This rogue of a Dutch skipper has met with the fate he deserved.”
To which Martin asks, “But why should the passengers be doomed also to destruction?
Seeking his own explanatory framework, Martin comes up with one which appears to let God somewhat off the hook: “God has punished the knave, and the devil has drowned the rest.”
This actually sounds like Trumpian reasoning: Trump takes credit for whatever goes right while finding ways to blame others for whatever goes wrong.
In any event, as a supreme egotist, Trump unsurprisingly takes it for granted that God would single him out to save. As for Comperatore, I doubt he has given him a second thought.
