Make the Bible Great Again

Every time I think we've reached Peak Trump, he sets a new personal worst. (I would qualify that by noting that Jan 6 is still the height of his lowlife career, but with an election coming up, I hesitate to think about that one.) But now he's peddling Bibles..."God Bless the USA Bibles"... "the only Bible endorsed by the former president" and inspired by Lee Greenwood's patriotic anthem "God Bless the USA!" What a lovely gift for Holy Week. But wait, there's more! This Bible comes with a handwritten copy of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA! lyrics" And that's not all! Order yours today and you'll get the text of the US Constitution AND the Bill of Rights! How much would you pay for a Bible like this? Before you answer, your order will ship with a copy of the Declaration of Independence, AND the Pledge of Allegiance! You will never have to worry about the separation of church and state again! Did you say you'd pay $200? $300? Order now to get the Bible endorsed by the only former president to compare himself to your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All for just $59.99! That's $59.99 for this "easy-to-read, large print, slim design Bible that invites you to explore God’s Word anywhere, any time."

Let's make the good book a Great Book. And as the prophet Trump himself says, "Let's Make America Pray Again." (I think my prayer is going to be very different than his.) On the other hand, this Bible was inspired by the jingoistic tune known by its "Proud to Be an American" chorus. (In an earlier life Trump produced a "Proud to be Roman" edition, but that's another story.) Sure, you can go buy a $20 Bible from Amazon inspired by the stories from the prophets that are two or more millennia old, or you can get this Bible inspired by a red, white, and blue country song! (And just to be clear, this King James Version is delivered to you in ENGLISH. As former Texas Governor Ma Ferguson used to say, "If the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ, it’s good enough for the children of Texas.”

You must allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, (that damn Joe Biden, messing up those supply chains again.) All sales are final.

And look, if you're all worried that this is somehow benefiting Trump's political campaign, well don't worry your Easter bonnet for one minute. The company making and shipping the Greatest Book ever "has nothing to do with any political campaign. GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates. GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms."

In other words, President, er, Former President Trump is not making any money off these Bibles. Except for all the money he's making off of these Bibles. Hey, you gotta make bail some way, amiright?

Trump is currently in a cash crunch. He's got a presidential campaign to run, and at least two court judgments that he has to deal with. He needs to come up with $175 million as he appeals his civil fraud case - the one where he is accused of lying about his wealth for years to build his real estate empire. He also recently posted $92 million as he appeals the decision against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. Other criminal cases are ahead of him and any possible penalties that result.

Overpriced Bibles may be a good schtick for his fundamentalist, white national evangelical tribe. He's also sold a few "golden sneakers," (I'm still waiting for the life-sized golden Trump idol.) His website hawks more than a couple of hats, "Victory 47" perfume, shirts, keychains, pajama sets, and more. (Don't miss the new Spring Collection!)

He has also recently sold cuttings from the suit he wore in the famous mugshot, seen 'round the world. But you have to buy 47 NFT trading cards at $99 each to get a swatch. Luckily, that $4,653 package also includes a dinner with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club and residence in Palm Beach. (You pay your own expenses to get there, of course.) But imagine... just touching... OWNING the hem of this garment...

I'm almost 'tempted' 😉 to purchase a Trump Bible. Just to see if he's made any Trumpian modifications. I'd love to read his version of the "Illegal not-so-good Samaritan: The worst, ever. The Samaritans, they are terrorists, and now they're helping, helping out strangers along the side of the road! We don't want that, we don't want that! Strangers that are drug dealers, cartel members, criminals! Believe me. They're not sending their best, and they're poisoning our blood. It's an invasion I tell you. Build that wall, and make Samaria pay for it!"

And what a great and timely holiday to hear Trump talk about The Passion of the Christ- "Well, first, there was Mary MAGA-delena. She was very good-looking, nice girl, very good looking, Mary was. And that Peter guy... no good. No good. A real wimp. Low energy. Not loyal. Denied even knowing me! If you're not going to be loyal, then I guess you're as bad as a Democrat. He heard the chicken crow a few times, yes he did. And there was Pontius, the Pilot. I don't know why they called him that, maybe he had a private plane like me. He was a member of the Deep State who always had it in for me and Jesus. Oh I know, I know. He tried to wash his hands, but I'm not gonna let him get away with that. When I get back in office, we're gonna LOCK HIM UP! And Judas? Well, look, he turned Jesus in to the Deep State there, but he was paid pretty well. And that's a tough decision, you know? Thirty pieces of silver? I mean I would have negotiated for more, but you have to admit, pretty good deal. No work, really, you just betray someone. I do that all the time! But I get paid more for it, and I turn that into real estate, I do very well, thank you. And you hate to see Jesus get all crucified and all, but he came back, you know what I mean? And here I am!"

Maybe they can stage the entire Passion Play at Mar-a-Lago on the back 9. If they go ahead with the Trump-risen-Christ scene as he wants, they're really gonna need a massive crane for that Resurrection finale.

Yes. I could go on. Making Trump/Bible jokes is easy pickin's. And you're gonna be stuck remembering "MAGAdelena" during your Holy Week Passion Play viewing... sorry. But there's a lot more to this than meets the joke writing. And like all things Trumpian, the cheap laughs aren't worth the cost we eventually pay.

Trump is raising money with this stuff, to be sure. And I guess every red-blooded MAGA disciple has bought a red hat and one or two things from the Trump Swag Shop, so it adds up. 60 bucks a Bible is a pretty fair markup. Chopping up an old suit coat into several hundred pieces for a couple thou a pop is a pretty good margin, too.

But President Biden raised $26 million+ in one night at a fundraiser this week. And Trump's social media company, "Trump Media and Technology Group" came out flying high on its first day of public trading on Tuesday, rising as high as 79.88 a share. (Trading closed Thursday down $4.26 at $61.96 on the Nasdaq. Ticker -DJT) That's a valuation of close to $8 billion dollars! For a company that hemorrhages cash, can't find reliable advertisers, (think: My Pillow guy,) "Truth Social" is actually losing users, not gaining. It recorded $3.3 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2023 and a loss of $49 million, but its market value is more than 2,000 times its estimated annual revenue compared to Reddit at 10 times, Meta at seven and Snapchat at six. -USA Today.

It's junk, and there isn't any obvious path to profitability according to most observers. But his disciples believe. So they buy the stock. Like his mug shot suit, they just want to touch or even buy the hem of his garment. Under the current Trump Media company restrictions, insiders can't cash out or even borrow against their shares for months. But since it's his board of directors, exceptions can be made. Of course. But if he started to dump his shares, the market would probably tank their value. Trump's record with high-valuation properties is a bit worse than just spotty... I'm thinking of a half dozen casinos that wound up in bankruptcy court.

The real bad news here is just more of the same, but on steroids. Trump Bibles and perfume and all the publicity and editorial he receives continue to enhance his brand, almost exclusively with his tribe. There are new believers who board the Trump Train daily, to be sure. And he continues to capture and strengthen his brand identity of 'true patriot' and 'devoted Christian.' Both of these self-declared self-images are demonstrably absurd. "Patriots" rarely lead an insurrection, and "Christians"... well there is nothing remotely Christian about him. There was no "God Bless Rome Bible," and the story has it that Jesus' purposeful non-relationship with his country got him into some deadly, martyred, Good Friday trouble. Love-your-neighbor-as-yourself, feed-my-sheep, and care for the widow, the orphan, the poor, the immigrant... all those compassionate mandates are never a part of the Trump value system. The Ten Commandments? Merely 10 weak suggestions in Trump world.

Earthly Power and Wealth are not core Christian values, very specifically. You cannot get out of the 4 Gospels and not understand that power and wealth are antithetical to authentic Christianity. And yet, it has become the driving inspiration behind many of Trump's evangelical followers.

It is no longer hyperbole to state that the Trump ideology aligns specifically with a white-Christian-nationalist movement. They say it out loud. “We need to be the party of nationalism and I’m a Christian, and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.” That's Marjorie Taylor Greene, (R - Tara) Her intellectual equal (and always fun date) Lauren Boebert (R-Mars) said in a speech at a church in CO., that "she is “tired” of the long-standing separation between church and state in the U.S., adding that she believes “the church is supposed to direct the government.” She argued that “the government is not supposed to direct the church,” saying that dividing religion from the system of government was not what the Founding Fathers intended. “I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk — that’s not in the Constitution. It was in a stinking letter and it means nothing like they say it does.”  -The Hill

Many would point out that the church is slowly dying as an institution, worldwide. This is true for both conservative and progressive religions and denominations with few exceptions. The median congregation size in the United States is around 65 people, down from 137 twenty years ago. Post-pandemic, the median is now about 60. The reasons are as varied as are religious practices. People move, schedules change, churches become politicized, there is scandal and/or abuse within a congregation or denomination, and there is no longer community pressure to belong to a church. Young people often feel judged or don't respect a given church's social/political beliefs. But like primary voters, the church members that stay are often passionate and motivated.

While Trump seems sometimes disdainful of the evangelicals orbiting around him, he knows which side his communion "cracker" is buttered on. And he's got a Bible to sell them. In a December campaign speech in Iowa, he said “Marxists and fascists” are “going hard” against Catholics. “Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable” and that will “investigate all forms of illegal discrimination.” - Politico

And now the money is rolling in to back an ultra-conservative religious/political agenda. By the billions. In Texas, a couple of billionaires are focussing on building nothing short of a Christian theocracy. Their efforts to cut public education to bits and replace it with private, Christian-based schools are well known. Probably Trump's biggest gift to the Christian Right are the three highly conservative Supreme Court Judges who, along with two existing conservative judges overturned Roe v. Wade. It was something that seemed unthinkable, though it has always been one of the main goals of the evangelical coalition. Cases are now being brought to court by fundamentalists in an effort to eliminate the so-called "morning-after pill," with some legislators calling for contraception to be made illegal. Americans are now (not unreasonably afraid) that the LGBT right to same-sex marriage might be "revisited." LGBT citizens and their allies are worried that the Obergefell decision could be reversed (sending the question of gay marriage back to the states.)

Have you heard of "Project 2025"? It's not a secret group with a hidden agenda. You can find a well footnoted article in Wikipedia, and its leaders are not shy about discussing their goals. When Trump took office in 2017, it was obvious and known to many that he was ill-prepared to run the executive branch. He went into office with barely half of his cabinet chosen. And many were politicos or wealthy friends and benefactors with no real expertise in the agencies they managed. Remember "Education Secretary" Betsy Devos, who had never once attended a public school? How about former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who had once declared he would eliminate the Dept. of Energy? When he assumed the role of Secretary of that agency, he admitted he didn't even know what they did.

Project 25 is a group of around 100 right-wing groups, foundations, and think tanks that are preparing to control all the federal agencies under Trump (or any other Republican president.) Some agencies they'd like to dismantle entirely. The Project proposes slashing U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) funding, dismantling the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, gutting environmental and climate change regulations to favor fossil fuel production, and eliminating the cabinet Departments of Education and Commerce. They want to have tens of thousands of service workers ready to jump into civil service positions in every federal agency.

Their policy initiatives sound like something out of the Spanish Inquisition, or certainly the modern Taliban: Charging women who get abortions with murder. Implementing a Scripture-based system of government whereby Christ-ordained “civil magistrates” exercise authority over the American public. The final dismantling of public education - “We deny that civil authorities are tasked with being the caretakers of citizens or educators of children, as these duties belong primarily to the Church and to families, respectively.” How about an end to no-fault divorce, same-sex marriage, and reduced access to any contraception?

Trump's former (and potentially future) national security adviser Michael Flynn, a loud proponent of Christian nationalism, is traveling around the country recruiting what he calls an “Army of God." And yes, Project 2025 leadership openly discuss violence in the name of the Lord, “We are getting close” to Christians taking up arms."

Upon Trump's inauguration, there is a call for immediately invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement and directing the DOJ to pursue Trump adversaries. William Wolfe, a former Trump official and Visiting Fellow with The Center for Renewing America (CFRA), is ready to shoulder a musket. In a video posted by Right Wing Watch last year, he declared that “We are getting close” to Christians taking up arms... "To be ruled by cowards in a time of war is a curse. Because God hates cowards." Retired Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin of The Family Research Council (FRC) (one of Project 2025's main partners and a long-established bastion of ultra-conservative thought) is also glad to ramp up violent, warlike rhetoric. "When Jesus returns, he’ll be carrying an assault rifle." 

And I might have buried the lede. Project 2025 would like to repeal the 22nd Amendment... you know... the one that limits a president to two terms in office. "The case of Donald Trump, however, makes an even more forceful ethical argument against the twenty-second Amendment and for its repeal," writes Tonguette, a frequent contributor to the American Conservative and the Washington Examiner. "If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?" - Raw Story

"Freedom <will be> defined by God, not man,” according to Project 2025. Sounds reassuring, doesn't it? (And btw, whose God?) You can find their entire (draft) manifesto for the establishment of a Christian Nationalist government here.

Still not convinced that this is much more than partisan hyper-rhetoric? You probably didn't see the political tricks coming that brought a 6-3 Republican majority on the SCOTUS. Which meant you couldn't predict the repeal of Roe v. Wade. Almost no one predicted the ugly fight over a "phony" election or the treasonous events of January 6th.

So buy a "God Bless the USA Bible," and have some thoughts and prayer about all of this. Because the Christian soldiers are preparing for battle. And you're in their crosshairs.

Order now while supplies last. Bible quantities are limited! This offer won't last forever!