Ever since Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president in June of 2015, there seems to be only two options about what to do with him. Option 1: Dismiss him outright with hands raised either in outrage or to muffle one’s laughter. Option 2: Grab a yard sign or cheap ball cap and become one of the millions of seemingly anonymous Trump disciples, ready to follow him all the way to a possible political crucifixion.
From the beginning, I have been uncomfortable with both options. Sure, I’ve laughed at Trump video clips with everyone else at times, and more than once I have been shocked and appalled by what I have heard him say. But there was something about Trump and his message that I’ve been unable to dismiss casually or disdain. I sense that those taking Option 1 or Option 2 are both drinking the Kool-Aid. The result is that I’ve at times been uncomfortably branded a “Trump sympathizer” by my progressive daughter.
Yet, I’ve found little company amongst my Republican friends. (So far, I’ve only found two people even here in Arkansas who will admit to being a full Trump supporter.) Finding a nuanced article on Trump these days is harder to find than an “I miss Mondale” bumper sticker.
But I feel we’re missing something important about this Trump candidacy that we might regret later. Neither Trump nor my thoughts seem to be going anywhere soon, so here goes my attempt at fashioning an Option 3 for dealing with Trump, and it’s a theological one at that.
Almost all of the outright dismissal and disdain of Donald Trump’s candidacy stems from the opinions that he is nuts, unqualified or demonic. I’ll leave the crazy and unqualified arguments alone, but I do want to look at Trump as demonic or evil. Many believe Trump to be a terrifying threat to America who will lead us into a white supremacized, nuclear hot war with somebody besides Russia. I agree that Trump is a devil, but maybe not in such bad way.
I grew up a Southern Baptist, and I’m familiar with the devil or Satan, as he’s more fearfully called. The traditional evangelical view of the devil is that he is a hugely powerful embodiment of all evil, and poses a real threat to God’s will in our lives and certainly to America. This autonomous, sovereign, evil view of the devil has traces in the New Testament and ultimately stems from Persian dualism, to which the Hebrew people were exposed after their Babylonian exile (6th century B.C.E). Eventually, this dualism showed up in a cosmic battle: God and good versus Satan and bad.
In this sense, I do not believe Trump to be a devil with the power and intent of conquering democracy and creating an evil kingdom in its stead. But there is another, older, understanding of the devil.
For centuries, the Hebrew people had a more benign understanding of the devil. This devil is found in key texts in the Hebrew Scripture or Old Testament. Think about that sneaky serpent that subtly seeks to deceive Adam and Eve in the garden. Or how about the devil that comes to God and asks permission to wreak havoc on Job in order to test his faith? (Job 1:9-12) This is not a cosmic, hoofed and horned Satan who is out of control and waging war on all that’s good just because he is evil. This is a different kind of devil.
Sure, this older devil still does bad things and messes with good people. But this devil is also clearly under the power of good (God), and ultimately, whether he intends to or not, this devil serves the greater good. In this sense, I think there is a lot of merit in understanding Trump as devilish. What if Donald Trump is Democracy’s little devil who has been unleashed on us to challenge our democratic faith and make us realize who we really are? Just as the devil begged God to let him test Job’s faith, I can just see Trump standing at the base of Mount Rushmore, pleading with the founding fathers to let him shock us one more time.
How is this endless traumatic Trump candidacy ultimately bringing about good? If you are a Trump supporter, the answers are obvious. If you have been quick to dismiss and demonize Trump, however, you may be skeptical that anything good will come from this devil. Here are a few ways that this testing of our Democratic faith has already brought about good.
1. We are talking about real issues that matter. Trump has stirred some pretty sacred pots that have been languishing alone on the stove for decades. Why did we become a nation of immigrants? What’s wrong with being friends with Russia? Can both black and blue lives matter? What “makes America great?” Surely, these are more important conversations than those of previous general elections in which we were inundated with discussions about Al Gore’s cardboard personality and John McCain’s choice of a loony, hot running mate. The Trump devil has unearthed some important sacred cows that we have either ignored, avoided or taken for granted.
2. We are learning about a lot of things. Trump’s devilish, unpredictable and inconsistent rhetoric has taken us all over the map and exposed us to some things we didn’t know about. I was having lunch with a friend who clearly is not a Trump supporter, but she readily admitted, basically, “I didn’t know what a Gold Star Family was until he offended one.” Not only have we learned more about families of fallen soldiers, we’ve learned more about lots of things. We’ve learned more about what Republicans and Democrats hold most dear just by monitoring what pisses them off most about Trump. I personally never knew NAFTA was such a controversial treaty, and I couldn’t have told you the difference between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, something that I’m sure Trump would support. The wake of Trump’s erratic motorboat has churned up a lot of things from the bottom of our lake that we had no idea were there. This leads us to a third contribution of Donald, the devil of democracy.
3. We are facing some truth. The New Testament describes Satan as the “father of lies.” (John 8:44) But the Old Testament portrays the devil as more of a “father of half-truths.” Remember the serpent tempting Eve in the garden? “If you eat of the fruit of the tree, you surely will not die.” (Genesis 3:4) He was right, at least for the time being. Adam and Eve weren’t killed – just tossed out of the garden, forced to work, raised a fratricidal son, and blamed for the sin nature of all humanity till the end of time. The point is, some of what the devil says is true. So it is with the devil Trump. It’s impossible to agree with everything Trump says. But it’s also probably impossible to disagree with everything Trump says.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has blushed privately when I hear Trump occasionally say something that I’ve thought myself. There are some troubling truths about our nation that we’ve been comfortable ignoring around the dinner table for the last couple of decades. In some ways, Trump is the unhinged uncle that shows up at Thanksgiving and makes an inappropriate comment about PeePaw’s “other family,” something we’ve tried to keep from the grandchildren. A painful but necessary conversation ensues. Some of the issues devil Donald has raised ring true. Racial resentment is alive and well a half century after Martin Luther King and Motown. There are consequences to immigration. We are politically afraid to speak transparently in public, except on Facebook. Maybe China is taking us to the cleaners. And our ability to have these discussions has exposed the truth that America is, in many ways, already great.
To formulate a counter-response to all of Trump’s musings is exhausting. We’ve watched many in the media try to do so in vain for the last 15 months. Why not just admit that Trump has laid some deviled eggs that contain some truth, and that it’s okay for us to hear and deal with them honestly. It doesn’t mean we have to eat all the eggs, or the forbidden fruit for that matter.
In the closing chapters of the book of Job, we learn that Job does in fact withstand the attacks of the wily devil. He passes the test, despite all that he lost, and the nightmare he had to endure. In the end, Job has everything returned to him two-fold. (Job 42: 10) More importantly for us, Job comes out on the other side with a stronger faith. Maybe this crazy, painful, presidential election campaign will have the same ending for our faith in democracy. We cannot simply dismiss or disdain Donald Trump. We must take him seriously, we just don’t have to elect him. It could be that we don’t need to. It could be that his work is done. We may have already survived the devil’s test. Democracy is still on the throne, and our faith in America is stronger. Maybe Mount Rushmore is smiling.