On deaf ears

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Slumped in his pew like a stale carrot cake, Donald Trump didnโ€™t even try to impersonate a human being. He glowered as he listened to the traditional morning sermon all presidents attend the day after inauguration. It was for him one of the annoyances of power, a tradition that actual presidents follow, and one that he, a make-believe president, didnโ€™t even pretend to appreciate.

There, in the Washington national cathedral, wrapped in perversion, fat and greed, the toad-god half-listened as the Right Reverend Mariann Budde, the the Episcopal bishop of Washington, delivered her Tuesday morning sermon. It was an impassioned plea directed at him. The Bishop tried to appeal to Trump’s empathy, perhaps not realising that Trump doesnโ€™t have any. She asked him to โ€œhave mercy uponโ€ communities across the country targeted by the new administrationโ€™s immigration and LGBTQ+ policies.

โ€œYou have felt the providential hand of a loving God,โ€ she said, a possible reference to Trumpโ€™s inaugural address, in which he declared that God had saved him from an assassinโ€™s bullet so he can โ€œmake America great again.โ€ The Bishop continued: โ€œIn the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy on the people in our country who are scared now.โ€ Perhaps he perked up a little then. Fear, of course, is one of Trumpโ€™s favourite emotions. Itโ€™s the emotion that he mercilessly exploited to get him back in the White House.

Buddeโ€™s sermon amounted to a bold public criticism of the newly minted toad-god, who spent his first hours in office signing executive orders rolling back Biden-era protections for transgender Americans and laying the groundwork to carry out his promise of mass deportations. One executive order directed the federal government to recognize only โ€œtwo sexes โ€” male and female,โ€ while his immigration directives moved to dismantle birthright citizenship, send American troops to the Mexican border and suspend the US refugee admissions program.

โ€œThere are gay, lesbian and transgender children in both Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives,โ€ the Bishop continued. Trumpโ€™s Vice President JD Vance stole a glance at Trump, no doubt wondering how he was receiving these words. The toad-god remained impassively stony faced, looking as if any minute his tongue would shoot out of his mouth and snatch a fly out of the air.

โ€œThe vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes, and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches, mosques and synagogues, gurdwara and temples,โ€ the Bishop said, adding: โ€œOur God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were once strangers in this land.โ€

It was a price Trump was facing for enlisting evangelical voters to his side. The words of Jesus contradict the MAGA platform, and Trump, for once, was made to face that contradiction head on. The legacy media has long been remiss in this. Anecdotes have emerged that MAGA congregants are asking their pastors to omit the โ€œwoke wordsโ€ of Jesus himself. The Sermon on the Mount has become an embarrassment. And the Good Samaritan was, after all, a foreigner.

Trump allies are already attacking Bishop Budde. For example, after the sermon, Republican Representative and avowed โ€œChristianโ€ Mike Collins from Georgia weighed in on Twitter-X. He posted a video clip of Budde’s sermon along with the text, “The person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”

What is the evangelical community at large, the community that overwhelmingly supported Trump, doing to reconcile the cognitive dissonance between Trumpโ€™s policies and the words of Jesus? Nothing at all. In the post-truth era itโ€™s easy to ignore contradictions. Orwell gave it a name. He called it doublethink. Trump doesnโ€™t need anything so fancy. He doesnโ€™t think about it at all.

Trumpโ€™s verdict of the Bishopโ€™s sermon? โ€œNot too exciting, was it?โ€ Trump told reporters. โ€œI didn’t think it was a good service, no.โ€ Of course he didnโ€™t. The Bishop told the truth, and Trump only recognises his words and his ideas as truth. It was a courageous thing the Bishop did, a thing she will be made to suffer for, no doubt. Tyranny has no room for contradicting words, compassion or truth. The Bishop stood boldly for all three in a way few are willing to do. She is a rare and courageous woman. I wish her the best.

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