Opinion: How Trump turned over more than $ 100 million, televangelist style

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As CNN reported this weekend, Trump’s political organizations are sitting on nearly $ 102 million, which they accumulated in just the first six months of his presidency. At this time, Trump has devoted much of his rhetoric to pushing so -called audits that he hopes will prove his unsound claim that the 2020 election was rigged – despite no real evidence to support that. “We need you to join the fight to secure our elections!” declared a social media ad posted by Trump’s fundraising operation. However, according to a July 22 story in the Washington Post citing multiple sources, donors who thought they could help prevent the suspected “theft” may have failed when they learned that his organization had spent nothing on efforts to -audit. In fact, pro-Trump activists working to prove their man should still be president are working hard in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, but they seem to be doing it without any financial support from the fundraising device. by Trump. (A Trump spokesman declined to comment to the Post on whether his team would contribute to the audit efforts.)

Meanwhile, Trump has continued to run the Big Lie about the presidential election – and to make bold predictions about what the political future holds. While other former presidents speak soberly about foreign policy or leading global development conferences, Trump prefers to wind up his supporters at campaign-style rallies where he talks about in the future without worrying that whoever might be truthful will examine him later.

Discussing the controversial “audit” of votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County, he said recently at an event in Phoenix, “I predict when the votes will come in … I think they’re going to be horrible. It’s going to be, in my opinion, the results will be overwhelming. ”And at a recent gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas, he predicted the GOP would win control of Congress in 2022 and capture“ the glorious White House that sits very beautiful in our nation’s capital ”in 2024. Trump’s flowery language has a preacher- like tone, as well as his rally theme: Save America. This slogan was used in the deadly event on January 6 that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol. It has since been featured prominently at this year’s Trump rallies in Florida and Ohio, and will be the theme for his upcoming appearance in Alabama. This implies, most urgently, that any work that needs to be done to heal the country is not yet complete – and Trump himself should take the lead in that recovery. Trump’s call to vague but frightening enemies, his horrible prophecies and his calls for donations have made some evangelists think to use a deft combination of frightening and appealing tactics. for help to enrich their ministers – and themselves. These two steps are an American tradition that goes back generations when the 1930s radio preacher Father Charles Coughlin cursed against both former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and unnamed communists to arouse a national audience that would give donations to his ministry. When Trump says he can save the country and cure its ills, he is like the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, who in 1980 presented himself as an American hero who came from childhood “always on the brink of starvation” to become one of the most influential preachers of his time. Before he fell from grace, Swaggart’s ministry worked thousands and received up to $ 150 million per year. Similarly, when he invites his followers to participate in his “movement,” Trump is like so many evangelists who invite their followers to join their effort to save the world from sin. In 2018, Rev. asked. Jesse Duplantis drove his money to buy a $ 54 million jet that would help him “change the lives of a soul every time.” (Duplantis eventually denied he was asking for direct contributions to his plane.) Using techniques that have kept so many large evangelists in the black for years, Trump seems to have hit a money-making business that will keep him alive well – even if prosecutors bring charges against his business in New York and lose the brand’s appeal. But unlike its other businesses, which offer hotel rooms, golf experiences, retail products and more, the political fundraising operation is not required to provide any weak in return.

The honest are always easy targets for those who offer much in the way of prophecy and promises – while expecting monetary contributions in return. But the difference between Trump and the evangelists, many of whom believe in God and have good intentions, is that the former president is unlikely to be worried about the Mighty looking over his shoulder. He is not selling God’s favor or miracle – he is selling his own self -serving agenda.

But should we be surprised? This is the man who said he did not ask God’s forgiveness: “I don’t bring God out of that picture.”

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