Trump has become the biggest televangelist in America

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Sunday is Easter for those who celebrate. And Donald Trump has his own message on Christianitys holiest day, a shouty post about his political enemies destroying our country.

And then another message: WORLD WAR III. No other. That’s it.

A rousing message from the ever-devout and thoughtful Donald Trump, though it’s just a dog whistle about his perceived persecution of his most loyal followers.

Some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, have compared him to Jesus in the run-up to Easter as he prepares, like Jesus himself, to face felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up a relationship with a adult movie star, just after his third. the wife gave birth to their child. OK, maybe not just like Jesus.

Trump is doing his unique version of shouting Holy crap! while holed up in his South Florida mansion like the modern-day televangelist that he is, crows about his billionaire lifestyle while begging the faithful to send their last $47 to him in the barn, where it can be pressed down, shaken out together in a T-shirt with a fake Trump mug shot on it and money for Trump to pay his lawyers.

He certainly got the original experts of televangelist grift as his role models and in his pocket. Do you remember Jim Bakker?

One half of Jim and Tammy Faye’s infamy, Jim served four years in prison for 24 counts of mail and wire fraud, discovered when it was revealed he had an affair with a church secretary.

The parallels just write themselves. In 2019, Jim Bakker had a guest on his show shill a Trump coin, reminding Trump Helpers to keep me out of jail T-shirts.

The following year, Bakker himself said that loving Donald Trump is a test for Christians to prove they are saved.

In fact, the Trumps alone can fix it, the prosperity gospel is directed directly at their shared most loyal base: white evangelicals.

With their hatred of modernity, women’s freedom and abortion and their fervent worship of guns, Trump is also bringing religious cult leaders to his first campaign speech in 2024, given in Waco, Texas. That’s the site of a 1993 standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidian apocalyptic doomsday cult that ended in the fiery deaths of 76 sect members, including children.

The 51-day standoff began when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms arrived to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh, who claimed to be the second coming of Jesus, and seize illegal machine guns .

Under Koresh’s leadership, the sect has an arsenal of hundreds of firearms, including dozens of AK-47s and dozens more illegally modified to be fully automatic, such as M-16s.

As for Donald Trump, he definitely toned down his cult leader rhetoric for his Waco speech:

I say to you again tonight: I am your warrior. I am your justice. …

I am your reward; we will take care of it.

And if you think it will go as far as linking Donald Trump to David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, the current sect leader told The New York Times, and I quote: Donald Trump is anointed by God. He is the battering ram that God uses to bring down the Deep State of Babylon.

I mean, if the current cult leader loves Trump, where’s the lie?

This is an excerpt from Monday’s episode of The ReidOut. This has been slightly edited for length and clarity.

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