But Think About the Money Changers!

 

(Note: Sorry I was gone for a week. My laptop was in the shop for that week and I had no way of posting on my cell phone. We now resume our irregularly scheduled lunacy.) 

 

      If Donald Trump had been around two thousand years ago when Jesus pulled a full-blown nutty and overturned the tables of the money changers for doing business on the Sabbath, Trump would've pulled a full-blown nutty of his own. He would've written,

     "Jesus Christ, a radical left lunatic who is often seen with homely whores (Unlike the beautiful women on my arm!), likes to give free shit to people and has some serious 'anger management issues', just overturned the tables of the money changers, some excellent and VERY FINE MEN, for conducting business. He is sick and twisted with MCDS (or what some call Money Changer Derangement Syndrome) and he needs to 'go'. So, Pontius Pilate, Rome, if you're listening..."

     Trump seems afflicted with what some would call "Messianic Complex" of late. Just recently, right after Easter, he berated and insulted Pope Leo after the Pope called him out for his incredibly dysfunctional war in Iran. Trump seemed genuinely offended that the Pontiff would preach the virtues of pacifism and would condemn violence in all its forms. Trump's typical grade school reaction was similar to what Hitler's would've said if Pope Pius XII, instead of being a Nazi sycophant, would've told Germany to go fuck itself.

      In my 67 years on earth, I have lived through seven popes, from John XXIII to Pope Leo XIV.  I have also lived through 13 presidents (although I deny Bush II and Trump ever got legitimately-elected). And never once in my life have I ever seen one of them dare to attack the leader of the Roman Catholic Church.

     Hours after attacking Pope Leo, Trump then put up a meme, an AI-generated picture of himself as Jesus healing a sick man. After MAGA and even the racist, Dominionist Knights Templar swiftly turned on him, Trump or someone at the White House quietly took it down last night. But I'm sure it'll be back up in three days. 

     Obviously, this was a bridge too far and the bridge spanned the Rubicon. No other president in US history had ever attacked the Pope or compared himself to Jesus. It seems, with his usual industriousness, continual diving for the bottom of the barrel and penchant for self-immolation, he finally found the red line that's making his most devoted fanboys turn on him.

     It displayed more than mere megalomania, which has been a constant in Trump's life going back more decades than even I've been alive. It goes way beyond mere arrogance in verbally assaulting the leader of over one billion Catholics, a crucial voting bloc for any US politician, especially a Republican.

     It's the shameless and incredibly ignorant comparison to himself and Jesus, one of the most iconic and beloved figures in world history. Actually, Trump wasn't even comparing himself to Jesus but seeming to say he was Jesus.

      Throughout his social media life, Trump has put out meme cards that he's actually sold and other memes that portray him as a soldier, a combat fighter pilot, a cop, a cowboy, movie action heroes and other professions revered by prepubescent boys who dream about what they want to be when they grow up. Since billions erroneously refer to him as the president of the United States, you'd think that would be enough. But not for Trump.

     Trump sallies forth in his crumbling  delusional, Adderal-addled mind like some brain-damaged version of Walter Mitty. The cosplaying and playacting is ridiculous enough and beneath the office of the presidency but declaring himself Jesus was beyond the pale even among Trump's most rabid supporters. Trump was once renowned for being able to read a room and knowing his base. It had worked for him from the moment he came down that escalator in 2015.

     But as his mind degrades, he's either lost that mojo or doesn't care what even his supporters think anymore. And he seems completely ignorant of the fact that among those supporters, faith in and worship of Jesus is still very central to their lives.

     And the yawning gulf between what Jesus stood for and what Trump stands for is wider than the Red Sea. Jesus never would have told the poor at Gallilee, "Gee, I'd love to heal you but I have to deny you health care to free up some money for tax cuts for some the wealthiest people in human history."

     As further proof that Trump had failed to read the room, he's obviously blithely unaware of the fact that the Pope is better insulated politically than Trump ever was or ever will be.