Godless and shameless

“No oil, no guns, no God.” That’s what awaits Americans if they elect Joe Biden, Donald Trump declared at a campaign rally. In three deft strokes, Trump depicted a world in which his supporters will be powerless, defenseless, abandoned, deprived of divine assistance and consolation. If they vote for Biden, that is.

Re-electing Trump, however, implies that they will remain powerful, with a never-ending supply of oil to consume, with guns to multiply their aggression, with God forever by their side.

The man who after four years as president of the United States ought to know the challenges of our time better than anyone else, has based his electoral campaign not only on lies, fantasies and defamation, but also on policies that threaten his own country.

The transition to new forms of energy and the effort to curb mass slaughter by heavily armed misfits should not cause friction in any society. The fact that these issues constitute “red lines” in the United States shows the power of the special interest groups that have found their ideal salesman in the incumbent president. The claim, though, that his political rival is out to cancel God, must be a Trump inspiration, underlining his absolute amorality.

Whereas few people are known to have violated so many of the Ten Commandments and remained in politics, Donald Trump thinks nothing of accusing others of what he does while at the same time flattering the Evangelicals and other powerful political groups that he is fighting for them.

In his campaign to save God, Trump is not referencing one of the most fundamental questions that humanity has faced since the Enlightenment: If God is not at the center of our everyday life, by what morals does society function? How do we distinguish between good and evil?

Trump does not refer to God as the Judge of all but as a commodity, like oil and guns. This God is not the fountainhead of morality but a transactional good with which one flatters supporters, threatens rivals and provokes tension and division.

Aside from using God’s name “in vain,” Trump’s personal behavior and many aspects of his policies have revealed selfishness and shamelessness of such magnitude that no matter how much he tries to frighten his supporters regarding his rivals’ plans, he himself has struck the heaviest blow against the essence and image of God.

Just as he has undermined the principles and image of his country in the world.