Trump's Meme: Impact vs. Intent
Update: Trump has deleted the post.
Previously:
As Bridget Phetasy said on X:
Which is what happened last night when he posted this meme:
I know many of my readers here are devout Christians, and among the kindest people I have ever met. One of you bought me a subscription to the Hallow app (and I do listen to the nightly prayer). The letters, the subscriptions, all of it has warmed my wrecked heart more than you know.
So we might disagree a little on this. I do not believe Trump posted this, “depicting himself as Jesus Christ.” I think he saw it, liked it, and posted it, not realizing that it would be considered blasphemy. He is not now nor has he ever been a devout Christian. His base is, or a large part of it is. He himself might not have realized it was blasphemous and would create a firestorm.
I don’t know if he will delete it. Maybe he will. Maybe he’ll apologize. But here’s the thing. To apologize, he would have to admit intent. I know this game well. When I posted a joke about “White Dudes for Harris” and said “white power,” it whipped around X and was seen by thousands of people. Two of my friends called me on the phone and said, “Did you mean to celebrate white supremacy?” It was surreal.
The Hollywood Reporter saw it and decided to run an investigative report on me, which essentially destroyed the career I’d built over 20 years. I was now a “MAGA darling,” a Trump supporter who celebrated white supremacy. The problem for me was that they were wrong. I was making a joke about how all of a sudden it was okay for white people to form a group based on identity because it was suddenly convenient to help elect Kamala Harris.
It didn’t matter because on the Woke Left, what matters is not intent but impact. Did it offend? If so, you are in the wrong, and you must own it and apologize, regardless of what you meant. I can’t work like that. I will apologize if I did something wrong.
But clearly, the Christian Right does not believe that. Michael Knowles, for instance, said Trump should take down the post and apologize “regardless of intent.”
Coming out of the cult of the Left, I had to work hard on undoing this mindset and look at intent. Did the person intend to say something offensive, or did they not? I had to look at things from their perspective. In this case, Trump might not have known it would be considered blasphemous, or he might have assumed his base would give him the benefit of the doubt.
For me, I was called every “ist” and “phobe” in the book for years. They assumed I was guilty of all of their high crimes because they believed they knew what was in my mind and heart. It is the very thing that made me want to leave. I could not now agree with the same thing playing out on the Right, even if I understand the difference between woke blasphemy and Christian blasphemy.
The meme comes on the heels of Trump posting a rant against Pope Leo:
Did Trump post it to be offensive and mock God? Of course not. Marjorie Traitor Brown is now calling him the “antichrist,” along with Sneako, Milo, and the usual suspects of the Woke Right.
I gave up being offended by Trump long ago, after years of being offended by everything he did and said. I accept him, warts and all, because he is the guy who has the audacity to run again after they impeached him twice, indicted him four times, raided Mar-a-Lago, convicted him of a felony, lied about him, called him every name they could come up with from Hitler to pedophile, and now, to war criminal.
To suddenly pull that support because of a meme? Not me. So people will say I always defend him, and I do, but especially about this. He took down the Obama ape video - maybe he’ll take this one down too.
One thing I know for sure is that the guy who could face down the machine and undo the woke Left’s grip on the minds of children, to declare there are only two genders, to end the cruel practice of “gender affirming care” for minors, and to protect women in sports is the same guy who would post that meme.
And others rang in:
Giving Trump the benefit of the doubt is becoming harder for many of his supporters, especially those who are devout Christians. Does it really pivot that hard from “Iran will cost him the midterms” to “No, a meme will”? It seems to me that a faction of the Right has already accepted losing the midterms. They just need the best reason to hand power back to the Democrats.
Trump has deleted the post.
I'm a Christian and I'm not offended at all. I don't care if he "saves us" in a suit or depicts it in a picture of himself in a robe. He doesn't think he's Jesus, but he is attempting to save our country, and doing a damn good job of it.