America the Megachurch
Trump, the megachurch and the politics of desire.
Kamala Harris once very appropriately warned Americans, “If you don’t believe me when I tell you Donald Trump is a threat to our country, then just watch one of his rallies.” We have no way of knowing whether or not people heeded her advice, but we know that Trump swept all the states he needed to and won pretty comfortably.
Perhaps, however, people did watch a Trump rally and liked the non-stop fairytales and lies they heard. If you have ever watched a megachurch sermon, then you can see where Trump got a lot of his flair for bullshit. There is a similar cadence in how he builds up his attacks against everyone who is not like him or the people in the audience. The way he leans into the podium as if pulling closer to tell “you,” random audience member, a secret message that is just between “the two of us.” His voice pitches up, and then races down the other side of the wave as if he were on a turbulent sea. His promises — his lies, threats, and bluster — are designed to safely guide the troubled ship back to the port.
“And I will make them pay for having sent us out into that troubled sea without me, your life savior.”
Seven million Americans attend megachurches every Sunday. They are most popular in Texas, Georgia, California, and Florida but are also found in dozens of states. Their popularity is rising, and almost all of the congregations align with Donald Trump’s “ values.” This is not just some random moment in our nation’s history.
We have always been attracted to the snake oil salesman, to the wagon pulling into town offering all sorts of ointments and balsams laced with things like cocaine and alcohol designed to cure every ailment known to man. America’s need for the ultimate cure-all has always been intertwined with its psychological need for the fatherly mystic. We are not a patriarchy, but something inside of the collective national body craves the wisdom of a man who has sinned and found his way back to God. Obsession with the “father knows best even though he is a racist, raping-pervert” syndrome is not new to us. Our history is filled with these flawed and vile men who happily lead lost souls astray.
Donald Trump has turned our nation into a megachurch, and in very short order, each one of us will become a member whether we want to be one or not. Every aspect of the media machine now in place exists to amplify his message. CNN is useless. It has decided that it could lose more by challenging Trump’s fascism. CNN is a business with earnings of over $1 billion annually. It cannot afford to be harassed endlessly by Trump’s justice department. “The Morning Joe” show, formerly an attack dog against Trump, kissed his ring shortly after the election. The journalistic watchdogs are fleeing for the hills, and in their place is a media ecosystem the Kremlin would envy.
Many megachurches have lost their way. They no longer exist to further the teaching of Jesus Christ but to promote the power and goodness of the church leaders as they help the members find their way to Christ. The churches became products like anything else. Members wear gear purchased from the church gift shop, play on the church’s teams, volunteer for free, and pay substantial tithes weekly. Being a “good Christian” and a “good church member” are not always the same. One can be a questionable Christian, but all is okay if they are up on their dues. As pastors delve more into political proselytizing, the word of Christ gets lost because the word of the ultimate leader, Donald Trump, is what is most important.
For Freud, the libido, or love drive, makes us crave the satisfaction of instinctual desire and hence societal companionship. But it has at the same time to be constrained by society for society’s sake. Society, while crucially relying on the libido, cannot afford to allow the libido to run wild. Society must rather sublimate the libido into constructive energy. Thus with its laws that restrict our sexual self-expression and put us to work instead, society, says Freud, inevitably makes us unhappy.
What drives the modern megachurch ethos is eerily similar. The megachurch wishes to cash in on our desire for self-satisfaction. It wishes to harness our consumerist attitude to church, our “church consuming.” This very desire gives rise to the megachurch in the first place. In appealing to this desire, the megachurch reconfigures worship space to purge it of all ritualistic and seemingly legalistic elements in order to allow desire to come to the forefront and flow freely (The Megachurch and the Politics of Desire).
Donald Trump appeared in American living rooms and became very popular thanks to The Apprentice, a fake reality show where he played the role of a successful businessman. Clueless Americans fell for him and he instilled in him powers he never had. When he descended the escalator and became our national nightmare, he immediately began to sell his vision through MAGA. How much has the Trump family made thanks to the shit he sells with MAGA all over it?
Donald Trump is our paster. We are all in the American megachurch of Donald.
Whether we like it or not.