This Is How Donald Trump Sees Himself

Less than three weeks after he’d taken office, Donald Trump — who’s rarely met a business deal he couldn’t torpedo — floated the idea of America taking over Gaza and redeveloping the territory into “the Riviera of the Middle East.” (After kicking out, er, permanently resettling all of the Palestinians currently living there, of course.)

Given Trump’s erratic nature, it’s hard to know how seriously to take him sometimes, and even some of his own Republican supporters balked at the idea. But if Trump’s social media activity is any indication, he’s still pretty obsessed with redeveloping Gaza, even blasphemously so.

Earlier this week, Trump shared a video on his Truth Social account that apparently captures his vision of what Gaza could become. Soundtracked by a banger extolling the virtues of “Trump Gaza,” the AI-generated video begins with scenes of war and ruin before shifting to a series of images depicting a rebuilt Gaza.

These images include: pristine beaches lined with modern high-rises; busy streets filled with fancy cars; belly dancers who look an awful lot like bearded men in drag; Trump shimmying with another belly dancer; Trump sunbathing on the beach with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; and finally, a massive golden statue of Trump himself standing tall in the middle of a city.

I wish Christians who’ve supported Trump over the years would ask themselves, and I mean really ask themselves, what it means that he apparently thinks it’s OK to depict himself as a massive golden idol. And a golden idol that’s standing in what some Christians consider part of the Holy Land, no less. One would hope that such a spectacle would cause some discomfort given the related biblical stories and references (e.g., the Golden Calf, Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image), never mind the gigantic (npi) levels of ego and narcissism that it obviously suggests.

Then again, we’re talking about a man who has told tens of thousands of lies, been accused of sexual assault on multiple occasions (and even bragged about it), been found guilty of rape, embraced and promoted racist and white supremacist views, praised dictators, and entertained notions of tyranny. If you’re already willing to overlook all of those things, as many Christians have, then I guess a giant golden statue with blasphemous connotations might not be that big a deal. Which, if true, is a pretty harsh indictment of modern American Christianity.

On a personal note, I think about how the Christian leaders of my youth would’ve responded had, say, Bill Clinton shared a promotional image of himself as a giant golden statue. I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that they would’ve taken great offense at it — that Christian radio would’ve been flooded with full-throated condemnations while pulpits around the nation ushered forth apocalyptic criticism. “Idolatry!” they would’ve proclaimed, and understandably so.

Then again, a Democrat like Clinton could never have been their guy. Not like Trump, who has frankly done an impressive job of getting Christians to overlook his many obvious moral failings and denials of basic Christian concepts, and instead, line up to pledge their unwavering fealty to him.