MAGA apologists often claim President Donald Trump may at times be unethical but never does anything illegal. The favorite defense of the president’s followers: “It’s just Trump being Trump.”
Trump probably never has read Kurt Vonnegut’s The Money River, but he grew up on the banks of it: “We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts’ content. And we can even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.”
Rodney Kennedy
Having learned his lessons well, Trump now slurps from the Money River with a Caterpillar front-end loader. And MAGA evangelicals don’t give a damn. Maybe all the prosperity gospel propaganda has hardened their arteries.
They feel obligated to protect Trump because, in their eyes, he is “the goose that lays the golden eggs.” He is their protector, savior and God’s anointed. Surely he can do no wrong.
As historian Robert S. McElvaine reminds us, “Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” is one of the favorite sayings of champions of high profits, low taxes on the rich, concentrating wealth and income at the top and the rest of the tenets of trickle-down economics. But when profits become too high and taxes on the very rich too low, the geese get obese, eventually stop laying eggs and develop coronary problems.
Trump, a shadow figure
Trump conducts his business — personal and presidential — in a shadow land where what is unethical or illegal is never easily nailed down. Just as three or more lawyers can blur the line between legal and ethical, a group of theologians can blur the difference between evil and good.
In the land of the shadow, Trump feels free to make as much money as he can. Instead of being iron-fisted, ferocious fiscal conservatives, the Republican Congress glad-hands Trump.
The guardians of the Constitution, the Supreme Court, have unlocked the front door, given Trump the keys to the vault and declared his deals legal. On occasion, a member of SCOTUS will have a stab of responsibility and slap Trump’s hand. For instance, Chief Justice John Roberts said of Trump’s ballroom project, “It’s probably unlawful.”
President Donald Trump posted this AI-generated video of him showing George Washington around Trump’s new White House ballroom.
America sits at the crossroads, befuddled by what is illegal or unethical. Evangelicals, alleged preachers of the gospel, now operate as agents of the devil in land held largely by the devil. And the American people seem to put little stock in whether something is illegal or unethical. Trump has a license to steal.
Trump routinely ignores the Constitution. For example, Trump violates the Foreign Emoluments Clause (Article I, Section 9, Clause 8). It strictly prohibits federal officials, including the president, from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever” from foreign states without Congressional approval.
The Domestic Emoluments Clause (Article II, Section 1, Clause 7) bars the president from receiving any emolument from the U.S. or its states beyond the fixed salary, ensuring independence from domestic influence.
Trump treats the Constitution as if it were a caution light on K Street in Washington, D.C. The president thinks he’s Robin Hood: “I do this for our country, not myself.”
The guardians of the Constitution make the illegal look legal and the unethical irrelevant.
Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” but he’s draining foreign treasuries into his own accounts instead.
Warning signs
There are signs Americans are catching on. According to the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs polling, most Americans believe Trump profits from the presidency in illegal or unethical ways. If Trump is held accountable, count the economy as the deterrent and not evangelical morality.
As FDR said in his second inaugural, “We have always known heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now it is bad economics.”
According to the September poll, six in 10 of the 2,140 American adults surveyed think Trump is illegally profiting from the presidency or doing unethical, but not illegal, things to enrich himself.
“Trump is the first president to make so much money explicitly off of the White House for himself and his family, money that actually goes into his own pocket.”
According to New Yorker writer David Kirkpatrick. Trump and his family have made almost $4 billion off the presidency in just about a year. Kirkpatrick states the obvious: “Trump is the first president to make so much money explicitly off of the White House for himself and his family, money that actually goes into his own pocket.”
MAGA apologists can go on and on about Hunter Biden — their favorite scapegoat. They may even know Lyndon Johnson owned a television station and Warren Harding a newspaper in his wife’s name. But all this is “small potatoes” compared to Trump’s greed.
Unethical but not illegal
How did America reach the tangled web of “unethical but not illegal,” aided and abetted by evangelical Christians known for advocating ethical character? To paraphrase Matthew 23:15, we have a president, unrestrained and unaccountable, crossing sea and land to make billions.
Paula White (right) compares Donald Trump to Jesus while Robert Jeffress (left) looks on. (Screencap)
Is Trump a pariah or an icon? Should he be hated or worshiped? Hero or con man? Should he be enshrined or imprisoned? As long as there are no definitive answers, Trump will keep making deals, pushing the boundaries and making a killing.
The White House, of course, denies Trump has done anything illegal or unethical. He has been, according to himself, a victim of “fake news,” “sham trials,” a stolen election and Democrats attempting to destroy him. Trump sees himself as the “most innocent man in the world,” the quintessential deal maker, the fantastic businessman and billionaire. He prefers “billionaire” and “real estate magnate” as his descriptors.
Crypto man’s kryptonite
Trump’s reign has one possible piece of kryptonite. To use a description of historian Robert McElvaine, as Trump gets “very, very, very richer,” ordinary Americans get “very, very, very poorer.” Americans are struggling to pay for fuel, food, health insurance and other basic necessities.
Trump’s movement, a sort of populist movement, has forgotten populism gains power from outrage over the money interests, the monopolies, the banks and the big investment companies. Trump has become the “Deep State” he has rhetorically created, and his greed for filling his deep pockets is now biting him.
All the evangelical Bible-thumping in the nation can’t cover the magnitude of Trump’s graft, greed and heedless lack of concern for the American people. James Carville is still right: “It’s the economy, stupid!”
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.