President Donald Trump has a ‘messiah complex,’ according to experts that Politico spoke with.
The outlet’s Michael Kruse asked, “Does Trump … think he’s God? OK, he almost certainly doesn’t think he’s God — but does he think he’s … God-like?” Or is Trump just “seizing an opportunity to stamp his world-upending agenda with the ultimate justification — a mandate from God?”
“[Trump’s] political career depended on a hunger among his most dedicated supporters that can only be called spiritual,” Molly Worthen, a history professor at the University of North Carolina and an expert on the intersection of religion, culture and politics, wrote in her book Spellbound.
Worthen went on to tell Kruse, “He’s a nihilist for whom the only source of meaning is the amassing of personal power, turning his will into personal, political, financial, and territorial domination, and that’s totally compatible with a messiah complex.”
Professor of philosophy at the University of New England, David Livingstone Smith, said Trump is an “authoritarian leader [who] presents himself as a divine or messianic figure who is uniquely able to vanquish the forces of evil and make the world safe for the faithful.”
He later added, “Trump is a sacred leader. His evangelical followers often refer to him as a ‘savior’ or ‘anointed one’ chosen by God.”
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Tim O’Brien wrote Trump's Biography in 2005. He believes claims Trump won the first presidency off The Apprentice. “[Trump] was a great dealmaker and an entrepreneurial guru as opposed to a serial bankruptcy artist and stumble----.” However his second win, O’Brien believes, “he got reelected in part on [being seen as] ‘the chosen one who survived the assassination attempt at Butler.’”
“No previous president in American history has claimed that he was saved by God to enact his political agenda,” Jen Mercieca, the rhetoric expert, recently wrote. “Invoking the power of the unified people and God gives Trump an awesome and unquestionable power — whoever defies Trump is at risk of defying the people and God. It’s impossible to argue against Trump when he claims the power of God.”
Kruse asked the White house if Trump actually feels “that he’s literally on a mission from God?”
White House communications director Steven Cheung, “As people of faith, we are all on missions from God,” Cheung responded. “The President has the biggest mission — to Make America Great Again and to help bring peace across the world. And he’s doing just that.”
