The Book Of Donald (4/4)
Son of Billy
Previously:
Chapter One: A Kremlin miracle
Chapter Two: The louche messiah
Chapter Three: Hoping for the best
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America’s religious leaders were bewildered and discouraged. God had clearly chosen Donald Trump to become the US president, yet folly and failure clung to him. The Coronavirus pandemic should have been his moment to rise up and emerge as possibly the greatest American president of the 21st Century, but he instead shrank from the challenge of guiding the nation to victory over its enemy, offering fatuous platitudes in place of leadership.
Would God finally animate Donald with his Holy Spirit at this crucial time, they wondered. For every religious person knew that only the hand of God could overcome the president’s natural cowardice and selfishness. Surely, this crisis had to be the moment when God would use his servant Donald to rescue America, yet He withheld his blessing.
Toward the end of Donald’s term in office, America’s holiest men and women gathered at Liberty University, in a secret chamber where they prayed for understanding. Vice President Michael Pence; and White House Spiritual Advisor Paula White; and their host, Jerry Falwell Junior; with Franklin Graham, Son of Billy; and Jim Bakker of the Food Buckets; and twelve other Televangelical Saints. All of them came together to decipher God’s plan for Donald Trump and America.
They were of two persuasions. Some believed that the Lord had abandoned Donald; he had contracted Covid, they argued, from which God would certainly protect a spiritual champion. Others believed that his recovery from the plague implied that Divine Providence remained active in Donald’s life.
They purified the place; Paula White bound the demons and Jerry Junior cast them out. All prayed with one voice: “O God, creator of Heaven and Earth,” they cried. “Time runs short as we speak. The pandemic spreads unimpeded. America is failing. We beseech you: ennoble your servant, our great President Donald Trump immediately. Raise him up and consecrate him to your sacred heart so that he might lead us out of this catastrophe for your son Jesus Christ’s sake. Upon his holy blood we implore you, O Lord.”
And lo, one among them began to speak in tongues, and Veep Michael recognized it as Aramaic, the very language spoken by the Son of God.
And thus did this one establish his bona fides before switching to English, the language of America and all else that today is holy and good. And Our Lord’s servant said unto them, “Hear me now brothers and sisters and understand. For I tell you that the Lord God Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth, who speaks through me, his most humble and unworthy servant, is filled with Divine Anger and Urgency to do Justice.”
And this one looked directly at Franklin Graham, Son of Billy, who, shortly after the 2016 election, said publicly that God had brought about Donald’s election: “I could sense, going across the country, that God was going to do something this year. And I believe that at this election, God showed up.” He was among the first Americans to perceive the Almighty’s role.
And this one addressed him, saying, “Franklin, Son of Billy, you knew from the outset that Donald would be my instrument. Your instincts were right.”
And Franklin interrupted, burbling with happiness, saying “I am overjoyed that God Almighty has seen fit to recognize my contribution toward His plan for Donald Trump and America.”
And the servant of the Lord rounded on him, bellowing in anger: “Silence, gibbering imbecile! I am the Lord your God, Creator of Heaven and Earth; I need no ‘contribution’ from the likes of you. Every one of you saw what I did, and not one of you can fathom why I did it, you proud, impudent wretches!”
And when the other holy men and women heard these violent and unexpected words, they were astonished and each grew frightened, and they knelt in anxious submission.
And this one continued, the Lord God speaking through him: “You dare imagine that I lifted up Donald Trump as I did Cyrus, to bring blessings upon my people. You commit blasphemy against me!”
And they trembled at the word.
“I chose Donald Trump to be my scourge, my curse, my punishment upon the United States. For I have judged the American people: materialistic, impious, and filled with ethnic hatred and contempt for the poor.
“You enslaved my beloved African children and divided their families and traded them as commodities, and I wept. After Emancipation, you enacted Black Codes and Jim Crow laws and lynchings to make freedmen suffer like their fathers. Slavery is an evil beyond redemption. You injure my children even now; your police murder them and they rarely find justice. To this day, you refuse to acknowledge this unclean national institution that contaminates every one of you, yet you boast of your advanced civilization. You glow with pride, and I despise you.
When you treated your own women as chattel, you beamed with self regard and I despised you.
When you exterminated the indigenous families of this continent and believed you had done good, I despised you.
When you libeled and shunned the Children of Israel, my beloved, you laughed like dolts and I despised you.
When you libeled and harmed the Children of Ishmael, my beloved, you congratulated yourselves and I despised you.
When you libeled and rejected my Church in Rome, established by Peter himself, the individual I chose, you grinned with satisfaction and I despised you.
When you treated your Mexican neighbors as enemies, atomizing their families and abusing their children, you celebrated blithely, and I despised you.
“Now, you shall suffer as your neighbor suffered. I shall make you Canada’s Mexico. Sickness shall descend on you like a blanket; and your precious economy will decay; and your people shall sneak across the border in darkness, begging to escape this moral wasteland.
“I lifted up Donald John Trump, a prattling nincompoop, to the highest federal office so that he could fail spectacularly when America was most in need of a devoted, selfless, courageous champion. I raised up the likes of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Marshall, and Dwight Eisenhower to rescue your fathers in their hours of need, and you dared think I had done so again. I brought Donald, the living punchline, down upon you. That useless lump of self-loathing flesh, wandering the White House corridors at night in a half-open bathrobe muttering to himself— your own president, Ha! — Donald John Trump, the corroded emblem of my Loathing and the instrument of my Wrath.
And the holy men and women cried out together: “Lord, we meant no offense; we sought only to follow You. We were ignorant, even brainwashed. We believed that America is a holy place — a New Jerusalem; a Heaven on Earth; a shining city on a hill. We believed that we are your chosen people. None of this is our fault. We beg You, let us make amends; let us repent, and, with divine guidance, seek reconciliation with You and make America whole again in Jesus Christ’s name!”
But the Lord was unmoved. “You cannot make my beloved children whole. I cradle them in my Sacred Heart, blissful for all eternity, but they lived, and often died, in pain and need, in confusion and indignity, at your hands and the hands of your fathers. I gave you a thousand chances to redeem yourselves and you rejected every one. Your clock has run out. It is too late for repentance. The virus is now uncontrollable and mutating: Donald’s toxic influence has accomplished my ends. Your sentence has begun.
And with one final, deafening command, the Lord God Almighty, creator of Heaven and Earth roared: “Fuck Penance! Fuck Reconciliation! Fuck America! Let Justice be done!”
And there were flashes of lightning and peals of thunder; and seven Tongues of Fire representing the seven Spirits of God hovered among the Televangelical Saints, but not for long. Soon there fell a black, nauseating silence, broken occasionally by soft whimpering and the gnashing of teeth, with a barely-perceptible rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, arranged for calliope and kazoo, playing relentlessly in the distance.
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