The Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of MAGA

Scamming the faithful while living the high life

I know I’ve said this before, but if the MAGA Faithful don’t like it when others label them a cult, maybe it’s time to stop acting like a cult.

Sweet merciful Zeus, what on earth is this?

To all my family and friends, if you ever see me behaving this way about any politician -- or anybody for that matter -- you have my permission to stage an intervention.

Trump is not Jesus.

You would think that is blindingly obvious.

Then again, Trump Derangement Syndrome affects people differently.

For some, TDS causes them to think Trump is the modern-day Hitler who will round up illegal immigrants and gays and put them in camps.

For others, TDS causes them to think Trump is the earthly embodiment of Jesus, able to walk on water and take on the sins of the world.

This is why when Jesus was on the cross dying for our sins, he said, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

Wait….

No.

This isn’t the first time Christians have mistakenly followed a fraud who exploited their faith to enrich himself.

If anything, it is more fitting to compare Donald Trump to a grifting televangelist than to the Savior.

Donald Trump and doting sycophant Kari Lake are the Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker of the MAGA movement, scamming retirees and grandmas out of their money while living like royalty.

It’s low-class exploitation.

But just as it was in the case of Jim and Tammy Faye, there are plenty of gullible marks who don’t think twice about donating to Trump’s legal fees or forking over cash for Kari’s quixotic “legal” battle to undo the humiliating electoral defeat of her own making.

As the old saying goes, there’s a sucker born every minute.

This kind of low-rent ickiness of believing a politician is heaven-sent has always made my skin crawl.

Remember the way they deified Barack Obama?

In a June 2009 interview on MSNBC, Newsweek editor Evan Thomas told host Chris Matthews:

“In a way, Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of God. He’s going to bring all different sides together.”

Then there was Lawrence Carter, the dean of Morehouse College’s Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel.

In a November 29, 2008 Chicago Tribune article titled, “Some see God’s will in Obama win,” Carter is quoted saying:

"It is powerful and significant on a spiritual level that there is the emergence of Barack Obama 40 years after the passing of Dr. King," said Carter. "No one saw him coming, and Christians believe God comes at us from strange angles and places we don't expect, like Jesus being born in a manger."

The people who once rightly mocked such grandiose comparisons are now busy creating and retweeting AI-generated images of Donald Trump as Jesus’ right-hand man.

But the MAGA movement, with its cult of personality, is fertile ground for this kind of exploitation.

Grifters looking to make off like bandits would be fools not to exploit those whose devotion to Trump is so deep that they believe God sent him to save them.

Trump knows the MAGA faithful are ripe for the picking. It’s why he says things like this:

Ah, yes, my friends. Donald Trump, pure as the wind-driven snow, is only being indicted to take onto himself the sins of the world. So go to Save America dot com and generously give from your heart.

If Trump was like Jesus, he wouldn’t need his followers to cough up millions for legal fees. Instead, he would plead guilty and happily go to jail.

But Trump isn’t Jesus. He’s Jim Bakker, crying like a bitch as he is led away in handcuffs after being indicted for mail and wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the public.

The grift is all that matters to MAGA Jim and Tammy Faye.

Not you.

Not the Republic.

Not America’s greatness.

And if anyone believes otherwise, I pray that there are loving friends and family members who are willing to stage an intervention.