Just in time for Easter, cash-strapped Donald Trump’s new moneymaking scheme is a “God Bless the USA” Bible that, according to its sales website, is the only version endorsed by the former president. For anyone who believes that the holy book is the complete and infallible word of God (as Trump’s target audience claims to), Trump and his sidekick, country singer Lee Greenwood, have supplemented this very special edition with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and the chorus lyrics to Greenwood’s alternative MAGA national anthem, “God Bless the USA.”
Like all Trump merchandising schemes, this one is cringey and tacky and represents the greed, the grift and the grotesque that’s wrong with Trumpism. The God Bless the USA Bible is obviously and squarely aimed at Trump’s existing base of true believers. But it is also attempting to hide, in soft-focus God-and-country pabulum, Trump’s more sinister goals of exacting revenge and obliterating the rights and freedoms of anyone who is not on board with him ruling America with an iron fist, with the Christian right at his side.
Trump knows that his supporters believe God ordained America as a Christian nation.
The people most likely to want a Trump-branded Bible, presented with a blasphemous kitsch factor on par with a Jesus bobblehead, are Trump’s evangelical base. Surely Trump knows that most of them already have their own Bibles, but he’s counting on a good chunk of them forking over $59.99 (plus shipping) to have a version of God’s word endorsed by the arbiter of the “correct” or “only” Bible: the person they admire as much as or more than Jesus himself.
Such customers are also unlikely to object to the glaring sacrilege of licensing his image to sell Bibles for quick cash. Nor will they mind that the cash crunch is fueled by civil judgments holding him liable for sexual abuse, defamation and fraud. (The God Bless the USA Bible website insists that none of the proceeds will go to the Trump campaign, but rather that it “uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC,” which is, although the website doesn’t disclose it, a Trump-affiliated company.) White evangelicals, Trump’s most loyal followers, are unbothered by his legal travails. The fact that Trump is facing multiple civil and criminal trials is proof not of any wrongdoing, but of his persecution by malevolent forces.
Out of curiosity, I put one of the Bibles in an online shopping cart, and was promptly offered add-ons of a Lee Greenwood “God Bless the USA” 40th Anniversary Coin (also $59.99) and a “Make America Pray Again” hat (discounted from $30 to $25). While these low, low prices weren’t quite generous enough to sway me, they were a reminder that Trump and his supporters really do want to make the rest of us do what they want.
Trump knows that his supporters believe God ordained America as a Christian nation. They believe they are waging a spiritual war (both at Trump’s direction and on his behalf) to wrest a demeaned nation back from Joe Biden, the “deep state” and the Democratic Party, which Trump portrays as anti-American and, importantly, anti-Christian. Trump’s base believes they are fighting with him and for him, and that he is fighting with them and for them, to restore a country where everyone must have an all-in-one King James Version Bible, founding documents, and a patriotic song that has become synonymous with Trump. All for $59.99 plus shipping.
In his Truth Social post promoting the venture, Trump described the Bible as his “favorite” book. It’s true that lately, as compared to his evident lack of familiarity with the book when he first ran in 2016, he has become more enamored of citing its contents. Recently, he posted about a note he’d received from a supporter who cited Psalm 109, a passage about praying for vengeance against enemies. “It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you,” Trump said his correspondent wrote. “But have you seen this verse…?”
Trump has successfully conflated his supposed persecution with the supposed persecution of Christians in America.
Beyond the problematic likening of a civil fraud judgment to the persecution of Jesus, the former president’s obvious pleasure at receiving this note points to how he really sees his Bible ad. For Trump, the election is about him avoiding legal liability for myriad crimes, including attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. He views returning to office as an opportunity for retaliation on a massive scale.
Because Trump has successfully conflated his supposed persecution with the supposed persecution of Christians in America, he can count on his base to support him as long as he pushes its theocratic agenda. Their toxic alliance is a threat to everyone else’s freedom — LGBTQ people, immigrants, non-Christians, anti-Christian nationalist Christians, women, academics, scientists, Trump critics and more. His endorsement of the God Bless the USA Bible signals not piety or patriotism but retribution.