Trump’s divine power

In many ways, Trump’s performance at his second inauguration was unexceptional. It was Trump as we know him. Maybe a bit more restrained at times than during his own rallies, but content-wise, he delivered what was expected of him by his friends and enemies. Promising to Make America Great Again, he touched upon all the controversial topics that he knew would get him the attention he desires, and more importantly the recognition he needs from his followers. But in other, maybe more implicit ways, his discourse was exceptional. Exceptional from a democratic point of view that is. Trump  spoke as a true roi soleil ushering in a new golden age, as somebody who had just received divine power. Power that will pour ‘sunlight (..) over the entire world’.

Claiming divine power 

Emblematic for this divine power is how his ‘claims’ assume that he has absolute power. The whole speech can be read as a seemingly endless incantation of (bold and even bolder) claims. And the credibility of those claims – the audience is led to believe – seemingly comes from the fact that Trump has now received ‘the power’. The performative power of his words is thus located in this newly acquired function. His claims are seen to be meaningful because they are spoken in the Capitol as the elected President. This is a view many, even Democratic observers, will assign to his discourse. That presidents make claims is not exceptional and not many commentators have had something to say about that endless series of claims. 

What does make Trump’s claims exceptional is (1) the sheer number of claims, (2) the scale of the claims and (3) the temporality of his claims, (4) the massive scope of the claims and (5) the fact that the claims are embedded in a religion pattern of thinking. Trump’s 'Golden Age of America begins right now’ – not tomorrow or next month, but now. And that ‘Golden Age’ is not about details, it is about re-establishing ‘American superiority’ in the world, and at home. 

“From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. 

We will be the envy of every nation, and 

we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. 

During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first. 

Our sovereignty will be reclaimed. 

Our safety will be restored. 

The scales of justice will be rebalanced. 

The vicious, violent and unfair weaponization of the Justice Department and our government will end. 

And our top priority will be to create a nation that is proud, prosperous and free.”

In this opening paragraph alone, we see classic political speech with the poetic characteristics we now all associate with Trump. Not only do we see very effective use of the plural speech act ‘we’ (immediately contrasting 'us' from 'them'), further stressed by the repetition of concepts like ‘our country’, 'America' and 'a nation'. We also see, in the beginning of the second stanza, how the future of the nation depends on Trump: 'we’ will be saved by Trump alone, by Trump himself putting America first. 

More striking though, is how the whole speech centers around claims. And not any claims, but sweeping claims covering a vast number of changes. This introduction was only the beginning, the first paragraph of his speech. After this the people were promised that he would make the government ‘performant’ in dealing with natural crises, eradicating corruption, fixing the public health system, giving people ‘their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and indeed, their freedom’ back, renaming mountains, ending the 'woke' lunacy, and conquering Mars. The latter made Elon Musk glow like a six year old boy getting his dream present from Santa. Note that nowhere did Trump make even the slightest attempt to explain the steps whereby this new age of triumph would be created, except by the fact he now is elected. The fact that he is making the claims is enough, at least among his fans. None of the democrats were enchanted by his spells. When Trump claimed that he would rename the Gulf of Mexico, he got applause from his carefully selected crew, but he was laughed at by Hillary Clinton.

In other words, through his speech Trump created the message that his inauguration invested in him the absolute power to bring about absolute change. And that power is not only given to him by ‘the people’ through the elections and the inauguration, but more importantly also by God himself: 'I was saved by God to make America great again’, he told the world. This providence trope has, since the attempts on his life, become a central part of his message. People like Tucker Carlson repeated many times that the fact that he survived made him the chosen leader, not so much by the people, but by God. Trump, we are let to believe, is doing nothing less than God’s work.  

Dictator or liberator

This series of claims can only be believable if the listeners either (1) believe Trump is a dictator, and thus he has actually acquired absolute power, or (2) do not have a proper understanding of the complexity of a working democracy. In both cases, democracy itself is at stake. In democracies there is no room for such an absolute, divine power. Democratic power is by design not located in one person. On the contrary, one of the essential characteristics of democracy is the separation of powers. In a democracy there are checks and balances, walls installed between the legislative, executive and judiciary power, between church and state, between public and private. These walls create the famous liberties that enable counter-powers and the respect for Universal Human Rights, and the limits on what is possible and what is not. And this also limits what a president can actually do. Trump thus does not have the power to revolutionize the US, take over the Panama Canal and invade Greenland. At least, not in a democracy.

Trump’s notion of liberation and democracy should not be understood in the tradition of a secular religion, but in the tradition of Christian nationalism. 

That brings us back to the notion of the dictator. This notion of Trump as a new dictator was central in Biden’s negative message campaign. Everyone remembers the black and white pictures where Trump was physically made to look like Hitler. It is safe to say that this campaign didn’t work. Trump is not seen as ‘a dictator’ by his followers - on the contrary, he successfully portrays himself as a liberator, as a man who works relentlessly for the people. For all Americans. He presents himself as the man fighting the 'corrupt’ establishment. Even more, he portrays himself as the victim of that establishment. All the lawsuits against him have become proof of the ‘evil’ of the other side. In Trump’s world, it is the Democrats, the judges, the legacy media and even the FBI that are the enemies. In this sense, we can now understand how he can claim that, “For American citizens, Jan. 20th, 2025 is Liberation Day.”

Trump has mobilized his fanbase against the corrupt government, against the deep state. Democracy itself, with all its institutions, is portrayed as corrupt, and thus as inherently problematic. Trump’s enemies are the liberal elites, it is them that have betrayed the people. And Trump himself is proof of it: ‘My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all of these many betrayals that have taken place and to give the people back their faith, their wealth, their democracy, and, indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over.’

Trump’s notion of liberation and democracy should not be understood in the tradition of a secular religion, but in the tradition of Christian nationalism. Trump doesn’t present himself in the tradition of worldly presidents, but in a religious tradition. He is a liberator of the nation, just like Christ was the liberator of humankind. The decline of the US is thus the result of the elites that work against God’s ways. The election of messianic Trump ends this, and that is why the liberation of the nation starts the moment he is inaugurated. 

A culture of claims

Now back to the series of claims during his inaugural speech. The sheer number of claims creates a kind of incantation. Trump seems to produce magic spells, that will immediately change the world. Not tomorrow, but today. And he can do this, because of who he is. When Trump declares that from now on ‘there are only two genders: male and female’ or that the name of the Gulf of Mexico is now changed in the Gulf of America or Mount Denali is rebaptised Mount McKinley, all testify to this enormous belief in the power of his own claims. And this belief is shared – at the very least among his believers. To them his claims have absolute power. 

Ico Maly

You could see that in the absolute childish joy in Musk’s eyes. He actually believed that we would now conquer Mars, and posted a whole series of X posts presenting himself as the conqueror of Mars. But you could also witness this belief in Trump’s claims all over social media. Elon Musk reposted many pro-Trump posts celebrating the new age that they believe had finally arrived. One example is the retweet from life coach and Trump fan Kaizen D. Asiedu (see image 1). In the tweet, we see how Kaizen D. Asiedu assigns absolute power to Trump’s words: what he said, is enough to bring America back. No proof is necessary, but also no questions are asked. The identity of the speaker and the making of the claims are clearly ‘enough’ to make it believable. 

Trump creates a world where his will is law. Where he has absolute divine power: It is Trump himself – saved by God - that will make sure that the nation will be reborn once more.

The US is in decline, and Trump brings hope just like Christ did for the chosen people. If we read his speech from a worldly perspective we can read it as a collection of promises to the different niches he addressed during the election campaign. 

“As our victory showed, the entire nation is rapidly unifying behind our agenda with dramatic increases in support from virtually every element of our society, young and old, men and women, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, urban, suburban, rural and very importantly, we had a powerful win in all seven swing states, and the popular vote we won by millions of people.” 

All groups, from the poor and the excluded to the tech right billionaires like Musk: they all got their promises during the campaign, and their magic claim in the inaugural address. But underneath that all too worldly world of message politics, we see a religious pattern. Just like those praying to God in the hope God hears their pleas, Trump assured all those people that he had felt  'their love’ and heard ‘their voices’, and that he would not forget them. It is in this realm that claims do not need a worldly explanation of how to do things. They will happen because He wants them to happen. Trump can bring hope, because we increasingly live in a culture of claims and opinions. In such a culture, there is no difference between the claim and the truth, between the claim and the complex reality of realizing that claim. The world of alternative facts is now a massive socio-cultural force. Combine this with the hardship of life, and the wish for a strong man, a saviour, gains traction. It is also in this world created by a Christian nationalism that Trump can present himself as a peacemaker, while at the same time he proud shows himself as an imperial actor.

Enchanted publics 

Instead of focusing on details, his ludicrous proposals, or if this or that is believable, we need to focus on/understand the ‘magic’ of Trump’s discourse. Trump may provide his base with snake oil, but clearly this snake oil succeeds in bringing together groups from many different classes and cultural niches in society. This unification centers around a common enemy. And that common enemy is the establishment (the globalists, the liberals, the left …). Trump is very explicit about that enemy: ‘For many years, a radical and corrupt establishment has extracted power and wealth from our citizens.' The establishment is accused of organizing the decline of the US as nation, destroying the state as a provider of health care, crisis management, decent jobs and good education for the people. But above all, it has destroyed ‘the American Dream’.

Ico Maly

This is what Trump gives his fanbase: the chance to dream again. A dream of that Golden Age, of actual freedom and the end of all their problems. The only thing that they need to do is to believe in that dream, and in the power of their saviour to beat the devil. The signing of the executive orders after his inauguration is emblematic. His signature seems to have magic powers: not only to sign the documents, but to immediately change the world. Literally with the stroke of a pen, Trump is presenting himself to his audience as all powerful. And the MAGA supporters are ecstatic when he throws the 'magic' pens with which signed the orders into the crowd. 

Trump creates a world where his will is law. Where he has absolute divine power: It is Trump himself – saved by God - that will make sure that the nation will be reborn once more. Finally the savior has arrived. In a world were rationality is associated with looking down on the hardships of life, it shouldn’t surprise us that magical thinking is increasingly popular, especially when it recognizes the hardship in your life, provides you with a clear enemy, and gives you hope for a brighter future. In complex times, people need a messiah and a clear enemy. Trump provides this brilliantly. 

The saviour will create Heaven on Earth. A new America is reborn out of the old ashes. This palingenetic creed of rebirth is emblematic for all ultranationalist discourses. It is also what connects him to far-right movements and parties all over the world, most of them present in the Capitol itself during the inauguration (note that the common people, his fans, were not allowed to share this moment with him in the Capitol). Of course, if that rebirth doesn’t occur, it will be the fault of ‘the other’, the establishment of the deep state that works against the hand of God. Which in turn will prove that it is necessary to abolish, amend and destroy the walls of democracy. And this is the real performative power of his discourse: it destroys the democratic ideology and in the end, also its structures and walls of separation.