Reagan’s Big Tent Party Is Now Trump’s Big Tent Revival
The Lord is everywhere at the Republican convention, wearing a bandage on his ear.
Prior to the attempt on Donald Trump’s life at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, the Republican convention didn’t look like it was going to be an all-out religious affair, as common as that has become for conservative gatherings. In fact, it looked downright secular.
The original preview of speakers featured a single actual religious leader: pastor Franklin Graham, son of Billy. There were a few other quasi-religious figures listed, but ones whose roles are better understood primarily in terms of political advocacy or entertainment, like Republican Jewish Coalition CEO Matt Brooks and one-hit-wonder-turned-Biblemonger Lee Greenwood.
What can only be described as “bro culture” was instead ascendant. Graham’s presence on the speaker list seemed a bit tokenish when considered alongside the rest of the roster, which included video vixen Amber Rose, UFC CEO Dana White, pro-wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, reality TV personality Savannah Chrisley, and a group of fraternity brothers from the University of North Carolina.
But that speaker preview list (as published by CNN) was released last Saturday, roughly an hour and a half before a bloodied Trump raised his fist to rally goers. The attempt on his life changed everything, including the thematic core of the convention.
Since arriving in Milwaukee, I’ve heard convention attendees and speakers articulate a position that many Charismatic and Pentecostal Christians have held since early 2016: Trump was sent by God to carry out his will.
On the first night of the convention, Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) offered these remarks with a classic visiting-revivalist-preacher cadence to set the religious tone for the week:
If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now! Thank God almighty that we live in a country that still believes in the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, the Alpha and the Omega! And our God—our God still saves. He still delivers, and he still sets free. Because on Saturday, the Devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle. But an American lion got back up on his feet, and he roared!
That last word is one that Scott said with an actual roar of his own, prompting cheering and reverently bowed heads in the audience.
Linda Fornos, an immigrant from Nicaragua, delivered a speech that focused on her struggle paying for groceries and other necessities in the “Biden’s economy.” With a wry tone, Fornos acknowledged that in 2020, she “made a mistake. A mistake that is hard to admit, especially in this room.” She’d cast her ballot that year for Biden.
Some laughed at this confession, and some booed—all in the spirit of the disclosure—but many delegates and attendees on the floor sounded quite earnest as they repeatedly shouted, “We forgive you!” Fornos was being washed of the greatest sin in modern Republican politics: working with or supporting the Democrats.
Amber Rose cut the figure of a face-tattooed Paul on the Damascus Road. The OnlyFans model and pioneer of the Los Angeles “Slut Walk” declared, “The truth is that the media has lied to us about Donald Trump. I know this because, for a long time, I believed those lies.”
Rose’s presence put a perplexed look on the faces of many attendees. But as with Fornos, her confession—of having previously opposed Trump—was taken as an act of contrition before the crowd, and they didn’t hesitate to offer her cheers of absolution.
Outside of the Fiserv Forum, the blending of politics and religion was happening all over the convention’s campus.
Jack Posobiec, a leading promoter of the PizzaGate conspiracy theory that prompted a deranged man to shoot up a restaurant, offered a bit of folk Biblical numerology, relating the shooting’s time of 6:11 p.m. to Ephesians 6:11—the verse that calls believers to “put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the devil.”
As for country music singer Lee Greenwood, he announced Wednesday that he would be conducting a Bible signing. Greenwood was also there to sell pre-autographed copies of the God Bless the USA Bible, the product of a partnership between him and Trump that pairs the text of scripture (only available in an Apocrypha-free KJV edition) with various U.S. founding documents.1 Buyer beware: The $75 price tag in Milwaukee reflects a 25 percent increase from the original $59.99.
But fears set in that Greenwood wasn’t going to show for his own signing. By the time he walked into the convention hall—almost two hours after he said he would start—the line had thinned and been displaced by a new crowd waiting for a different event. I was one of the Bible signing hangers-on and had watched attendees become irate and exhausted. A group of older ladies from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina removed their sequined and red-lacquered pumps to alleviate the pain of standing for such a long period. A man visiting from Hawaii abandoned the line because he already had a copy of the Trump-Greenwood Bible and was content to go without the autograph.
The purpose of waiting around for Greenwood—for me, at least—was revealed late.2 Down the hall from the tired queue, I spotted Vince Fusca, a regular Trump rally attendee who was visible in sunglasses and fedora behind the former president during the assassination attempt on Saturday. Fusca is a Trump superfan, and many QAnon followers believe he is the late John F. Kennedy Jr. in disguise.3
When I asked him about his experience at the shooting, he likened the scene to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ:
You know, it's a cliché. There was an intervention . . .
It was like a resurrection, from my perspective. What I saw was the president collapse, multiple shots, Secret Service arriving. The president collapses, he’s not moving—not even an eighth of an inch—and I thought he was gone. Secret Service jumps on stage to form a dome, a shield on top of him. I knew right then and there that I knew—I was sure—our president was gone.
And then when the Secret Service unpeeled off the top of the president, and helped him to walk off the stage, it was then I had seen the Resurrection—from my perspective.
Then he started like this—[Fusca raises his fist] “Fight”—everybody in the back, the patriots, are going, “We love Trump!” with such a rage, you know?
These themes and even the attempts to see Trump as a religious figure are not new to the Republican party. They’re actually quite common. Trump has made the comparison to Jesus himself, suggesting that being prosecuted for covering up hush money payments to the porn star with whom he committed adultery was basically akin to the treatment Christ received at the hands of Roman soldiers during Holy Week.
Republican candidates and activists often try to sell synthetic blends of faith and politics. It’s a move that makes the political cause seem greater and more consequential—that its significance is eternal, not temporal. The assassination attempt against Trump sent this tendency into hyperdrive.
The Hero We Didn’t Know We Needed
Surprisingly few viral clips have come out of this convention. But the one that everyone seems to have shared (or watched on a loop) captures the moment Richard Porter, national committeeman of the Republican Party of Illinois, told Rep. Matt Gaetz to not be “an asshole” as the Florida man taunted and disrupted ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy while he was doing a CNN interview on the convention floor.
We tracked down Porter last night to talk about the exchange and why everyone seemed to revel in his dressing-down of Gaetz.
It was a spontaneous thing. What happened was Matt sort of rushed in and pushed people aside. There was kind of a gaggle around McCarthy as he was speaking to a CNN reporter. And sort of barged right through, tossing people aside. And then just started talking smack, which was totally unnecessary and completely inconsistent with what we are here for. I was disturbed by his rudeness and just told him what I thought.
He went on from there:
One of the challenges we have as a party is that there are some people who try to establish their bonafides as Republicans by tearing down other Republicans. And that’s just not what it ought to be. There is nothing Mike Johnson is doing that Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t be doing. . . . That [ousting McCarthy] was a completely sham exercise for personal aggrandizement.
Corrections (Thursday, July 18, 6:30 p.m. EDT): The original version of this article incorrectly stated that a CNN article was posted half an hour before the attempted assassination of former President Trump; the article was posted roughly an hour and a half before. Also, two references to Jack Posobiec’s citation of Ephesians 6:11 have been clarified: A reference to “listeners” has been deleted (as this was not a recording of Posobiec’s, but a written post) and an extraneous mention of his “preferred translation” has been removed. Finally, a change in price from $59.99 to $75 is an increase of 25 percent, not 50 percent. We regret the errors.
Political addenda plus a country star’s autograph: So much for “Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.”
God’s plan?
JFK Jr. was 6’1’’; in heeled shoes, Fusca stands at my shoulders. The two men also look nothing alike. I’m getting the sense that QAnon believers haven’t thought this one through.
Do any of those worshipers of the divine sign that "He" saved TFG ever wonder why "He" did not think it necessary to save the father who was protecting is family (not being buried under a phalanx of agents), or the two other attendees who were wounded? And any bets that that "bandage" is a folded piece of gauge that sliips on and off whenever he is not in the public eye?
People who think "God saved him" are freakin' gross. What about the man who actually died? What about the children in Uvalde, or Stoneman Douglas, or Sandy Hook? Guess "God' didn't protect them. I HATE people who say that kind of crap.