Ongoing Human Support for Devine Political Endorsements
By Kevin Reed
After Trump won the 2024 election, he proclaimed he had been “saved by God to make America great again.” Prior to his own proclamation, Trump’s support base of Christian Nationalists had declared Trump “ordained by God,” especially after the assassination attempt, but prior to that as well, since they saw him as a figure akin to King Cyrus the Great from the Bible. Overall, he’s seen as God’s tool for the Kingdom of Light to vanquish “Evil” in the form of secular government and demonic control of cities and institutions.
Trump has been steadily moving towards authoritarian rule since prior to the January 6 insurrection, and it’s interesting how many other authoritarians have also claimed to be hand-picked by God, or how they use religion as a justification for their actions. Which would imply that either God has a very poor ability to pick leaders, or that the claims are simply made by the authoritarian and God was not consulted formally about any potential endorsements.
Just look at Fransisco Franco of Spain, Europe’s longest modern authoritiarian, holding control for 40 years and dying happily of old age. His success and peaceful death certainly appears to be blessed by God. But, his performance seems to point the other way. Franco declared himself “Leader of Spain by the grace of God,” and sold himself as the savior of the church in Spain. Between 1936 and his death in 1975, Franco killed estimates of up to 400,000 Spanish people that differed with him politically. Spain has over 2,000 mass graves from Franco’s rule, more than any nation currently known except Cambodia, which has ~20,000. Franco does all that and then dies peacefully of old age? Doesn’t seem like something God would endorse. Well, maybe Old Testament God.
Mussolini inspecting his troops. Unknown author, Wiki Commons.
Benito Mussolini claimed he was “sent by providence” to save Italy and return it to greatness, which sounds familiar today. He used violence throughout his life, used violence against citizens, eliminated political rivals, took authoritarian control of Italy, and used mustard gas in an unprovoked war with Ethiopia, which led to his submission to Hilter and ultimately to Italy’s inability to fight as an Axis power in WWII. Is God into that kind of stuff? Sounds more like “Satan” things to me.
To their credit, Putin, Viktor Orban, and Hitler didn’t come right out and claim divine preference. But they all use/d religious language to validate their actions.
Putin positions himself as a projector of Christian values, and has leveraged that stance into things like justification for the invasion of Ukraine Like in the USA, this is seen as a battle of Good vs Evil, where “Good” = Christianity and “Evil” = western liberalism and secular government. Is this God’s position? How do we know?
Orban talks of defending Christian Culture, Christian Democracy, and “uniting our forces” of Christianity at CPAC and other forums, talking of unity between Russia, the US, and other nations around authoritarianism and Christianity.
Hitler referred to Christianity as the “foundation of German morality,” and leveraged this concept into “Positive Christianity,” which embraced Nazi ideals. Hitler repackaged traditional Christian doctrines like the divinity of Christ and the equality of all people into Nazi ideals like anti-Semitism and Aryan supremacy.
We see a similar repacking in the US today by Christian Nationalists, with traditional Christian doctrines of peace and love being traded for concepts like “God favors wealthy people” and Christ as a warrior coming after the End Times to punish people.
Idi Amin saw himself as God’s instrument, sent by God to liberate Uganda. Amin was Muslim, but the same concept applies: “God sent me here to make this nation great.” Amin is another one who lived to ripe old age. After his dictatorship collapsed, he escaped to Saudi Arabia, where he got a house, a couple wives, and a peaceful death. Maybe God favored him after all, even after killing close to half a million Ugandans.
All of this, of course, assumes that God exists in the first place, but it’s a necessary assumption since it’s believed by those who support any given authoritarian.
Charmers Putin and Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang. Photo by Presidential Executive Office of Russia
Kim Jong Un sees himself as divinely chosen to lead North Korea. From the 1950-70s, Kim Il Sung cleverly created a whole religion around himself, saying he was a divine leader. Kim Jong Il, who ruled North Korea from 1994-2011, supposedly had supernatural powers and his power was recognized by all of Nature. I don’t know if that’s less than God or more than God or just another word for God, but it seems pretty big.
This is such an old tactic, it’s amazing that human beings still fall for it over and over again, century after century.
The Pharaohs of Egypt were themselves considered living gods ruling by divine right. Augustus of Rome declared himself the “Son of God” after he saw the deification of his predecessor Julius Caesar. He was like “Hey I can do that too!”
From the Zhou Dynasty (1050–221 BCE) onward, Chinese emperors declared themselves divinely sanctioned per an unchallengeable “Mandate of Heaven,” which is pretty convenient if nobody can challenge it. Interestingly though, this heavenly blessing was conditional on performance. And the criteria were pretty good. If the emperor became unjust, corrupt, or failed to maintain harmony, he might be removed via a rebellion and dynasty change. So at least there was something built in there to help ensure better outcomes. Over 2,000 years, this has led to mixed results.
There’s a bunch more. Alexander the Great, various Japanese emperors, Charlemagne, King Louis XIV of France, and a bunch of Russian Czars, especially under the Orthodox Church, were seen as God's anointed rulers.
Manuel Noriega had an interesting twist on the theme. He found God after he’d lost his dictatorship and was in prison when he converted to evangelical Christianity, citing that his downfall and imprisonment were part of God’s plan. After he was baptized in prison, he claimed he was then “forgiven by God.” That makes Noriega the only modern authoritarian to get anywhere near the spirit of the teachings of Christ, it would seem, anyway.
You’d think, at some point, humans would get it. If God is endorsing leaders like these, he’s not doing a very good job. So, either God doesn’t exist and is not picking anyone, or God has really bad “leader vibes” and is not all-knowing (or perhaps he’s working in mysterious ways), or these leaders are just making it all up.
But really, none of those options are very good. So, maybe, as humans, we should stop this practice.
