Donald the First?
The president’s appetite for power and its trappings is a force of nature, a modern marvel.
The thing itself is irresistible. It’s the actual power to manipulate the economy. The enchanting authority to offer and withhold. But it also extends to the optics of Dear Leadership. He has tarted up the White House in brushstrokes of gilt, especially in the sanctuary of the Oval Office. It looks more like a wedding cake from some previous decade, with the plaster details foregrounded in gold.
We are about to see the great avenues of the Capital taken over by a parade of military hardware, a Trumpian dream dating from his state trip to France. He wants to see the tanks and the missile carriers sweep before him from his perch on a reviewing stand, celebrating the anniversary of the founding of our military and, coincidentally, his 79th birthday. He was outwitted by the generals of his first godforsaken term, but there are no generals left to outwit him.
This context helps us make sense of the antics that have followed, most recently the picture of Donald Trump as Pope. You would be forgiven for imagining that it was a joke at his expense. The great ivory miter outlined in gold braid. The fine woolen capelet. The pectoral cross. It’s something that would have fronted an edition of The Onion, but, no, it was circulated by Trump himself, posted in an entry he framed out for Truth Social.
It was arguably deeply and disturbingly blasphemous. The real Pope has been dead for a minute and a half. The cardinals have not yet gathered in the Sistine Chapel. And yet here was the President in full-bore cosplay, pretending to be the leader of the Universal Church, followed by 1.4 billion believers. Imagine your Aunt Sylvia lying in her casket, decked out in her favorite red straw sun hat. An impertinent niece presents herself at the body, snatches the hat, and proclaims herself the New Sylvia. It’s just about as weird as that. People would gasp and slap her down. Such a thing should not be done.
And yet there is no stopping a juggernaut of arrogance. Trump will be Trump, regardless of circumstance, especially in a case like this. It helps to remember that one of Pope’s great superpowers is the quality of infallibility that popularly comes with his office. We exaggerate its force, and it is a fairly recent invention, but it still clings to the job description like a medal or a ribbon. A bishop may complain. A cardinal may resist, but if the Pope says it, it must be true. The diktats of the Pope carry the presumption of revealed truth, even if that is not, strictly speaking, the meaning of infallibility. For Donald Trump, this would be an orgasmic prospect.
The next time you see one of Trump’s cringy Cabinet meetings, which require that his Round Table engage in collective prostration, think of how much the president might prefer to be sitting on the actual throne of the actual St. Peter. The perfect package for Donald Trump would be political and ecclesiastical rolled into one.