When it looked like Donald Trump would never leave office after impeachment efforts failed, there were some who looked for more unconventional means. If demons had been cast out in Salem during the witch trials, then why wouldn’t such an exorcism work today?
Of course ordinary progressives had no patience for such unhinged, cabalistic ideas within their ranks. While they encouraged the most far flung charges of treasonous malfeasance, Russian collusion, and downright anarchy; and while they used the terms ‘demonic’ and ‘Satanic’ to describe the devil in the Oval Office, they had always been used metaphorically. The suggestion of actual possession, although entertained by many, was never seriously considered; but now that Trump’s maniacal, fascist insurrectionist role in the January 6th assault on the Capitol had become undeniable, traditional progressives turned to Salem.
Let’s face it, progressives said. No president has ever acted in such an insidiously, corrupting, and deceitful way. There was Presidential corruption in the past but nothing like that of Donald Trump. The man was not predictably corrupt – scheming to line his pockets like Grant and Harding; politically corrupt like Richard Nixon; or morally suspect like Clinton and Cleveland – but he was profoundly, evilly, and irrevocably corrupt.
Everything he did, every action he took smacked of turpitude. His racism, misogyny, his crass, vaudevillian disrespect for the disabled and disowned, and his cavalier notions about ‘freedom’, a code word for oppressing the poor were perfect examples of a hateful, iniquitous, diabolical character.
This was not an ordinary politician gone bad – God knows Congressmen and their claques have been cheaters, philanderers, and liars since the first days of the Republic – but a politician inseminated with the very seeds of peccable truancy. A disgracefully amoral, selfish, corrupting and corrupted man.
Once again, the growing cabal of Biblically-inspired evangelists on the progressive Left drew attention to the first act of evil – the insidious corruption of Eve by the Devil. As eloquently characterized by Milton in Paradise Lost, the Devil began his treachery in the Garden of Eden, and was thereafter the anti-Christ, disrupter of good intentions, sower of malicious wrongs.
Was Donald Trump in his incitement to riot on January 6th any different from Satan? Did he not arrogantly assume the corruptibility of ordinary men, take advantage of good, purposeful intentions, and deviously and disingenuously encourage the most anti-democratic notions and actions ever seen in the American Republic? Did he not during his presidency try to undermine the sacred institutions of the nation, eroding the separation of church and state, defiling communitarian movements of compassion and consideration, and undoing decades of social reform?
Only a man with evil intent could possibly have done all these things. One or two, perhaps, could be understood if not forgiven for errant judgement; but all of them? No, this man had to be the Devil incarnate. Milton’s Satan was a plotter, a planner, a moral insurrectionist, a brilliant observer of mankind’s weaknesses and foibles, and an implacable enemy of goodness and right behavior; and Trump was no different.
Ways and means to distract and divert the Devil’s attention are common everywhere. In Italy and Turkey among other countries, the influence of the Evil Eye is well-known, and amulets, prayers, and invocations are used every day to ward off evil and the Devil’s influence.
The Devil is not an abstraction in Christianity, but a reality – a noxious, pervasive, unholy force of temptation and disaster. His image is iconic. The faithful beseech Jesus to keep him from their doors. One of the most salient examples of the Devil’s iniquity is the Biblical story of the temptation of Jesus. Alone and meditating in the Judean desert, Jesus comes upon the Devil who tempts him with worldly gifts. “Man does not live by bread alone”, replied Jesus, rejecting the Devil’s offers and establishing the foundation for Christianity and the establishment of his Church.
The Devil is not some ephemeral force spreading throughout the world and the universe, but a concrete, identifiable, manipulating being. He exists specifically, and exorcism can cast him out. Although rare, the Catholic Church has in its records many instances of demonic possession and the exorcisms undertaken to remove it.
Today, even more than during Donald Trump’s presidency, the real Devil and the Devil Incarnate have been conflated. ‘Demonic’ and ‘Satanic’ originally used metaphorically are increasingly taken as fact. Trump is acting demonically, therefore he must be a demon, the Devil himself. Tautology or not, the truth is there for all to see. There has never been more reason to rid the country of Donald Trump.
Of course most Americans see all this as the progressive Left’s hilarious flapdoodle, expressions of a political movement which has veered into the Biblical bulrushes, whose advocates have been addled by the derailment of their righteous juggernaut, and are downright angry that Donald Trump has had the audacity to call out their Utopianism as downright fol-de-rol.
Trump to conservatives is an American hero, a Charlemagne who victoriously fought the invaders at Roncesvalles; a Charles Martel who finally and decisively defeated the Saracen invaders of France. Trump fought the forces of radical socialist deconstruction, and was stalwart and defiant against anti-republican moves to undermine the founding principles of the commonwealth.
He is not the Beast of the Capitol, the Devil of the Progressive Garden of Eden, the Corrupter, the Evil One, the Prince of Darkness.
Be that as it may. Trump supporters know that the progressive miasma will dissolve, and that their party will regain control of Congress and the White House. This confidence, and the visible decline in support for Biden whose popularity ratings have plummeted, have redlined the progressive Left. Their boilers are about to blow, but in the words of Naval Officer David Farragut spoken during the Civil War, ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead’.
The problem with exorcism is that it requires the laying on of hands, the sprinkling of holy water, and the recitation of prayers in the presence of the possessed. There have been no recorded cases of distance exorcism; so not unexpectedly the Salem cabal within the Democratic Party has begun to consider voodoo which works from afar. Haitian popular archives are filled with the stories of the dispatch of evil doers via pins and dolls.
Meanwhile Trump is unrepentant, uncontrite, and planning for another run for the Presidency. He knows that the current Washington hysteria will end and that the ill winds will blow over; and, typical of his diffidence and enjoyment of the Barnum & Bailey Washington circus, he puts his feet up, smokes a cigar, and has a good laugh.
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