Earlier Wednesday, speaking about this trade war with China, our president Donald Trump gazed at the firmament and referred to himself as “the chosen one.” Watch:
It’s hard to know exactly what he meant with this proclamation, and it’s even harder to disprove him, since the most common usage of “the chosen one” refers to a divine figure selected by some deity to accomplish a specific goal. So, yes, Trump is calling himself a messiah of sorts, but we don’t know exactly what kind of messiah. Could be a religious one, could be an economic one (there are gods of wealth, including Plutus and Mammon), could be an EVIL one.
His claim, whatever he means, is not out of the mainstream—almost half of all Republicans already believe he was chosen by God, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders agrees. Or check out this quote, from his campaign manager:
“There has never been and probably never will be a movement like this again,” Brad Parscale, the president’s campaign manager, wrote Tuesday morning on Twitter. “Only God could deliver such a savior to our nation, and only God could allow me to help. God bless America!”
Evangelicals, of course, absolutely love the guy, and the majority think of him as divinely chosen, so if Trump really believes he’s the Messiah, it might be because so many people have told him it’s true.
As for objective journalists like me, I am forced to concede that I can’t definitively answer the question of whether Trump is actually the “chosen one,” since there is really no criteria on which to evaluate the claim. Some believe that his behavior, both before and after taking the oval office, disqualify him on moral grounds, but others see him as the kind of rough-and-ready fighter who would be chosen by a god or gods to fight the difficult battles of our day. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that regardless of how this plays out, a lot of people believe it’s real, and you’re hearing it more and more, and some very good people are saying it, okay? Some very good people, I notice, and folks, who knows?! It could be true. It really could. We’ll see. We’ll see.