A friend recovers from Trump Enchantment Syndrome
(RNS) — Last Sunday, I went to the excellent Lessons and Carols service at the Episcopal Church down the street and later was telling an Episcopalian friend who’s been something of a Trumper how much I’d enjoyed it.
“That’s nice,” he said. “By the way, I want you to know I’ve gotten over my TES.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Trump Enchantment Syndrome,” he explained. “It’s kind of the opposite of Trump Derangement Syndrome, only worse. Now I’m totally disenchanted. And Lessons and Carols is partly responsible.”
“How so?”
“Well, there’s been this MAGA meme about President Trump being a latter-day Cyrus — the pagan king who God calls his anointed one for letting the Jews come back from Babylon and rebuild their Temple. I think they picked the wrong king from the Bible.”
“Who’s the right one?” I asked.
“That’s where Lessons and Carols comes in. I’ve been thinking about the reading from Matthew where King Herod orders the three wise men to report back to him from Bethlehem when they’ve found the child who was born to be King of the Jews — so that, he says, he can go worship him himself. The wise men are warned in a dream not to, and after visiting Mary and Jesus, they go home by another route. So Herod, who can’t stand the thought of anyone else being King of the Jews, has all the boys in Bethlehem under 2 years old killed. That’s called the Massacre of the Innocents. Sounds like Trump to me.”
“Massacre of the Innocents” by Peter Paul Rubens, circa 1610–11. (Image courtesy of Wikipedia/Art Gallery of Ontario/Creative Commons)
“When has Trump massacred innocents?”
“The guys on the boats in the Caribbean,” he said.
“But they’re narco-terrorists.”
“How do we know? Have any drugs been recovered? And what’s a narco-terrorist anyway? Aren’t drug traffickers innocent until proven guilty?”
Screen grab of a video posted to X by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, showing what is described as a boat carrying drugs from Venezuela. (Video screen grab)
“Last I checked,” I replied. “I guess you could add in the thousands of kids in Africa who died when Trump halted funding for Bush’s AIDS relief program.”
“Good point. But here’s the thing. Like Trump, Herod was a real estate guy, totally into gigantic, gold-encrusted buildings. Trump’s huge White House ballroom is like Herod’s huge rebuilt Temple. Like Herod, Trump had all these wives, and miscellaneous children. Herod killed a bunch of them, kind of the way Trump dumped his old wives.”
“I’m not sure that’s the same.”
“Then there’s Trump the insult artist, capped by that awful thing he wrote about poor Rob Reiner the other day,” he said. “Herod was an insulter too. Doesn’t the Bible say he mocked Jesus?”
“That was Herod Antipas, the son who succeeded the Herod we’ve been talking about.”
“Herod, Herod Jr. Trump, Trump Jr. Bad kings all around.”
“Thou sayest,” I replied.
“Anyway, I’m glad you liked Lessons and Carols at St. John’s.”
“And I’m glad you’ve gotten over your, uh, TES. As we say, mazel tov!