Donald Trump is speaking in other tongues

You don't often see it in the news headlines, but Donald Trump is frequently incoherent on the campaign trail. Recently there has been some discussion of "sane washing," a term that captures how reporters strain to make sense of Trump's ramblings to discern some rational policy proposal or logical statement out of a jumbled word salad. Despite this kid glove treatment, Trump is irked that the larger world fails to see his genius shine through his habitual and incomprehensible references to a fictional serial killer depicted in film released in 1991.

Every time I watch a clip of a Trump speech or television appearance—or heaven help me, an entire speech—I am reminded of the hours I've logged in charismatic churches, at charismatic conferences, and even in televangelist studio tapings, that so often feature meandering disquisitions by preachers and other evangelists meant to amplify their own greatness. Since Trump began running for president in 2015, I've recognized, in my gut, a similarity in the narrative trajectory (such as it is) of his rally speeches to the sorts of sermons I've heard in those settings.

The arc goes something like this: things were bad, maybe even off the rails. God spoke to me with a revelation. I'm now blessed with an anointing, a special knowledge to fix it all. Hear my wisdom, even if it is an eyebrow-furrowing exegesis about supernatural health and wealth, spiritual warfare with satanic enemies in everyday life, or a divinely ordained Christian nation. My special knowledge shows why, the sermon goes, you should fill my coffers with your hard-earned "first fruits," or how America's enemies are God's enemies, and there are enemies of America right here in America. You want to be on the right side of things. Open your wallet. Pledge allegiance.

Of course Trump has stripped this narrative arc of its Christian language; after all, in his telling, he is the one with salvific power, not Jesus Christ. Yet the testimonial force remains. The speaker is God's anointed one. Evidence of the anointing includes his receipt of direct revelations from God and other gifts of the spirit, including speaking in other tongues, as told of in the Book of Acts. So you, perhaps a nonbeliever, or a baby Christian, might have to strain to understand. Or, perhaps, not even understand. Just trust that God is speaking through this person. You might be simply insufficiently blessed to fully grasp what Trump calls his own "genius." But trust it, because of the anointing.

At the end of the day, Trump diehards (and remember, 34 percent of his voters in 2020 were white evangelicals) either don't care that he makes no sense or believe him when he claims to be revealing some sort of genius code.

To the rest of us, the incoherence is jarring. Why was Joe Biden widely depicted as having lost the mental acuity to run for president but Trump has not? Probably because Democratic donors and elites pressed the story to the media that Biden has declined. But no one in the Republican world would dare do this. Trump cannot decline.

But the terrifying aspect of this is not just that someone so clearly incompetent to be president (although simultaneously extremely capable of unleashing a fascist threat against us) could once again occupy the White House. The incoherence is part of a larger dismal landscape: he uses it to split Americans. You don't understand me? What's wrong with you? And he eggs on his followers to hate on the people who fail to grasp his brilliance. Alternatively, he hopes it is too confusing to understand, such as his recent lies that everyone actually wanted him to make the overturning of Roe v. Wade happen. (They most certainly did not.)

Trump's use of the rambling genius has set the stage to pit Americans against each other, a looming battle between those who are appreciatively behind him, and those who are not and are therefore America's enemies. That's why his (actually frighteningly coherent) remarks yesterday at an event supposedly about combatting antisemitism are so enraging and upsetting. Trump is seeking to scapegoat Jewish Democrats for his possible loss in November. He said, "the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss” and "it’s only because of the Democrat hold or curse on you" that Jews would vote for Kamala Harris.

You see, when Trump wants to make the genius ramble clear, he can. Enemies, blame, curses, all the stuff of spiritual warfare. He's trying to make this a prophecy: if he loses, blame the Jews. Saying that is bad enough on its own, obviously. But it's even worse because he's convinced his followers that his words—which his enemies fail to understand, but his followers very much do—have a divine, prophetic meaning.