As I See It: How Trump played with God and America, for five days in July

Jon Huer 

Jon Huer  Jon Huer

By JON HUER

Published: 10-31-2024 4:28 PM

On Oct. 14, in Oaks, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump’s campaign was interrupted twice by medical emergencies in the crowd, and then Trump did a strange thing: He stopped his town hall Q&A and requested Schubert’s “Ave Maria” (“Hail Mary” in Latin) to be played for the crowd. For the next 39 minutes, mostly swaying to music and looking pensive, Trump listened to “Ave Maria” and other songs that followed.

Predictably, the nation was baffled by this unexpected pairing of Trump and Mother of God, at the request of possibly one of the world’s most sinful souls. Although highly unusual, even bizarre, this episode eventually yielded to other shiny objects and the nation moved on. But still, the normally voluble candidate silently, and somewhat serenely, listening to the popular Catholic prayer, recalled something similar, but much more dramatic, in which we had wondered if the man had been touched by God.

The earlier occasion was the attempted assassination of Trump at one of his big rallies and the bullet missed him by an inch. What followed is that, during the five unforgettable days after the failed assassination, God and Trump became intertwined in a way no one could have possibly imagined.

The drama begins with the shots heard around the world on July 13:

JULY 13: The scene is now famous: One ear grazed by a bullet, blood trickling down his face and fist raised, Trump was the very embodiment of the avenger from hell, shouting to his followers to “fight, fight, fight!” Expecting more hate and violence ahead, the American nation went through tumultuous several days not seen for ages. Escaping with only a scratch by the assailant’s sword, the enraged king would surely demand America’s pound of flesh.

JULY 15: But something quite strange happened. When Trump, with a very noticeable bandage covering the hurt ear, made his first public appearance at the GOP convention for his official nomination, he looked conspicuously subdued as he mingled with the crowd. My wife saw him as “a human being.” Without his usual Sodom-and-Gomorrah makeup or the hateful smirk on his face, he strolled easily among the crowd and then sat down smiling with minimal exaggeration; he even had one of his grandkids with him. In her years of Trump watching, she had never seen him as a human being with normal human emotion. “Jon, come here quick and look!” she was so surprised that she called to me to come and watch the scene with her. Indeed, Trump had never looked so “human.”

JULY 16: MSNBC’s analyst Katy Tur, replaying the same scene my wife and I had seen the day before, also noticed Trump’s “pensive, almost serene, appearance” she had “never seen before” in all the years of covering Trump. “Pensive” and “serene?” Applied to Donald Trump, a habitual liar, shameless grifter, and convicted rapist? The TV clip indeed showed Trump, responding to people “like a man who was comfortable with himself,” said the baffled TV host. Tur, still a seasoned reporter, wanted to wait and see if this “changed man” was for real, further to be proved only in his “real policies.”

Then, to add more mystique to his transformation, Trump announced that he was preparing a completely new speech for the nomination acceptance. He explained: “It is a chance to bring the country together. I was given that chance.” Did the near-death experience make him realize his own mortality and humanity? Was some great conversion going on within his soul?

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God works in mysterious ways: He made the Roman Empire, which killed Christ and Christians, the first Christian nation on earth. He turned Germans, who hated Jews, into Israel’s best friend. Surely, God could also change America’s scourge to America’s savior. Trump, a changed man now, could save America from himself. In the possibility of such a divine miracle, fantasy and reality mingled.

JULY 17: Our fantasy took a jolt. The wake-up call came swiftly as he texted on X about “Communists,” “Witch Hunts,” ”Democrats attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election,” “attacking their Political Opponent, ME,” “MAGA2024!” It was vintage Trump, brutal and savage. His halo was now in partial eclipse, but he held the line on the mystery by saying that he survived the bullet “by the Grace of God.” The most heartless and irredeemable creature on earth might still get a gift of human heart and redemption.

JULY 18: His acceptance speech for GOP nomination shattered the last remnant of our illusion. He had entered the convention like a conquering prince with the shimmering golden hair and an aura of invincibility, but exited as a confused old man who soiled his underwear in a stream of his own incontinent non-sequiturs, spewing fiery venom for revenge. The phoenix, risen from near death, was after all a junkyard dog that had dodged the bullet. The remarkable five days of July thus ended without a heroic saga for the ages.

God spared Trump from the bullet, but he refused to spare America from Trump. The prodigal son had a chance to come home and God had a chance to use him for one of his miracles to save America. But neither happened. It’s a bitter rejection, especially for a nation shrouded in the myth of God’s special blessings. Now, as a very sick nation and very unhappy people, we have no such blessings forthcoming.

Germany had to be completely destroyed for their sins of creating Hitler, and it’s our turn for the sins of having created Trump. As inexorable history, America’s own destruction begins officially on Nov. 5.

Jon Huer, columnist for the Recorder and retired professor, lives in Greenfield.