After surviving an assassination attempt during a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, Donald J. Trump stood in the center of a stage on the final night of the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) and affirmed what the audience already believed: that he and his campaign had been blessed by God. “I’m not supposed to be here tonight,” Trump said softly as the crowd chanted in response, “Yes, you are.”
“Thank you,” he answered. “But I’m not. And I’ll tell you. I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.”
While details of the shooting that injured Trump and killed rally-goer Corey Comperatore are still not fully clear, speaker after speaker during the five-day convention dubbed the would-be assassin’s near-miss a “millimeter miracle.” That Trump emerged from the ordeal unscathed except for a conspicuously bandaged ear made everything else, including Ohio Senator J.D. Vance’s promotion to Trump’s running mate, an afterthought. What mattered most was that Trump now possessed heavenly authority, a divine mandate to MAGA.
Former Fox News host and one-time Trump critic Tucker Carlson, in an unscripted monologue on Thursday night, gestured at what this incorporeal shift might mean down here on Earth. “It struck me that everything was different after [the shooting]. This convention is different. The nation is different. The world is different. Donald Trump was different,” he said. “[Trump] was no longer just a political party’s nominee, a former President, or a future President. This was the leader of a nation.”
For Carlson, who was fired from Fox News fifteen months ago and is reported to have since become a member of Trump’s inner circle, dodging a literal bullet grants Trump a level of sovereignty beyond the mortal title of President. “You’ll never hear me say I’m on God’s side. Or God’s with me. Or even I’m with God,” Carlson explained. “But I will say this unequivocally and conclusively: God is among us right now [crowd chants “amen”] and I think that’s enough.”
It was a muted statement compared to the evangelicals who also took to the stage that night, including Pastors Franklin Graham and Lorenzo Sewell.
Sewell, the head of a Detroit church that Trump made a campaign stop at a month ago, clasped his fingers together as he declared that a prayer on Trump’s birthday (June 14) had saved his life by less than an inch. “To all my Democrat friends in Detroit, you can’t deny the power of God on this man’s life,” he proclaimed to thunderous applause. “Could it be that Jesus Christ preserved this man’s life for such a time as this?”
Joeff Davis
Pastor Lorenzo Sewell speaks on the final night of the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Graham, the son of departed sermonizer Billy Graham, delivered a formal prayer that was wedged between wrestling icon Hulk Hogan and Trump. The crowd, still fired up from Hogan ripping off his shirt and commanding them to “let Trumpamania run wild again,” quickly switched gears into reverence mode.
For as much as the RNC was devoted to the miraculousness of Trump being alive, Graham was the only speaker to take note of something unsettling at the core of the myth: What about Corey Comperatore? Was he not worthy of being saved, too?
“I can not explain why God would save one life and allow another one to be taken. I don’t have an answer for that,” Graham said.
But this did not stop Graham from proceeding to speak on a topic he did, apparently, have the ability to comment on: Trump, who he claimed is a “man of his word” for appointing three conservative Justices to the Supreme Court. He ended by praying for God to “continue to protect [Trump] from his enemies.”
The RNC’s emphasis on religion—if not outright Christian nationalism—was exactly what many attendees wanted to hear.
“I was speechless. I was crying. I was in tears,” said Rocío Cleveland, who was at a wedding when she learned of the assassination attempt. “And what I had to do at that moment was pray for President Trump, pray for our nation, pray for the safety of our nation . . . because I know that without prayer, we are nothing.”
Cleveland, the chair of Moms for America in Lake County, Illinois, predicted that—from this moment of despair—the nation will emerge renewed and strengthened. “It will restore the faith in our country because the world saw a miracle before their eyes,” she said. “It made so many people fall down to their knees, even people that are not believers. And now they are believers.”
Moms for America, a rightwing moms’ group that predates and overlaps with Moms for Liberty, is led by Kimberly Fletcher, an activist who was subpoenaed for her role in organizing a pre-January 6 rally. The group is counted among the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-government extremist groups. It has received funding from the Bradley Foundation, a powerful right-wing think tank, and is known for its anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives.
“I believe that having patriotic schools is so important,” Cleveland told The Progressive. “There’s the evil indoctrination of our children, teaching them that LGBTQ is okay . . . and it’s not okay. Because it’s not scriptural.”
Cleveland elaborated on what a “patriotic education” would look like, and what should be done to get there. “Our country needs to be restored to bring God back into public schools,” she said. “All of these teachers and libraries that are doing all these drag queen story hours, I believe they should be fined. They should be prosecuted . . . . On judgment day, God will judge them harshly.”
This is exactly the kind of political vision that Trump encourages when he depicts himself as saved by divine providence. Although there are countless examples of the GOP pandering to Christian fundamentalism, when Trump and his entourage lay claim to God’s favor—in the wake of having attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election—it rings especially authoritarian.