WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 For the most devoted Trump conspiracy theorists, there are no coincidences and timing is everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So when ex-President Donald Trump was\u00a0arraigned Tuesday\u00a0on charges that he falsified business records to obscure hush money payments in an effort to influence the 2016 election, some of his most ardent followers quickly noted the court appearance came during Christianity\u2019s most sacred week,\u00a0Holy Week, when many Christians commemorate Christ\u2019s crucifixion and resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSeems there was someone else who was tortured and crucified this week,\u201d read one post on Gab, a platform\u00a0popular with Trump supporters. A similar post on Telegram put Trump\u2019s case in apocalyptic terms: \u201cGood vs Evil. Biblical times. Divine timing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Comparisons likening Trump to Christ were among the top online narratives about the Republican former president and his criminal charges circulating in the last several days, according to an analysis of online and social media content conducted by Zignal Labs, a media intelligence firm, on behalf of The Associated Press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Zignal\u2019s analysis found tens of thousands of mentions calling Trump a martyr. The number more than doubled immediately after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., linked the prosecution of Trump to the persecution of Christ during an interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u00a0pleaded not guilty\u00a0on Tuesday to 34 felony counts alleging he hid payments made during his 2016 presidential campaign to two women \u2014\u00a0an adult-film actor and a former Playboy model\u00a0\u2014 who claimed they had sexual encounters with him, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child Trump fathered out of wedlock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Greene, who traveled to New York City to protest Trump\u2019s arraignment, noted the timing of the arraignment during a broadcast interview before bringing up the Christ comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJesus was arrested and murdered by the Roman government,\u201d she said. \u201cThere have been many people throughout history that have been arrested and persecuted by radical corrupt governments, and it\u2019s beginning today in New York City.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The comparison was denounced by Episcopal Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, who oversees more than 500 churches in Greene\u2019s home state and called her comments blasphemous and disgusting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhile Marjorie Taylor Greene may put her political loyalty ahead of God, Christians do not,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cThose of faith believe Christ always has, and always will, stand alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s\u00a0personal,\u00a0political\u00a0and\u00a0professional\u00a0history make him an odd choice to stand in for Christ, Christianity\u2019s savior and central figure. Yet it\u2019s an outgrowth from\u00a0Christian nationalism, a movement that fuses traditional Christian themes and imagery with conservative candidates like Trump, according to John Fea, a historian at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, who has researched evangelical Christianity\u2019s role in American history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey see this as spiritual warfare, and Trump is on the side of the angels,\u201d Fea said. \u201cIn this view, Trump is politically a savior, he is going to restore America, and he will rise from the ashes in November despite the persecution and the suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has encouraged such beliefs by claiming he is\u00a0uniquely qualified\u00a0to lead the country, by calling his 2024 campaign to retake the White House a\u00a0\u201cFinal Battle\u201d\u00a0against his enemies and by\u00a0praising QAnon, a movement that views him as a crusader against what it says is a secret, child-sacrificing cabal that controls world events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He embraced the role of martyr again on Tuesday, when his campaign created a fake mug shot and included it in a fundraising email, even though\u00a0no mug shot of the former president was taken\u00a0that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the Christian nationalist view, Trump\u2019s return to New York could be seen as an echo of Christ\u2019s triumphant entry to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Fea said, with the exception that Christ rode a donkey and Trump arrived in a motorcade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Behind the religious metaphors, the online reaction of Trump supporters to Tuesday\u2019s arraignment was mixed, fragmented by competing conspiracy theories and Trump\u2019s own complicated role in the movement he helped build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While many far-right commenters decried the charges, others said Trump deserved no sympathy after he didn\u2019t\u00a0pardon defendants\u00a0charged in the failed Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Some pointed to the charges as one reason why they now support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 expected bid for the Republican presidential nomination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some Trump supporters promoted peaceful\u00a0protests\u00a0as a way to send a signal to the nation, yet others cited\u00a0debunked claims about Jan. 6, arguing that any protests could be traps\u00a0staged by federal agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWatch out for infiltrators, the minute they want to start trouble call it off and everyone go home,\u201d a poster wrote on Gab in response to a post announcing Greene\u2019s protest in Manhattan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still other commenters dismissed the\u00a0very real legal jeopardy\u00a0facing Trump, saying he is orchestrating the entire prosecution as a way to ferret out his enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last was a sentiment especially popular on\u00a0QAnon message boards, where Christian imagery regularly mixes with fantasies about one-world governments, child sacrifices and blood rituals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll a MOVIE!!\u201d one Trump supporter wrote on Telegram. \u201cTrump is writer, producer and director!!! Get your popcorn!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 For the most devoted Trump conspiracy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2413"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2415,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2413\/revisions\/2415"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewworld.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}