Is Donald Trump the Antichrist? Some in MAGA are Starting to Think So
If ever there was a president who fit the narrative... the guy mocking Jesus using AI would have to be him
Growing up in Denver, I went to school with some really religious people. And in the 1980s, some of the most religious kids I knew swore that Ronald Reagan was the antichrist.
Let me explain.
First: there was his name: Ronald Wilson Reagan … six letters in each part … giving you: 6-6-6. And then there’s the matter of him surviving what was supposed to be a fatal wound, kind of like it says in Revelations:
And I saw that one of his heads was, as it were, wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world wondered after the beast. — Revelations 13:13
For many of those very religious kids (who were likely getting the idea from their very religious parents) that was enough. But after he survived, thanks to having access to the finest healthcare in the country, Reagan took the momentum from his brush with death to supercharge the dismantling of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs that had given Black Americans, nonwhite immigrants and disabled people a chance, and instead began handing over the resources of the American people to the wealthy, in the form of record shattering tax cuts while creating our first trillion dollar debt. There was one caveat: Reagan did do straight up undocumented immigrant amnesty, which probably cost him his full antichrist card.
Over the decades, some right wing religious Americans have fixated on various figures, from the pope to U.S. presidents (but only the liberal ones…) as potential candidates for being the Ender of Worlds and the Beast from Revelations. Right wingers accused President Obama of being the Antichrist because he didn’t hate gay people enough and wouldn’t push through a ban on abortion. Some “good” right wing Christians and their pastors even prayed for him to die. And Pope Benedict caught the smoke, too, as did nearly every one of his predecessors (despite him being an arch conservative in satin slippers.)
And right wing Christians in the U.S. have not been above cult worshiping the presidents that they do support. They all but deified Ronald Reagan, and especially George W. Bush. Remember Jesus Camp? The 2006 documentary was a pretty spot on view of how many on the white evangelical right viewed Dubya, a Methodist who played evangelical for TV and launched multiple wars against Muslim countries and his campaign vow to make abortion illegal throughout the United States by delivering on the longtime Republican promise (which elected Republicans including Bush never actually meant to deliver on because they knew what the electoral consequences would be) of installing a conservative Supreme Court majority that would overturn Roe v. Wade.
Dubya was the subject of hero worship for eight straight years, particularly as his 2004 re-election campaign planted constitutional amendment ballot items in nearly a dozen states that would ban same sex marriage. But many evangelicals privately expressed disappointment that other than the neocon- and Israel-driven wars against Muslims, Bush never really delivered on the big stuff: shutting down abortion, stopping gays from trying to get married, and essentially turning the U.S. into Gilead from The Handmaid’s Tale.
Enter Donald Trump.
The “grab them by the pussy” candidate attracted the support of eight in ten white Christians, from every denomination from Southern Baptist to Catholic to Mormon in 2016 despite behaving in every way possible that ought to have indicated that he had no connection whatsoever to the Christian faith. And this is the part where I remind you that white Christians are the ONLY reason Trump ever became president, either time, since in 2016 every other religious/ethnic group voted in a majority for the Democrat. And no group has supported Trump more emphatically than white evangelicals. It’s not even close.
And in 2024, only Hispanic Protestants got on the Trump bandwagon with white Christians, giving Trump his long desired, though narrow, popular vote victory (presuming you believe the election results weren’t rigged.)
Yet Trump’s only connection to Christianity is a loose one. According to every one of his biographies, including the one by his niece Mary and the one I wrote (The Man Who Sold America…) the Trump family when Donald was growing up attended the “church” associated with the book The Power of Positive Thinking — the financial prosperity ministry of an inferiority complex-ridden, 19th century-born charlatan named Norman Vincent Peele. He even said as much back in 2015 to Frank Luntz on stage at a right wing “values” summit (during which he also revealed that despite being a self-professed Christian, he has never asked God for forgiveness…
Still, the religious white Christian nationalist right embraced Trump because he re-upped Bush’s core promises: that he would deliver a right wing Supreme Court that would bend the constitution to the will of the right’s Mean Jesus, and turn this country into a theocracy. And also because his opponent was a woman, and a Clinton, at that.
The fact that Trump has always been a fundamentally immoral man, who cheated on his wives, including with porn stars and Playboy bunnies, and publicly creeped on his own daughter; who cheated on his taxes, cheated his supporters, customers and contractors and befouled every business and institution he ever laid his grubby little fingers on and was literally best friends with the world’s most notorious pedophile didn’t matter. The white evangelicals wrote off Trump’s grossness as akin to David in the Bible. They even laughed off the pussy grab boast as nothing more than “locker room talk.” And that includes so-called Christian women, who pretended that Trump’s two dozen sexual harassment and abuse accusers either didn’t exist, or were lying to try to cover up Bill Clinton’s real crimes.
Once they elected Trump, the so-called Christian right ignored his racism, his misogyny, his warmongering, and his calls for violence, even against American citizens, by pointing to what they saw as the benefits of his disruption: those three Supreme Court justices, one obtained by Mitch McConnell stealing a nomination away from President Obama; and Armageddon-inducing treats like moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem — a gross violation of the two-state solution U.N. plan, and that nasty Muslim ban (the better to defeat the “sharia law” that the 1.5 percent of the population that is Middle Eastern origin Muslim origin would inflict on us all.)
They even gave him a pass when he did what no leader of any country had done since King James I of England — the Protestant son of the forcibly abdicated Mary, Queen of Scots had done in the 17th century — by introducing a version of the Bible that would bear his own name as reference.
And there were plenty of other signs, including Trump’s appointed “pastor,” Paula White all but declaring him to be the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords during a taped White House event that the regime tried to delete from the Internet (White’s own deep financial and ethical issues notwithstanding…)
I mean the signs of Trump’s mockery of Christianity, and even his flirtation with antichristlike behavior were there for all to see. His supporters simply refused to acknowledge them. He is a charlatan surrounded by religious charlatans, including the entire cast of the Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025 exhaustive grift for wealthy, “Christian*” white men and their defense tech, surveillance and other earth-ruining, society crushing corporations. Recall this scene from what now-OMB director Russ Vought thought was a funder meeting in 2024 before the election.
Even when Trump committed actual blasphemy, the white right wing evangelicals didn’t care. They were getting what they voted for — including, ironically — mass deportation of the immigrants whom Jesus loved. For the MAGA Christians* all of the ironic violations of their professed creed were worth it. Even newbie Catholics like James David Bowman AKA “JD Vance” switched from “Trump might be Hitler” to “Trump knows more about Christianity than the pope.” Most in the MAGA base even gave him a pass on suppressing the Epstein files, in which his name appears more times than Jesus is mentioned in the Bible. Nothing he or his fake Christian minions did or said was vile enough to make the faithful turn away.
But all of that was before Donald Trump posted a meme on his Temu Twitter of himself as literal Jesus — complete with a scene that appears to show him raising someone who looks a lot like Jeffrey Epstein from the dead using a glowing orb, while bathed in light beneath a sky full of fighter jets, an American flag, a bald eagle, and what sure look like horned, flying demons.
That post was the crescendo of what seems like a Holy Week descent into madness, wherein Trump continually posted to his “Truth Social” account seemingly all night long for days, threatening to end Iranian civilization, tossing F bombs and on Easter, ending his freakout of the Straight of Hormuz with “praise be to Allah.”
And who can forget Trump’s pre-Easter offerings, which included a post containing the phrase “hell will reign” (not “rain”) … followed by “Glory be to GOD” with an exclamation point.
And perhaps it’s getting to nit picky to note that in that post, that if you pick out only the words that are given the primacy of capitalization, the post reads: MAKE A DEAL … OPEN UP THE HORMUZ STRAIGHT … GOD! … DONALD J. TRUMP.
This as he literally goes to war with the Vicar of Rome, Pope Leo XIV, who is hitting back hard, even with his soft voice and calm demeanor; using the word of God and the literal words of Jesus as a battering ram to beat back warmongering, Christian nationalist idolatry. Pope Leo’s firm defense of the faith is drawing some Catholics out of the MAGA cult. And no, James David, the five-minute Catholic with the Methodist church on his book cover isn’t helping. He’s so clearly out of his depth.
But it was the Jesus post that apparently was too much for MAGA, some of whom, led by their emerging new leaders, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nick Fuentes, began openly speculating that Trump might well BE the Antichrist. It’s as if they’ve read Revelations chapter 13, for the very first time:
The Vision of the Beast from the Sea
13 I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns, seven heads, and ten royal crowns on its horns. On its heads were blasphemous names. 2 The beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like bear’s feet, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. The dragon gave it his power, his throne, and complete authority.
3 One of the beast’s[a] heads looked like it had sustained a mortal wound, but its fatal wound was healed. Rapt with amazement, the whole world followed the beast. 4 They worshipped the dragon because it had given authority to the beast. They also worshipped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast, and who can fight a war with it?” 5 The beast was allowed[b] to speak arrogant and blasphemous things, and it was given authority for 42 months. 6 It uttered[c] blasphemies against God, against his name, and against his residence,[d] that is, against those who are living in heaven. 7 It was allowed to wage war against the saints and to conquer them.[e] It was also given authority over every tribe, people, language, and nation. 8 All those who had become settled down and at home, living on the earth, will worship it, everyone whose name had not been written in the Book of Life belonging to the lamb that had been slaughtered since the foundation of the world.
9 Let everyone listen:[f]
10 If anyone is to be taken captive,
into captivity he will go.
If anyone is to be killed with a sword,
with a sword he will be killed.The Vision of the Beast from the Earth
Here is a call for endurance and faith of the saints:
11 I saw another beast coming up out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it talked like a dragon. 12 It uses all the authority of the first beast on its behalf,[g] and it makes the earth and those living on it worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. 13 It performs spectacular signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people. 14 It deceives those living on earth with the signs that it is allowed to do on behalf of[h] the first[i] beast, telling them to make an image for the beast who was wounded by a sword and yet lived. 15 The second beast[j] was allowed to impart life to the image of the first[k] beast so that the image of the beast could talk and order the execution of those who would not worship the image of the beast. 16 The second beast[l] forces all people—important and unimportant, rich and poor, free and slaves—to be marked on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17 so that no one may buy or sell unless he has the mark, which is the beast’s name or the number of its name.
18 In this case wisdom is needed: Let the person who has understanding[m] calculate[n] the total[o] of the beast, since it is a human multitude,[p] and the sum of the multitude[q] is 600, 60, and six.[r]
Let he who has wisdom, indeed.
Donald Trump has spent his entire modern political life openly mocking God, Christians and faith itself; breaking nearly all of the Ten Commandments and twisting the ethical lines of religion into ropes with which to hang morality, kindness, empathy and love for our neighbor by the neck until dead. So it’s a bit late for the kind of people who literally bowed down before golden Trump statues at CPAC to wake up and smell the sulfur.
But apparently the sulfuric odor has finally made its way to the halls of MAGA. Even the fact that Trump deleted the post (after claiming he was just trying to portray a doctor — and put up another one where he was “with Jesus” instead of being Jesus, hasn’t tamped down the outrage over his blatant blasphemy. And the Doctor Jesus memes are flourishing.
Because belatedly … finally … at least some on the religious right are waking up to what Daniel and the other prophets foretold: that a false prophet would come along to deceive the faithful and send them all to hell.
Of course, Trump is also being massively clowned for his apostasy, including by the Iranians with whom he’s waging an illegal war and their fellow Global South allies, by musical artists like The Strokes and more. The war on Iran and Lebanon is ongoing and devastating, but the messaging war appears to be over. Trump, MAGA and Israel have already lost.
Meanwhile … come on, Hegseth… you’re so close to figuring it all out.
Check out the latest episode of Countering White Christian Nationalism with Joy and Robbie Jones
And don’t forget to subscribe to The Joy Reid Show to catch our latest news and commentary every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night LIVE from 6-8 p.m.
Thank you for the reminder of the Regan assination. It seems so long ago. I just believe there only sycophantic individuals that persist, in this culture. I hope the people vote in the midterms and he and his cabinet are perhaps implicated by Epstein Scandal and get booted out by newly elected officials. If you like independent Media, please subscribe to The Joy Reid Show.