The Weekly Screed (#794)

“Believe (in) me!”
by David Benjamin

He said, “Picture this: the Oval Office. A dozen news cameras are rolling. The new president ushers in an eight-year-old girl named, let’s say, Jenny. He sets her up on his desk. He proceeds to strip her down and molest her sickeningly for ten minutes. Within an hour, a billion people everywhere have watched the famous “Jenny video.” The world is appalled. But 60 million Americans — the Trump Faithful — shriek in protest at the atrocity exposed to their lying eyes. It’s a fake, they cry. But this claim is debunked. True or not, it doesn’t matter, they all agree, because the little bitch seduced the president. She led him on. She was asking for it — the faithful roar unanimously — and the slut got what she deserved.”

I replied, “Well, yeah, for this so-called president, this sounds like a normal day at the office. So what?”

Dr. Wilhelm “Reverend Bill” Bienfang, the author of this scenario and America’s foremost “idea man,” said, “Oh, but, dude! The implications.”

I said I’ve been pretty much overwhelmed by implications since Election Day. “They scare the bejesus out of me.”

“An interesting word choice,” said Bienfang, “because this guy doesn’t function in any sense as a politician. He’s immune to his own transgressions, no matter how vile and selfish. Nor is he a policymaker, administrator or even a businessman. He is — well, look! Mass rallies in coliseums, prodding his believers into a hysterical exercise of call and response. ‘Build the wall!’ he bellows and they cry, ‘Build the wall!’ ‘Lock her up!’ he goes. And they scream the words back. His very name, as they shout it, scrawl it on placards and and spray it on walls is an icon, a symbol as emotional as the cross and the swastika. What we’ve wrought is neither political, governmental, democratic, nor even particularly American.”

“It’s… it’s religious,” I suggested.

“Correct. But this spellbinder is no garden-variety evangelist, laden with Scripture and scripted by liturgy. He’s not even a prophet in the normal sense. He has no dogma, no catechism or missal, no creed, no tablets brought down from the mountain. He’s a virgin reborn daily, empty, impulsive and infantile. He is the crucifixion of the Establishment, the wordless become Flesh, the resurrection of the damned. His presidency is past and done. He ascends not to a mere way station in the White House but beyond! Into the firmament of mortal godhead, where he will sit at the Right Hand of his own tremendous Self, judge the living and the dead really, really well and tweet his verdicts every five minutes, every day — forever.”

“You’re saying?”

“Think,” said Bienfang, “Messiah.”

My mind began to reel, because — it hit me! — Bienfang was right again.

“And what an opportunity!” Bienfang exclaimed.

Bienfang has a nose for profit that can sniff a buck beneath fifty tons of rotting offal. He noted that the infrastructure of an endless “mission” to keep the “faithful” in a constant state of charismatic frenzy is almost complete.

“These huge rallies are wondrously devoid of content. It’s really a tent meeting. Same sermon over and over. The chanting mob, grown men weeping, women rending their garments and — most important — the collection! Thousands of poor people — indigent, unemployed, desperate — joyously donating their dollars, their dimes, their last miserable nickel to a man so obscenely profligate that the flush-handle on his toilet is 24-carat gold.”

Bienfang went on. “The only missing ingredient is the megachurch — which, as you know, is the greatest profit center ever conceived in the name of God!”

“But how? Who would build it?”

“His churches are already built!” said Bienfang. “In Manhattan — St. Patrick’s. In Washington — the National Cathedral. In Utah — the Mormon Tabernacle. Every stadium in the National Football League. His church is wherever he says it is, because he is — now — the Government. He’s the body and soul of Eminent Domain. What he wants, he gets — for all of us, in his name, for his glory. Praise the Lord!”

I knew Bienfang had already schemed a thousand ways to cash in on the deification of the presidency. But I finally spotted an implication.

“You’re talking about a state religion,” I said. “In America?”

“Yes! Because here, at last, is a faith that’s simpleton simple. No doctrine. No commandments. No prayers. No rules. No sins to confess. Just pure, google-eyed, talking-in-tongues, holy-roller, dear-and-glorious leader worship. And ponying up for the collection. In a church where you can wear a t-shirt printed with the word ‘fuck’.”

“No elections, either?”

Bienfang laughed. “Where is it written that we get to vote on the Second Coming?”

“You’re comparing Trump to Jesus?” I said.

“Let’s not name names, shall we? Why not just be glad we’re getting a Messiah who’s a lot easier to take? Forget about loving your neighbor, keeping your brother, turning the other cheek. We have ourselves a savior, finally, who’s happy if we all just sing his praises, guard our goodies, cover our asses and stay white ’til we die.”

“And pay,” I added.

“There is a hitch, though,” whispered Bienfang. “This is our first Messiah in 2,000 years who’s walking, literally, amongst us. He’s a little too exposed.”

“Right,” I said, catching on. “It’s not good for the bottom line if your Holy of Holies is running around loose, hugging dictators, lying his ass off, trashing beauty queens and Gold Star mothers, eating all the loaves and fishes, and grabbing every pussy that slips into his range.”

“Exactly. You can only grope so many Jennies before the shtick gets old and the apostles get jaded.”

“You have a solution?”

Bienfang smiled. “According to age-old custom, the best Messiah is a heavenly Messiah.”

“You mean, literally?” I said. “Like, a martyr?”

“Ideally. Eventually.”

“Crucifixion?” I mused. “Burning at the stake? The guillotine?”

“No no no. This is America. And it’s not the Middle Ages,” said Bienfang. “We’ll just shoot him.”