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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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Trump deletes post depicting him as Jesus-like figure after backlash

Faced with growing backlash, US President Donald Trump appears to have removed a controversial Truth Social post depicting himself as a Jesus-like figure.

The AI-generated image, which showed Trump appearing to heal a sick man in a hospital bed, sparked fierce backlash from both sides of the US political spectrum, including from some of Trump's most ardent supporters. (...)

The now-deleted image showed Trump, wearing a white robe, with a glowing hand on the forehead of a sick man, which critics said was similar to religious paintings showing Jesus healing the infirm.

The background of the images included the Statue of Liberty, a large US flag fluttering, fighter jets and an eagle, as well as a nurse, a woman praying and what appeared to be a soldier in uniform. (...)

Criticism of the image came swiftly, including from figures considered close to Trump and the administration.

"This should be deleted immediately," wrote Sean Feucht, a Christian activist who is working on a series of faith-based events to mark the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence this year. (...)

Riley Gaines, a prominent conservative activist, wrote that "God shall not be mocked".

Much of the criticism also came from faith-based US news outlets.

"This goes too far. It crosses the line," wrote David Brody, a journalist with the Christian Broadcasting Network. "A supporter can back the mission and reject this."

If the image had been satirical, people would have dismissed it as too over the top. But Trump's taste is such that he posted this thing unironically.

Any Trump supporters care to steelman this? To me, the most parsimonious explanation is that Trump is a narcissist with a god complex.

Any Trump supporters care to steelman this? To me, the most parsimonious explanation is that Trump is a narcissist with a god complex.

Boomer posts cringe on social media, news at eleven!

Any Trump supporters care to steelman this? To me, the most parsimonious explanation is that Trump is a narcissist with a god complex.

Maybe he just has dementia and got confused? Did he post it in the evening?

Perhaps an all too literal episode of this (props to Scott of course):

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert, where he was tempted by the Devil. After various lesser trials and temptations, the Devil led Jesus to the top of an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world. And they stood there together, gazing upon the vista below.

"Behold," said Satan, mostly to break the awkward silence. "all the kingdoms of the world."

"They're very nice," said Jesus.

Satan's features - still faintly angelic - formed into a pout. "Really?" he asked. "Because I worked so hard corrupting them and turning them against one another, and..."

"No," said Jesus. "Not like that. I was just trying to be polite, really. They're teeming with sin and abomination."

Satan beamed. Some more awkward silence.

"So," said Jesus. "Is this the point at which you offer me lordship over all these kingdoms, if I only I bow down and worship you?"

"Nah," said Satan. "Like I said, they're kind of crappy. I'm here to tempt you, not insult you. I was planning something more interesting."

He waved his hand over the panorama, and it expanded in a hard-to-describe way. The three-dimensional view became four-dimensional; the vista became a manifold.

"Behold," said Satan again, "all the kingdoms of the world. Now and forever. Before you, the entire scope of history."

Jesus hesitated, not really sure what the polite response would be.

"You could at least smile!" said Satan. "Look! These people love you!"

Sure enough, it was true. Many of the kingdoms before them were Christian, building great cathedrals and writing beautiful works of theology in Jesus' name. Among the remainder, many were Muslim, revering him as one of the greatest of prophets.

"It's pretty encouraging," Jesus agreed. "So what's the catch?"

"Always the catch with you people," said Satan. "Well, if you insist. Take a look particularly at the psychiatric hospitals."

Jesus gazed through the manifold, where ten thousand psychiatric hospitals presented themselves simultaneously to his elevated senses.

"As you notice," said Satan "your popularity has had some fascinating side effects. In particular, a pretty good proportion of psychotics, sometime in their illness, think that they're you. I don't think either of us wants to sit here counting them all, but could we agree on a hundred thousand as a conservative estimate?"

"A hundred thousand psychotics who believe themselves to be Jesus Christ, across the entire scope of world history," agreed Jesus. "Sounds reasonable."

"And it's a pretty strong delusion," the Devil went on. "They'd dismiss the contention that they're not you with barely a second thought. Whatever their reasoning processes are, they seem to be bent in on themselves somehow so that they always affirm the conclusion."

"It's very sad," Jesus said. "I hope my Father in Heaven will have mercy upon them."

"That's not what we're here to talk about," said the Devil. "What I'm really interested in is this - given a randomly chosen person who's absolutely certain he's Jesus, what's the probability that he is, in fact, Jesus?"

"Well," Jesus answered "There are a hundred thousand psychotics who believe themselves to be Jesus, and only one real Jesus. So by Bayes' Theorem, we calculate that believing one's self to be Jesus gives one only about a one in one hundred thousand chance that one is actually Jesus."

"Your reasoning is impeccable," said Satan. "So, what is the probability that you're actually Jesus?"

"What?" asked Jesus.

"You are an individual with a certain amount of evidence that you are Jesus. Specifically, you believe yourself to be him. You have various experiences which your reason tells you are consistent with being Jesus, like memories of your mother Mary and so on, but these seem like the sort of thing a damaged intellect could create to support a delusion. You previously determined that a randomly selected person with the belief that he is Jesus has a 1/100,000 chance of being Jesus and a 99,999/100,000 chance of being a psychotic. So, Mr. Person With The Belief That He Is Jesus, do you think those numbers apply to you?"

Jesus thought for a moment. "I'm not a psychotic," he said. "I think I would know if I were psychotic. I'd have all sorts of symptoms. Hallucinations. Confusion."

"You know what the number one hallucination reported by psychotic patients is?" Satan asked.

Jesus thought for a moment. "What?"

"The Devil," said the Devil.

"Oh, that's just unfair," Jesus told him.

"Usually they report he's trying to tempt them to do self-destructive things. You know, like jump off tall buildings. Remind me what we were doing earlier today?"

"You set that up to confuse me," said Jesus.

"And you mentioned confusion. Tell me, where are we right now?"

"An exceedingly high mountain," Jesus answered.

"Which one, exactly? Because the tallest mountain in Israel is a bit under four thousand feet. That's hardly see-all-the-kingdoms-of-the-world height. Are you even sure what country we're in right now? And, uh, last time I checked I'm almost certain the world was a sphere. So what particular mountain do you think we're on that allows us to see all the kingdoms of the world?"

"Uh, well, there are no kingdoms in the Western Hemisphere at this point in history..." suggested Jesus.

"Wrong!" said Satan. "Zapotecs and Mochica! You don't know where you are, you don't know how you got here, and you don't know how you're seeing what you're seeing."

"You took me here," Jesus countered. "I assume you used some sort of devil-magic or something. I didn't watch where we were going."

"Oh please," said Satan. "Outside View! In general, when someone says the only reason they don't know what country they're in is because the Devil is magically clouding their mind, does that make them more or less likely to be mentally ill?"

"Mrhghn," grumbled Jesus.

"So let's recap. You believe yourself to be Jesus. You admit that you have been seeing the Devil, and that he commands you to jump off buildings, a command you resist only with great difficulty. You don't know where you are or how you got there, and your only weak explanation is that malevolent demons magically transported you there and meddled with your mind so you don't remember it. Using the Outside View, what is the probability that you are even remotely sane?"

"Look," said Jesus. "Could you just tell me what the temptation is already?"

Satan waved his hand, and a syringe materialized within it. "5 mg haloperidol, IM" he told him.

Jesus looked at the Devil. He looked at the syringe. He looked at All The Kingdoms Of The World. He looked back at the Devil. His brow furrowed in thought. He looked at the syringe again.

Then his eyes shone as the Holy Spirit flowed through him. His indecision vanished. "Your lies have no power over me, demon," he told his tormentor.

"Please calm down," said Satan, only now he spoke with the voice of a middle-aged woman. "We're just trying to help you, Mr. Anderson. Please just hold still and let me give you your medication."

"Get thee behind me, Satan!" shouted the Christ, and he pushed the Devil off the mountain. Satan screamed as he plummeted, screamed with a woman's voice, until he vanished from sight in the depths below.

Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

It’s not impossible to have a civil discussion about this brand of drama, but you’re not going to get it by coming in guns blazing.

Any Trump supporters care to steelman this?

It's funny and not that big a deal. An AI generated image like that of Lebron or Vic Fangio would be a perfectly normal thing on sports twitter.

I'm surprised people are making such a big deal of this. In the WSJ Doug Wilson said it was blasphemous, while Rod Dreher said that while Trump might not be the The Antichrist he was engaged in Acts of Antichrist type vibes.

His strategizing on social media has just been bad. There’s no excuse. The sort of mistakes that would take a normal person hours to devise on purpose in a room with high ceilings. “Criticize the Pope while the cultural moment has conservative influencers drifting to Catholicism… now depict yourself as Jesus. Make sure to put a demon figure in the background”. “Write the first presidential Alhamdulilah… on Easter. Then don’t write another tweet for Easter. Then post another Alhamdulillah a few days later”. “Call for civilizational destruction, to remove America from the moral high ground. Post it widely so military service members know to refuse your orders”.

There is no 4d chess happening behind the scenes. These mistakes are in his area of mastery, which was messaging and reading the room. I assume the mistakes he’s making with the war and negotiations are even worse.

You linked to the Truman Show?

As in, he’s not Ed Harris in the Truman Show manipulating the reality around us with control and insight behind the curtains. (There was a funny meme going around of Trump getting orders from Ed Harrison, but unfortunately I can’t find it again)

Any Trump supporters care to steelman this?

A disappointingly large percentage of the population really really likes to make AI slop images of themselves, and unfortunately, also post those images on the internet. Remember when the whole ghiblification craze happened? It never ended, and has only gotten worse as ai models have gotten better.

Unfortunately Trump is one of those people. I wouldn't read into it any more than just absolutely awful taste.

I myself am not completely immune to this, but at least I have the awareness to tell that nobody else wants to see this slop.

I heard Anthony Scaramucci on his podcast give the theory that Trump would have posted the image (and done all the other recent catholic-baiting posts) in order to own JD Vance and maybe Rubio as well, who as the most prominent catholics in his cabinet will be obliged to defend Trump instead of their own religion. I can see how putting them in that demeaning position would satisfy Trump, don't know if it's really plausible though.

My own take would be that pushing the boundaries further and further to gauge pushback and keep going whenever there's not much resistance is just what he does. If people had liked these images he'd have been able to go full 'I am your God' cult leader, but sadly he didn't get a warm enough response.

I just don’t understand this one. The democrats have never cared about “blasphemy” in any form, in fact they quite often (especially with regard to Christianity) celebrate “transgressive” art that is often by it’s nature blasphemy against Christianity. The democrats defended the film “Last Temptation of Christ” that depicted Christ as struggling with homosexuality, they defended an art display that was literally a crucifix in a jar of urine. This only makes sense if the people using this incident are doing a pretty classic KTO-KEGO. If this were anyone other than Trump, no one would be talking about it.

The Last Temptation of Christ did not depict Jesus struggling with homosexuality. The book itself was deeply spiritual and I personally found it incredibly moving.

The film was not bad either and had a great soundtrack by Peter Gabriel.

The temptation of the title was a sort of alternate reality where he wed Mary Magdalene after having been deceived by Satan. I recommend the book in particular.

This does not speak to your point but I wanted to make the correction for the sake of accuracy.

Edit: He does not remain in the alternate reality.

A lot of those who are very upset about it, me included, are not democrats.

I think you're using the label "Democrats" to mean "literally anyone I dislike or disagree with".

The democrats defended the film “Last Temptation of Christ” that depicted Christ as struggling with homosexuality

Were Democrats (members of the Democratic party, people involved in fundraising for the party, etc.) defending the film, or just generally left-wing or progressive people? Are the defenders representative of the Democratic party?

they defended an art display that was literally a crucifix in a jar of urine.

This one is peculiar in that:

Serrano [the artist] said of the controversy: "I had no idea Piss Christ would get the attention it did, since I meant neither blasphemy nor offense by it. I've been a Catholic all my life, so I am a follower of Christ." (...)

On June 23, 2023, Andres Serrano was included among a group of artists invited to meet with Pope Francis in the Sistine Chapel as part of an effort to "broaden out the engagement of the church with artists" and to proclaim the church's commitment to supporting art that serves "to waken us up, call us to a new alertness and a new consciousness" about issues of social justice.[26] During this meeting, the pope blessed Serrano and gave him a thumbs up gesture of approval. Serrano remarked, "I was very happy that the church understands that I am a Christian artist and I am not a blasphemous artist. I’m just an artist."

Is the Pope Catholic Christian?

According to a 2025 poll, 62% of US adults described themselves as Christians. This percentage used to be even higher in the past – you know, when the Democratic party won majorities in elections. A very large proportion of Democratic party voters identify as Christians.

KTO-KEGO

"Who whom" in Polish with the latter misspelled? Do I have this right?

Were Democrats (members of the Democratic party, people involved in fundraising for the party, etc.) defending the film, or just generally left-wing or progressive people? Are the defenders representative of the Democratic party?

Were the people 'defending' the film saying "It is good that it exists.", or were they saying "You don't get to demand that it not exist."?

If this were anyone other than Trump, no one would be talking about it.

If Trump weren't president of the United States no one would be talking about it.

It is certainly no patch on on dijonghazi or tan suitgate, but you expect a certain amount of decorum from your senior leaders that you don't demand from other people. Especially when it comes to mocking your own supporters by substituting yourself for Jesus.

If this were anyone other than Trump, no one would be talking about it.

Really? You sincerely think if another politician posted an image of himself as Jesus Christ no one would be talking about it? My priors on that are very different, to put it mildly.

Obviously democrats don’t care about “blasphemy” (for Christians at any rate), but the only people complaining about it being “blasphemous” that I’ve seen have been Christian sources, most of which are right-leaning. Democrat criticism appears to be on the grounds of delusional narcissism, tastelessness, and/or simple pointing and laughing.

Seems like those making blasphemy allegations are right leaning, or at least strongly Christian.

The democrats reaction more likely stems from the fact that this is a pretty strong instantiation of the idea that Trump has a savior complex and that ‘MAGA is a cult’. Add in the self-own of the leader of the Christian right committing blasphemy, and it makes sense why this is notable.

If this were anyone other than Trump, nobody would be talking about it.

Trump is the president, it’s more notable when he does unusual things. I think it’s safe to say it would have been national news if Biden(‘s staff) or Obama posted a picture of themselves as Jesus.

Also, not to nitpick, but Piss Christ and Passion of the Christ are from 1987 and 1988 respectively. I doubt most democrat (or republican) voters know what Piss Christ is, and probably more than a few have never seen the movie. Just seems odd to call this out as evidence of the democrats ongoing support of blasphemy.

There was a Manifold market: “Will Donald Trump tweet an image of himself as Jesus Christ?” Resolved yes

Any Trump supporters care to steelman this?

I don't like it, and I'm disgusted by it, but he's still a better pick than Kamala or anyone else the Dems have (or theoretically might) put forward as a candidate on any and all issues I care about. So yeah, the Dems are still so awful that Trump can blaspheme Christ and he's still better than the opposition ("Hey Jamie, pull up that clip of God being booed at the DNC").

Trump doesn't support the mass importation of Muslims and Hindus, though he definitely is only doing token opposition to things like H1B visas where it would really make a dent in stopping them. And yet I can't imagine the Dems doing anything other than increasing the amount of Muslims and Indians coming in.

So yeah, Trump is far from perfect, but he still manages to better serve my interests as both a Christian and an American than the opposition.

Trump's ability to unite a wide coalition during the election was one of his great strengths. He got mainstream republicans, right wing populists, religious people, silicon valley tech bros and others to join his coalition.

In the last few months he seems to have swung in the polar opposite direction by doing his best to alienate as many groups as possible. Tucker is low IQ, Candace is ugly, the pope is weak, Elon Musk is crazy. Trump as Jesus upsets Christians. In foreign policy he has done his best to sour relations with as many countries as possible. Trump seems to have become a complete megalomaniac who lashes out at anyone who isn't worshipping him. His coalition is going to fall apart.

His coalition is going to fall apart.

That's what they said when he went after the Gold Star family. And on many other occasions, I believe. I predict ol' Donny's going to wiggle his way out of this one effortlessly.

Yeah, it's worth remembering what it felt like being inside the Trump bubble, for those who seem to have fallen out.

On a side note, to the extent that people have been falling out, I'm not sure that will matter much. Post-Trump GOP will be an interesting thing to see. And hopefully not completely disappointing, though that is probably a safe bet.

I think Trump genuinely doesn't understand the least bit of Christianity. This is not to defend or excuse him. By itself a statement like, "The US President doesn't understand the least bit of Christianity," would have been a horrible insult just a few decades ago. Welcome to the new USA.

It's just like if someone from Japan shared a AI-Generated image of them being Jesus without realizing what they were depicting. Neon Genesis Evangelion gets away with using Christianity as an aesthetic, because it looks exotic and cool. Trump did something similar. I'm about as offended by one as I am by the other. I don't think it indicates a God Complex anymore than Hideaki Anno has shown himself to have a God Complex.

This is my default explanation for anything that Trump does. The last decade has proven to me that he's unthinking and uncaring at the best of times, and the last 2 years has made me believe that he's entered a stage in his life that aren't the best times. Also, I think that the conclusion that he's a narcissist with a god complex is pretty easy to reach independent of this, and trying to claim that this post adds meaningful evidence of this seems rather silly. I'm reminded of around mid-late 2024, when some media outlet presented the argument that Trump was fascist/Nazi/Hitler-like (I don't recall exactly which), and a bunch of people were breathlessly pointing at the argument as some novel point that should convince former Trump voters, as if calling him giga-Hitler hadn't just been SOP for his loudest opponents continually since 2015.

Neon Genesis Evangelion gets away with using Christianity as an aesthetic, because it looks exotic and cool. Trump did something similar.

Why do we live in the reality where Trump is appropriating Christian iconography instead of Evangelion? Trump making an illustration of himself in one of those skintight fan service suits would have broken open at least three of the seals.

Well, not AI, but now since you mentioned it.

/images/17761989090854647.webp

the most parsimonious explanation is that Trump is a narcissist with a god complex

I'm a big Trump supporter. I concede that he has narcissistic tendencies although I don't know if he is diagnosible with anything. I would guess that the experience of being shot and completely avoiding serious harm due to fortuitous circumstances would exacerbate these tendencies in most people.

Anyway, I think it's pretty common for successful politicians to have personalities which lean towards the so-called "dark-triad" of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sociopathy. Bill Clinton struck me as being at least somewhat sociopathic.

So my defense of Donald Trump is that sometimes the perfect is the enemy of the good. At the moment, there is a huge threat to the United States from Leftism, Progressivism, Wokeism, whatever you want to call it. The sort of people who hate America, hate white people, hate men, etc. The sort of people who will seize on any excuse to seriously oppress their perceived enemies. The sort of people who seriously think it's a good idea to put confused children through sex-change procedures. Donald Trump, generally speaking, opposes all that.

In my view the same character aspects that make Trump a gauche, offensive, tone-deaf goof are what allow him to say "I'm gonna bomb the shit out of them," "Grab em by the pussy," and on and on up to the repost of himself as a healing messiah-- but also to stand up defiantly to the crowd who is saying the (naked) Emperor's new clothes are fine and beautiful. He can and does reject out loud many of the progressive left points of faith, with no apologies. Whether he does this because he's old and isn't interested in adapting, is simply preaching to what sees as his support group, or has thought it all through, Motte-Style, and reached his own conclusions, I cannot say.

In usual terms we would say "He has no filter." Which in many, many cases is refreshing and admirable. His standing against transgender ideologues is probably the one issue I really have to respect him for (if respect is the right word). He has walked a more ambiguous line on race issues, but certainly doesn't mouth the pat opporessor and oppressed line of most of his antagonists. Etc.

I would normally say it took great courage in a politician to be so contrary so publicly, but he isn't really a politician in the sense I use the term, and I'm not sure courage is the right word (maybe fearlessness).

As for narcissism, let's remember it's just a word a bunch of "mental health professionals" agreed on how to define. He's definitely full of himself in an almost pampered child way, though he also has a resilience and toughness that allow him to withstand repeated verbal assaults on his character by everyone from the NYT to mainstream comedians to any rando who wants an easy butt to his joke, jibes about his appearance that would be deemed hateful if directed at anyone else, and at least one fast-moving bullet. This would have mentally crushed any normal (sane, if you like) person years ago. I hesitate to say anyone is one-of-a-kind but he's certainly close.

Obviously this is low-effort, boo-outgroup, and a particularly lazy case of "arguing with the forum", so I'll be brief: there's a long tradition of people making hilariously hagiographic pictures of politicians they like. Think Boomer facebook. Trump seems to have no filter on retweeting/retruthing these things - the most recent 'controversy' iirc was a video of him dumping manure on a No Kings protest - so he saw this, liked it, and retruthed it (or someone on his team did, where it gets weird is that someone apparently ran the image through another AI to recreate it, which is what added the odd symmetrical Statue of Liberty silhouette, and I'm sure that Trump isn't mucking around with ChatGPT).

If you are looking for evidence that Donald Trump is a narcissist - I know, it's a shocking and contrarian thesis to suggest, but we can explore even the wildest ideas here - I'd recommend starting with the giant gold tower with his name on the front.

Really, really cringe things that associate elements of the American civic religion with Christianity are pretty dime-a-dozen in red tribe art, such as the most hilarious painting of all time: Jesus holding the Constitution of the United States while a Supreme Court Justice weeps.

It's exceptionally gauche to make such a piece of artwork of a living politician, but I'm sure it happens on the left too from time to time. That people invest this kind of hope in politicians is pretty ridiculous to me, but they do, and silly stuff like this results.

I think most people have generated a "what would I look like as a medieval X/what would Y look like as a Christian saint" image using AI, it's a fairly common pastime. Sharing it on social media is pretty ridiculous though.

Trump is pretty narcissistic, and this may be a symptom of that, but it's far from the most insane thing he's ever done and at this point the truth is that his supporters' support for him is something that's not amenable to anything that actually happens, and the hope that many on the left/center have that some scandal will destroy his popularity among his base just isn't going to happen. Even the Christians who were outraged by this still "back the mission."

That's a great painting. Yes, it's a very Red-coded thing, partially because it's so boomerish - the big exception for the Left being Obama, who was also beloved of his tribe's boomers.

I also doubt that more than a lizardman-constant % of the people reacting are genuinely offended Christians who loved Trump until this outrage. It's just social media being social media.

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