Trump is facing manufactured controversy after depicting himself as Jesus in a (now-deleted) tweet.
The always-wrong loser media is trying to foment division within Trump supporters again by creating controversy where there otherwise wouldn’t be any. The media scours Twitter or other social media for Republicans (typically, never-Trumpers or “Groyper types”) who were offended by this as “evidence” of a “bipartisan backlash,” even though those people never supported Trump to begin with, or in the case with Nick Fuentes and others, are trying to chase clout by inventing controversy and virtue signaling. I would estimate the number of actual loyal Trump supporters who were genuinely offended by this–as in not in a performative sense–is about zero. ‘
The virtue signaling over this is the Right’s version of when the Left complains about cultural appropriation. Actual Christian Trump supporters do not care, and even may find it amusing or at least don’t care. Artistic depictions of Jesus are as old as Christianity.
There is nothing inherently blasphemous about depicting oneself in the image or likeness of Christ. The issue is not clear-cut. These otherwise non-religious virtue signalers have opportunistically wrapped themselves in religion to attack Trump and divide his supporters.
Also, evangelicals, pro-Trump Catholics included, don’t care what the Pope thinks; his opinion is irrelevant on this issue. The Christian-right understand that there is enough at stake that this is trivial by comparison, as there are much bigger issues. They know Trump is flawed and accept him in spite of this. If given a choice between Trump and a strait-and-narrow avowedly Christian candidate, Trump is their preferred choice.
The media also insults the intelligence of its audience if it presumes people can’t tell the difference between parody and the thing being satirized. By depicting himself in the likeness of Jesus, Trump signals admiration and reverence for the Lord. He wouldn’t have created or shared that meme if he didn’t associate Jesus with the positive qualities often attributed to him, such as healing. In other words, the meme doesn’t desecrate Christ; it presents him in a celebratory light. When a kid or a cosplayer dresses up as Superman for Halloween, it’s not because he thinks he is better than Superman or that he actually believes he has Superman’s powers, but rather because Superman is cool. It’s flattering.
Anyone who interpreted this to mean anything else fall into one of two camps: people who are low-IQ and should be excluded from political discourse , or virtue signalers who never supported Trump in the first place and are trying to sow division within the base.