Impeached to empowered – the second coming of Donald Trump 

What Christians should watch for this time around, by Baptist minister Chris Goswami. Chris blogged about the the first Trump presidential win in 2016 here 

Donald Trump’s return to the presidency is as unbelievable as it is unprecedented.

After leaving office in disgrace and becoming the only US president to be convicted of criminal offences, even spending weeks of his campaign in courtrooms, here he is: Trump 2.0. As noted on the podcast, The Rest is Politics: “whatever else we think, Trump must be acknowledged as a once in a generation politician who knows how to push the buttons of the American electorate”.

And it’s hard to overstate the influence of this man. From Silicon Valley to Beijing, people are falling over themselves to second-guess what he may or may not do, say or tweet. His sheer unpredictability appears to be his greatest weapon, and world tyrants like Putin and Kim Jong Un; all remain wary of him.

But what differences will we see, practically, as a result of this presidency? Here’s just three.


The normalisation of falsehoods

Trump’s first presidency coincided with a rise of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and fake news. In fact, in 2020 The Washington Post stated that Donald Trump had made a staggering 20,000 false or misleading claims during his first term. Even if exaggerated, such a number is staggering. Yet instead of weakening his support, it seems to strengthen it.

Different phrases have been made-up to describe this effect. Perhaps the most famous is “post truth”, describing the troubling idea that personal belief or emotional feeling is more important than objective fact.

A more general term is “truth decay” where truth somehow becomes relative. Whatever we call it, a striking example occurred during the Florida floods of 2024. Fake images of Donald Trump saving children in the aftermath of the floods were circulated online.

When challenged, one senior Republican politician who re-posted these said she knew the image was fake, but that didn’t matter to her because “the image was emblematic” of Donald Trump. In other words, she felt it should be true … and that makes it “true”.

We should expect truth-decay at an accelerated rate over the next few years. As Christians we must guard against becoming de-sensitised and thinking that truth therefore doesn’t matter. Our commitment to truth is not optional. If Jesus is the truth, then truth matters.

We have to do the hard work of discerning truth which means checking sources when we come across surprising news, and, whenever we receive a post or a link that makes us angry or gossipy, we don’t simply forward it on. We are called to think more deeply than that.


A push back on cancel culture and “woke politics”

“Kamala is for they/them
President Trump is for you”

So said the Republican party’s $20 million ad which became central to their campaign.

DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives began as a necessary effort to protect marginalised groups, but have, at times, drifted into performative box-ticking. In the worst cases, these policies have unintentionally failed women who feel threatened in what should be “female-only spaces”; in 2023 then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed victims of grooming gangs were ignored because of cultural sensitivity and political correctness, an issue which has once again come to the fore in recent weeks.

In organisations and sports, DEI initiatives often fail because they do not differentiate between equality of opportunity (which we must have), and equality of outcome (which is down to merit, not background, ethnicity, or sexuality).

Trump and his “deputy” Elon Musk are pro free speech. Others are following this path as political opportunism. Hence Mark Zuckerberg’s recent decision to scale back fact-checking, particularly around political content, on Facebook and Instagram from spring 2025. He now thinks groups should police themselves, but this is a U-turn.

And hence also the increasing number of US corporations including Walmart and McDonalds, scaling back their DEI initiatives or even ditching targets altogether. These trends will inevitably filter through to Western nations, including the UK.

But you can already see what will happen next. Having had the pendulum swing too far over to the political left it will, almost certainly, now swing way over to the right. Minority groups who need protection, and equality of opportunity, could find themselves, once again, in an increasingly hostile world.

Trump’s supporters, of course, include many American evangelical Christians. For many, it’s a transactional relationship: they vote, and he delivers on key issues like traditional marriage and abortion. Despite their misgivings about his character, he protects their values. Some high profile Christians, like Franklin Graham, even view Trump’s survival of the assassination attempt in July 2024 as a sign that God spared his life to defend religious freedom.

As Christians, we are called to stand for truth and compassion. That means holding our views and being unafraid to state them, while defending the dignity of all people. We must resist being swept up in political extremes.


A new religion emerging from Silicon Valley

Given that California is firmly Democrat, it may seem odd that so many tech billionaires lined up to support Trump and fund his campaign. One reason was that, with one or two notable exceptions, Trump is against increasing regulation on tech companies. He seems much more worried about the US competing with China than protecting privacy, or safety on social media.

Lack of regulations is one concern. But even more concerning is a new ideology, a new belief system emerging from the Silicon Valley billionaires.

This ideology mirrors a religion, offering its own version of God (technology), heaven (techno-utopia), and salvation (human enhancement and immortality).

For instance, it portrays a techno-utopian heaven where technology cures all diseases, creates radical abundance and enables us to colonise the universe. It envisions humans merging with robotics to become "posthuman," transcending our biological limits.

And there is “immortality” through cryogenics (body-freezing) and “mind-upload” where we create an AI version of ourselves that lives on when we die.

And so it goes on - that’s just a summary. If it sounds bizarre, it’s because it is bizarre. But it is backed by some of the richest men in the world (including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Peter Thiel), several of whom now also have direct access to the Oval Office. So bizarre doesn’t mean “unreal”.

President Biden recently warned about the disproportionate influence of "Silicon Valley oligarchs." We do well to listen.


Where do we go from here?

In 2017 Trump described himself as a very stable genius. I don’t know about that. It doesn’t seem to line up, for example, with him advising people to inject themselves with disinfectant during COVID.

But he is certainly unique, he certainly understands the people who vote for him, and his daily tweets will once again certainly have the status of world news.

Second time around, let’s pray that Donald Trump will turn out to be a better President than most of us expect.


Image | 2025 portrait of Donald Trump | donaldjtrump.com

 

Chris Goswami is Associate Minister at Lymm Baptist Church, and a chaplain at Manchester Airport. He blogs regularly at 7minutes.net

Do you have a view? Share your thoughts via our letters' page.