Donald Trump’s closing message in Iowa before the first votes of the 2024 presidential election was a familiar one. He’s convinced his supporters that his legal problems are their own, and that he’s the only one who can stop them, while stringing along a fake narrative that the 2020 election was stolen from them.
As he targets a key Republican voting bloc of evangelical Christians, the former president is leaning into a fantasy among supporters and social media influencers depicting him as something of a messianic figure, who was sent by God as a “shepherd to mankind” who ends his week in the Oval Office “by attending church on Sunday,” according to one video shared by his campaign.
