On June 16, 2015, Donald Trump rode a golden escalator down to the basement of Trump Tower to announce he was running for president. I didn’t notice the symbolism at the time, but thinking back, it was obvious: Here was a billionaire riding down from the penthouse to meet the common folks at their level.

But, intentionally or not, he was sending another message, too. He was behaving very much like a messiah coming down from heaven, descending from that sacred realm where the streets (if not the escalators) are paved in gold.

Equating material success with holiness fit right in with both the biblical description of heaven in the Book of Revelation and America’s capitalist culture. Consciously or not, Trump was setting the stage for people to accept him as the second coming, a messiah that would give many white evangelical Christians what they’d always wanted: earthly power.

Branding and bragging

Trump has always been a master of packaging and marketing. He built a brand out of his own name that obscured the fact that there was, often, little of substance to back it up (Trump University being a prime example). The point wasn’t providing value, but getting people to buy in. He kept them coming back, not by providing value, but by dishing out threats, insults, and more empty promises.

His own Christian posing was just as much a marketing ploy, and just as hollow. He held up a Bible in front of a church where he wasn’t a member — and that didn’t even want him there — after federal forces dispatched on his orders used tear gas against peaceful protesters.

Trump may or may not have been targeting evangelicals with his “golden escalator” stunt, but there’s no doubt he’s done so repeatedly since then. He hasn’t equated himself to Jesus, explicitly, but he has shrewdly implied a near-equivalency:

“Someone said to me the other day, ‘You’re the most famous person in the world by far.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not’... They said, ‘Who’s more famous?’ I said, ‘Jesus Christ.’”

Notice that Trump is the one who has to remind others about Jesus. The unnamed person’s praise (does he even exist, or was Trump just making him up?) stokes Trump’s ego, while allowing Trump to appear both humble and wise by correcting him.

Identity matters

Through it all, evangelicals have eaten it up. They’ve bought Trump’s bill of goods that he’s the second coming, the savior, the only one who “can fix it.” Oh, they wouldn’t call him Jesus, but they’d put his ego and his B.S. ahead of Jesus’ teachings about humility and his kingdom — that it was not of this world, but could be found within.

It’s often forgotten that, at the same event where he claimed “I alone can fix it” (the 2016 Republican National Convention), he also declared, “I am your voice” — casting himself in the same role as Jesus, who serves as an intercessor between the believer and God.

And Trump demands the same kind of faith many evangelicals cling to: unflinching loyalty to a person who embodies a cause. Despite his condemnation of left-wing “identity politics,” Trump himself feeds off the same dynamic. He demands loyalty to him personally: that people identify with him, rather than any specific policies he might suggest... because, of course, those policies are always changing.

In the same way, many evangelicals put faith in “the name of Jesus” above adherence to his teachings. So if Trump happens to ignore those teachings himself, it’s not an issue.

Trading for Trump

Trump knows this, and he’s played to it throughout his presidency, earning plaudits from megachurch pastors and televangelists — who recognize his techniques as the same ones they’ve used for decades to raise money.

He’s one of their own. Beliefs don’t matter; results do. Jesus’ teachings about the kingdom of heaven can be exchanged for an earthly empire at the tables of their temple money-changers. Jesus himself can be traded in for a new model: Trump. Someone they’ll believe no matter what he says, regardless of evidence to the contrary, even if he tries to undermine a fair election or subvert the Constitution.

Trump is evangelicals’ new King David, a champion to help them fight the Goliath of secularism and diversity. Not a messiah in heaven or within the believer, but a flesh-and-flood ruler who can bend people to his will through force and fear.

White evangelical Christians form the core of Trump’s “base.” They offer him the same kind of faith/loyalty they once reserved for Jesus. He knows this and he’s exploited it, both to gain political advantage and to stoke his outsized ego.

But it’s all an act. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Trump isn’t Jesus; he’s not even a shadow of the biblical messiah. He’s a counterfeit, tempting Christians to forsake the teachings of their savior to follow a false prophet. Offering them worldly power, just as the devil offered it to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Jesus rejected it. They’re embracing it.

It’s a disturbing dynamic, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. You’ll find much more about the history and psychology that make Trump so attractive to white evangelicals in my book Jesus, You’re Fired! It’s available on Amazon in paperback, ebook, and free via Kindle Unlimited.