The Trump campaign recently shared a fan-made “So God made Trump” ad that models itself after the Ram Trucks’s “So God made a farmer” campaign. The original ad featured a speech by conservative broadcaster Paul Harvey to the Future Farmers of America in 1978. The fan-made ad begins, “And on June 14th, 1946, God looked down on his plan Paradise, and said, I need a caretaker. So God gave us Trump.” According to the ad, God needed someone to, “Fix this country. Work all day. Fight the Marxists. Eat supper. Then go to the Oval Office and stay past midnight. And a meeting of the heads of state.” It also went on to list a number of the former president’s achievements, such as going into North Korea and being able to “make money from the tar of the sand turned liquid to gold.” It also painted Trump in a number of messianic terms, referring to him as “A shepherd to mankind who will never leave nor forsake them.”
The ad was created by the Dilley Meme Team, which is unaffiliated with Trump’s campaign and states its mission is to “Make America great again by any memes necessary.” It features a number of humorous and over-the-top memes and videos. Trump’s critics were quick to lambast his Truth Social account for sharing the ad, with CNN political pundit Karen Finney watching the video in stunned disbelief on a segment. “Karen, your jaw is dropping,” noted anchor Jim Acosta. CNN’s Ana Navarro said she was not surprised by the messianic overtones. “This is not new, right? These are the same evangelicals who somehow justified to themselves voting for a guy in 2016 who we all heard boast on video, we all heard him in his own voice, boasting about committing sexual assault,” she said.
It wasn’t just Trump’s usual critics who went after the ad. A group of Iowa pastors also denounced the ad, with Michael Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ flatly saying, “Trump is not the Messiah.” Demastus has supported Trump in the past but noted that he and other pastors found the ad “offensive.” Another pastor, Terry Amann, pastor of the Church of the Way in Des Moines, accused the video of being demeaning. “[The video] demeans Christianity, Trump and the people who made it. It says a lot about the people around Trump and their ‘worldly’ understanding of Christianity,” he said. Evangelicals, particularly in Iowa, are a key group for Trump to lock in as he seeks to clinch his nomination for the GOP with a strong showing at the upcoming Iowa Caucuses. The National Review, however, doubted whether the ad would have much of an impact against the “cult of personality” surrounding Trump. “Most Republican primary voters will probably dismiss this bizarre display as one of many, indicative of little more than Trump’s, let’s say, eccentricities. If, however, you’re more inclined to accuse those who object to this profane impiety of succumbing to ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ or the like, you’re not doing much to dispel the charge that the GOP is organized entirely around hero worship.”