Orit Arfa is an author and journalist based in Berlin. Her debut novel, The Settler, follows the aftermath of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza. Her work can be found at: www.oritarfa.net.
If I were Donald Trump, I’d be grabbing my book of Psalms for comfort and strength.
Psalms is the iconic book of Biblical poetry that serves as the treasure chest for prayers of praise and supplication. King David is traditionally attributed as the author, although Biblical scholars believe that it was written by multiple authors over several decades or even centuries. Psalms, or Tehillim in Hebrew, paint a picture of a man seeking to live in the House of God, often surrounded by enemies, but knowing, at the end of the day, that God will deliver him.
When Trump got up from the floor after the bullet went through his ear at the Pennsylvania rally on July 13, surrounded by secret service men and women, breaking through their burly arms to raise his own, blood streaming down his face, shouting the words: “Fight, Fight, Fight,” I immediately thought of one verse from Psalms: “They collapse and fall, while we rise and are strengthened” (Ps. 20:9).
When the American public discovered during the presidential debate that President Joe Biden was indeed mentally unwell, the Democrats panicked. Once high on the 2020 election victory, once gleefully persecuting Trump through lawfare, the party began to collapse. After the failed assassination attempt, top Democrats pushed Biden out of the race. They scrambled to select (rather than elect) a nominee and chose Vice President Kamala Harris, infamous for believing in a future “unburdened by what has been.” Democratic lawmakers and apparatchiks have been doing their best to showcase (or stage) enthusiasm for a woman whose track record on the border, gender, abortion, and Israel are among the most extreme of her party.
Many Americans lost trust in the Democrats and their media apologists which had sought to delegitimize anyone who questioned Biden’s health. The media dismissed footage of him freezing at a Democratic party fundraiser and wandering off at the G7 summit as “cheap fakes.” Undecided voters were awed by the contrast of Trump’s triumphant rise from the floor, perceiving him as a hero rather than the peddled image of him as a selfish brute.
At the Republican National Convention, Trump went into detail about what went through his mind as he was shot, saying: “The crowd was confused because they thought I was dead. And there was great, great sorrow. I could see that on their faces as I looked out. They didn’t know I was looking out; they thought it was over. But I could see it and I wanted to do something to let them know I was okay.”
His calm in a moment of near death makes me think of that famous verse in Psalms, “Though I walk through a valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for You are with me (Ps. 23:4).”
He looked to God, the force that “renews life and guides [man] on the right path” (Ps. 23:3) and valiantly got up.
Immediately after Trump averted international tragedy, Elon Musk took to X and endorsed him, as did Jewish billionaire and former Democrat, Bill Ackman. Random, former Democrats “came out” as Trump supporters, like ex-feminist Stefanie Tyler, who wrote on X:
“Watching Trump survive an assassination attempt and act like a total f** savage just shifted me into some strange, patriotic gear that my fancy-feminism-white-men-bad infected brain never showed me. like, the dude took a bullet and stood up with blood dripping down his face, and rallied a f*** crowd while fist pumping, yelling "FIGHT!" sorry, but i'm voting for that. and saying it out loud feels so freeing.”
Musk announced on X that his liberal friends in Silicon Valley have also made the switch. Even Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerburg, a known supporter of the Democratic party, called Trump’s literal rise from the floor “one of the most bad*** things I’ve ever seen in my life.” He went on to say: “At some level as an American, it’s hard to not, like, get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight.”
If we attribute to God the voice that told Trump to get up and fight, then we can say that, “The voice of God breaks cedars; God shatters the cedars of Lebanon” (Ps. 29:5).
The flailing Biden Administration, whose leader suddenly disappeared, became the butt of jokes not long after, recalling: “The evil man schemes against the righteous and gnashes his teeth. God laughs at him, for he knows his day will come” (Ps. 37:12-13).
The Democratic party has descended into abject irrationality, interacting with each other and others through pressure, malice, deceit, and dishonesty. King David prayed to stay far away from such people, writing: “Do not sweep me away with sinners, or snuff out my life with murderers, who have schemes at their fingertips, and hands full of bribes” (Ps. 26: 9-10).
Biden’s relationship with his party leaders wasn’t one based on a rational meeting of the minds or the value of independence and reason. He was someone the party apparatus favored because he seemed the most amenable to control–until he refused to resign. The Democrats were doomed by the irrational processes they used to temporarily push their way to the top. Ultimately, Psalms teaches us that evil can lead to short-term victories, but it cannot be sustained in a world created by a benevolent, Infinite Intelligence.
The attempted assassination attempt was Trump’s Davidic moment, in which he channeled the God of the most famous Jewish King and emerged as a devout monotheist, humbly admitting at the RNC:
“I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God.” He might as well have quoted from Psalms: “You have delivered me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before God in the lands of the living” (Ps. 116: 8-9).
This article was originally published in German on Achgut.com.