What Jesus and Donald Trump Have in Common
Apart from the fact that they share a common humanity, Jesus and Trump are—for most people anyway—incomparable on every measure. Nonetheless, it is neither a religious sacrilege nor a political mockery to ponder the degrees to which they share some notable characteristics that reflect both their circumstances and the contexts in which they emerge as players in the public arena. Let it be noted right up front that, though both have upset the apple cart, they have done so in inordinately different ways and for incredibly divergent reasons. This is not to suggest that merely upsetting the status quo, albeit in different historic periods, puts these two figures on the same plane. Neither does it suggest for a millisecond that Trump can or should be viewed as a sort of Jesus-figure or analogue to the man from Nazareth. Quite the contrary, by any criterion these two figures are to each other as unequal and unmatched as is socioculturally and religiously possible—except for their commo