“Christians, get out and vote, just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what, it will be fixed, it will be fine, you won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you, get out, you gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again.” It was in these obscure terms that, on July 26, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida, Donald Trump harangued his potential voters in preparation for the approaching presidential election. What exactly did the billionaire mean when he claimed that this might be the last election the country would ever see?
While the supporters of his Democratic opponent, Kamala Harris, thought they could decipher the former president’s ambition to become a dictator and overthrow democracy, the candidate for the supreme office of the United States was keen to reassure everyone that he would only abuse his power “on the first day,” the time needed to close the border with Mexico and “drill, drill, drill” for more fossil fuels.
Others, however, take a very different view of the candidate’s remarks, seeing in them an allusion to apocalyptic literature stemming from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Such was the case of the medievalist Joël Schnapp: “Donald Trump mobilizes a powerfully religious rhetoric, with the use of numerous biblical and eschatological themes [relating to the end of time], to the point that some of his remarks resemble prophecies from the end of the Middle Ages,” said the author of Chroniques de l’Antichrist. Crises et apocalypses au XXIe siècle (“Chronicles of the Antichrist. Crises and apocalypses in the 21st century”).
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Fonte: Le Monde
