Za "Time" from New York
Every last Saturday of the month, a line stretches along Joyce Kilmer Avenue that starts outside the door of Bayard Church. It is a day when this Presbyterian community distributes free food, while in the arcade of the old building second-hand clothes that, in better days, adorned the windows of New York stores, are given away. While the president Donald tramp represents himself in the image of a deliverer, those who believe in Savior they help fellow citizens with their donations.
For some of the country's leaders, while they announce the continuation of the bombing if no agreement is reached to extend the truce, the gospel serves other purposes.
"May almighty God continue to bless our troops in this fight... pray for them," are not the words of the pastor celebrating mass in this century-old building, but of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who calls on citizens to kneel every day for military victory. "With your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ." He is not alone in this. Vice President Jay Dee Vance spoke of God being "on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis," while House Speaker Mike Johnson referred to theological teachings on the "just war doctrine." The president himself believes that God supports the actions of the United States in the war against Iran, thus giving this conflict, in a country where state and religion are clearly separated by the Constitution, a whole new dimension of explanation.
Before state leaders began to invoke the Creator, it was said to be a "preemptive strike" due to the "imminent threat to the US and its allies", a chance for the Iranian people to change power "once in a few generations", preventing Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and destroying the country's missile capabilities along with its proxy allies in the region. President Trump has declared victory more than ten times, the regime in Tehran has, according to him, been "changed", the new authorities are begging Washington to end the war and want to fulfill all the demands of the White House, the end of the conflict is constantly within reach, and Hormuz will never be closed again.
The reality, however, is somewhat different from the ease of what is written on social networks.
The strait was open for a day, after which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) again blocked the passage, firing on cargo ships whose crews took the free-sailing announcement lightly, while US warships stop all those sailing to Iranian ports.
Armistice deadlines are expiring and new ones are being set, although American and Iranian negotiators are not stopping in their efforts to reach an agreement on Iran's nuclear program and the navigation of Hormuz, which was not questioned before. The war created a problem that is currently shaking the entire world economy.
The negotiations between the warring parties always go hard — otherwise, there wouldn't be a war — but this conflict revealed something to both sides that they didn't know before: to Tehran, that control over the main route for oil exports from the Persian Gulf has a stronger means of blackmail than uranium enrichment, and to Washington, that the destruction of Iran's military capabilities and the assassination of state leaders do not mean the country's defeat. As this was revealed over time, the anger of the Trump administration grew.
BASTARDS FROM HELL
The epic fury was reflected not only in the intense bombing of Iran but also in the verbal escapades of the president, whose social network Truth Social replaced the official announcements of the White House.
"Open the f*cking...strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll live in hell..." "An entire civilization will die tonight and never come back. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will..." "All hell will break loose..." "We'll send them back to the stone age, where they belong..." And the like.
Ahead of the new round of negotiations, President Trump continued with threats to destroy bridges and power plants, blow up "the whole country", regardless of numerous warnings that this could be a violation of international humanitarian law. Admonitions don't have much effect — the president has already made it clear that he doesn't need international law and that his morals are the only thing that can stop him. To that can be added his claims that public criticism of the war with Iran harms negotiations, referring to the views of Democrats, especially House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries.
Maybe it's all just his negotiating strategy, which he transferred from the business world to the political stage, but US presidents have never used a similar vocabulary. To many, it no longer looks like the America they know.
"We shouldn't let that statement about erasing civilization go by without saying how antithetical to American history it is... I think it's completely out of control," political commentator David Brooks claimed, adding that such claims are clearly "a reflection of bad intentions." Columnist Jonathan Capehard says no US president has ever written, said or threatened as Donald Trump has. "This leads to a fundamental question: Is the president okay? ... We have a president who has provided ample evidence that something is wrong."
The words of the journalist will not dissuade Trump's supporters, whose number is not decreasing, which somehow comes to him logically. If they weren't supporters, they wouldn't even believe what he says, although the conflict with the head of the Roman Catholic Church made some of them think about everything, and above all about the president's portrayal of himself as a healer who resembles Jesus in many ways.
photo: apTWO AMERICANS, TWO WORLDS: Trump and the Pope
WAR PRAYERS
Leo XIV spent his first year in the Vatican spreading a message of unity and reconciliation, seeking to cultivate peaceful and harmonious relations with leaders in Washington. His predecessor publicly said that Trump was not a Christian, showing with a series of gestures that he was against the tough immigration policy of the USA. As the first American to head the Holy See, the new pope spread universal messages of peace until the war began. Then he became extremely direct, asking "all parties involved to take moral responsibility to end the spiral of violence before it becomes an irreparable abyss." When state officials began to openly invoke the name of the Son of God in military action, the Pope retorted that "Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war."
The epic anger that was previously unleashed on Iran, "rotten democrats", "cowardly NATO"... and everyone else who opposed the president, did not escape the Holy Father either. Calm and composed as he always was, the pope replied that he was not afraid of the Trump administration, nor of speaking out, after the US president called him "weak on crime" and "terrible on foreign policy."
It is obvious that no one will be spared from being dragged through the mud if they oppose the president, which has just been experienced by some of the most influential figures of the MAGA movement itself.
IQ TEST
They began to openly criticize President Trump for the war, threatening statements to the Iranian people and attacks on the Pope. Regardless of the fact that they were the loudest supporters of him, spoke at the Republican conferences and largely contributed to his victory, now they are angry and disillusioned with everything that is happening in the country.
Tucker Carlson called Trump's comments about the threat of bombing civilian infrastructure "heinous"; Joe Rogan says that the situation looks "f***ing scary" to him - "you're firing rockets at cities and blowing things up, destroying infrastructure, tearing down bridges..."; republican star Marjorie Taylor Green writes that it all resembles "the worst treason", while Megan Kelly says that it is all "completely irresponsible and disgusting". The president, who apparently spends a lot of time on social media, didn't miss their words: "Tucker is a low IQ person — always easy to beat and very overrated!!! So is Megan Kelly, 'Candace' (so stupid and mentally ill!), and bankrupt Alex Jones, who is completely 'fried'."
"Stupid", "mentally ill" and "fried" still have an audience of millions on their podcasts. The impact of their words has yet to be seen among Trump supporters, but it is becoming clear to many Republican voters that the MAGA fraternity is no longer unique.
Only Energy Secretary Chris Wright seems to be in any special grace when the president tells him, without any insults, that he is "completely wrong" after saying that gasoline prices will not return to their previous levels before the start of next year.
It's not just a matter of private cars, which here are not a luxury but a daily necessity, because there is no public transportation in a huge part of the country, but also that fuel pushes up all other prices due to transportation costs. Obviously someone made a misjudgment if there was any plan to attack Iran. If there was any strategy, either it was not believed that the country could cause so much damage by closing the straits, or it was thought that the war would last much shorter.
At the same time, it is not just a war between two countries but a conflict between two value systems, one of which drags citizens into the abyss of religious fundamentalism and the other slowly forgets that words have a deeper meaning than their daily use on social networks. Against the backdrop of these conflicts, prices in America continue to rise. The biggest monthly jump in fuel prices in the last six decades could not happen without rising inflation, and consumer prices are 3,3 percent higher than a year earlier.
This is the beginning of the second year of the mandate of the president who promised voters that he would stabilize prices and stay away from wars.
Meanwhile, the line outside the Bayard Church now begins to form from early morning, with those arriving with empty bags and containers of free food waiting for the next opportunity to give back to the state that recognizable figure that made them proud of their country. Some things, however, will never go back to the way they were. The queue will decrease over time, but Hormuz will never be sailed like before, which will have its price. Those who get up early in the morning every last Saturday of the month and rush to take their place on Joyce Kilmer Avenue already know this well.
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