Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the King of America

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the famed German theologian and Nazi resister, had his first run-in with Hitler’s administration almost immediately. Only two days after the Nazis took power in 1933, Bonhoeffer delivered a radio address warning Germans that their desire for a Führer, a leader with broad and unquestionable power, was cult-like, even idolatrous. Bonhoeffer’s address was silenced mid-sentence. His biographer, Eberhard Bethge, admitted it might’ve been a technical error, not censorship, but nobody really believes that.

I recalled Bonhoeffer’s clash with authority earlier this week, when online… er… personality Kaitlin Bennett, the self-described Kent State “Gun Girl,” posed on Twitter wearing a shirt reading “Trump Is My King.” Apparently Bennett, an apprentice to notorious loose screw Alex Jones, sells these products through her husband’s online store, and expects fellow American conservatives to purchase them. A disillusioned ex-conservative myself, I think most right-wingers will feel rightly incensed here. But not all will.

Donald Trump isn't just my President. He's my KING! Get your shirt today at https://t.co/vVkPBqW2UX pic.twitter.com/O7DE5Mi2hA

— Kaitlin Bennett (@KaitMarieox) September 30, 2020

Conservatives, historically, have sought the appeal of a unifying moral authority. Kings, popes, and potentates give nations an identity and vision, without the sloppy hand-wringing which often accompanies debate. Democracy, as even its most avid defenders will admit, is slow-moving, and often subject to public whimsy. It also leads to an irresolvable pluralism. When everybody’s position is, theoretically, as valuable as anybody else’s, the nation lacks a single, unifying vision, and nobody makes binding decisions.

Therefore, in free nations which historically overthrew their monarchs, there’s often a tendency to restore kings, directly or indirectly. First Rome exiled its final king, then the Roman Republic gave monarchical power to the Caesars. Germans cheered when Kaiser Bill fled in disgrace, then floundered for a generation, before the Brownshirts provided a suitable replacement. Russia went from tsars to premiers to Vladimir Putin, because, as awful as each was, at least they brought order.

Currently, there’s no reason to believe Kaitlin Bennett’s desire to anoint King Trump has any support outside her husband’s website. American conservative identity anchors heavily on mythology of powder-wigged ancestors rebelling against a king. Investing an American monarch would contradict their own story and, I think, create cognitive dissonance they couldn’t resolve. However, there’s already a move afoot to grant the presidency significant powers, which the individual could exercise with monarchical power, a back-door coronation.

Political theorist Corey Robin, in his book The Reactionary Mind, postulates a simple theory for right-wing thinking. Conservatives essentially believe society has a naturally occurring power hierarchy, and those possessing moral weight and personal merit will naturally gravitate upward. Therefore, any attempt to redress structural inequalities, Robin suggests, will raise up undeserving people, while tearing down the meritorious. How can we tell who deserves power? Easy: they already have it. Power is its own justification.

If Robin’s explanation holds water, then power isn’t merely political; it’s moral. Therefore, power needs to remain while the powerful individual remains moral. That’s why public Christians like Franklin Graham and Eric Metaxas feel so compelled to demonstrate Trump’s supposed Christianity, despite his documented infidelities and vulgarity. Power, in service to protecting the established order, requires moral authority, which it then distributes with papal infallibility. The powerful are always right, because right is always powerful.

Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Donald Trump: the unholy union of piety and power

Audiences like me may feel squeamish at this correlation between morality and power. History is replete with evidence that powerful people regularly behave immorally. It’s absurd to deny, under the current weight of evidence, that Donald Trump is a racist, sexist, philandering tax cheat. Yet his defenders would insist that, if Trump is himself morally good enough to achieve power, anything he does is perforce acceptable. This logic is downright Nietszchean in its looping complexity.

Here’s where Germany returns. As Bonhoeffer noted about the Führer cult, power doesn’t derive from morality, morality derives from power. We look for the best possible explanations of powerful people’s actions, to justify our own morality. That’s why much of the political Left happily looked the other way when President Obama expanded the drone warfare program, sold licenses to drill petroleum in the Arctic Ocean, and more. We justify power when it serves our ends.

A fringe element of American conservatism wants to crown Trump. Frankly, that’s predictable and expected. But maybe, by doing it so brazenly, Kaitlin Bennett has done Americans a favor. If we take this opportunity to unyoke power from morality, we can prevent the catastrophes we’ve witnessed, under the last three presidents. When we stop thinking government is the arbiter of moral goodness, we can pursue what we know is right. Let’s free ourselves from Caesar.