Praying for an Out: Cornered Trump Stokes "Holy War" Fervour Over Iran

The US-Israel alliance has ignited a war against Iran, throwing global markets into absolute chaos. Oil prices shattered the US$100-per-barrel mark today （March 9） and are hurtling toward US$120, while Asian stocks cascade and economic shockwaves hammer the United States. President Donald Trump projects outward calm, but a swift victory has proven completely elusive.

Evangelical leaders gather at the White House to bless Trump’s "holy war" against Iran—an unsettling spectacle of spiritual rallying.

Cornered by Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, Trump let slip today that he is already discussing an end to military operations with Israel, conceding that he will "make a decision at the right time, but everything’s going to be taken into account."

The reality is, Trump is actively hunting for an escape hatch. In a telling move, Trump recently summoned evangelical pastors to the White House to lay hands on his shoulders and pray for divine guidance. The goal is clear: manufacture religious fervour to shore up his sinking base and pray his way out of a worsening crisis.

Staging this unconventional "spiritual rally" right now serves a calculated political agenda. Make no mistake: the White House is weaponising the evangelical community’s mobilising power to rally believers behind Trump's "holy war." It is a desperate bid to reverse his collapsing approval ratings.

Weaponising Faith for Survival

Evangelicals form the most deeply conservative Christian bloc in America, anchored in the Southern and Midwestern "Bible Belt." They are the Republican Party's ultimate voting machine and Trump's bedrock of support. During the 2024 presidential election, the vast majority of registered white Christian voters threw their weight behind Trump, driven by a deep-seated hostility toward Kamala Harris.

Public blowback against the Iran campaign is intensifying by the day. Latest polls reveal only 27% of American respondents support the offensive, while a staggering 43% oppose it, and 56% conclude Trump is simply "too eager to use military force to solve problems."

Starved of mainstream support, the president is falling back on a familiar playbook. By summoning pastors to bless his war effort and firing up his propaganda machine, he aims to stoke religious fanaticism among conservative Christians. It is a tactical play to re-energise his die-hard loyalists and project an illusion of absolute strength.

Desperate to reverse his collapsing poll numbers, Trump stokes religious fervour to pray his way out of a worsening crisis.

A Dangerous New Crusade

Another core objective behind this carefully choreographed spectacle is to sanctify the bloodshed in Iran. The optics were meticulously staged: Trump seated at the iconic Resolute Desk, surrounded by pastors murmuring prayers with their hands resting on his shoulders. The entire scene dripped with heavy religious ritual. They called upon God to "continue to give our President the strength that he needs to lead our great nation", to ultimate victory. Ultimately, the ceremony played out like a divine blessing bestowed upon a crusading king, draping a brutal military offensive in the sacred robes of holy war.

Experts warn that Trump is deliberately framing the Iran offensive as a righteous crusade to vanquish evil. The narrative draws a direct, unsettling parallel to the Crusades of a millennium ago, when Christian armies marched out to crush the Islamic empire and reclaim the holy city. History shows those ancient Crusaders left behind mass slaughter and rivers of blood in their wake. If Trump is truly modelling today's conflict on that ancient eastward conquest, the implications for global stability are profoundly terrifying.

This aggressive push to "sacralise" himself and the MAGA movement is hardly a new tactic. Trump has long weaponised his alliance with evangelicals, cloaking his post-election agenda in claims of divine mandate.

To cement this bond, Trump took the unprecedented step of establishing a White House Faith Office. He installed Paula White—chair of his Evangelical Advisory Board and the woman in red standing beside him during the recent prayer event—to lead it. Known for her emotionally explosive style, White famously delivered a feverish prayer during the 2020 election. She screamed "strike, strike, strike" while summoning angels to defeat evil, creating a spectacle that bordered on cult-like worship.

Running Out of Miracles

Confronted by a rapidly spiralling crisis, Trump is instinctively reaching back into his old bag of tricks. He is summoning "sacred energy" to project dominance and hoisting the banner of "fighting evil" to salvage his political survival.

Yet, such action simply overlooks the hard truth of the battlefield. The administration is sinking deeper into an unwinnable quagmire every single day. The trap has already snapped shut, and this time, even divine intervention may not be enough to bail him out.

What Say You?

** 博客文章文責自負,不代表本公司立場 **

France has traded on some golden brands for a century: fine food, fine wine, great art. And then there is "democracy." But the recent riots have exposed what many refused to see. That brand is wobbling, the democratic machinery has seized up, and voters are not just disappointed. They are disgusted.

A Golden Brand Tarnished

The New York Times weighed in on the unrest yesterday with a pointed question: why are young people and the working class turning on France's democratic system? It cited a Pew Research Center poll showing 69% of French people are dissatisfied with democracy, up 11 percentage points from six years ago. More and more voters, in other words, feel democracy has failed.

NYT: French riots fueled by disillusionment with democracy.

France is hardly alone. In the United States, the share dissatisfied with democracy is also 69%. The golden brands are crashing down together, and that mindset will shape election after election. No one should take it lightly.

Post-mortems on the riots are now rolling in. The New York Times argues that centrist parties in Europe's largest country are in deep trouble. Slow growth, high inflation, mountains of government debt and bleak prospects for the young are fueling an anger that keeps the protests coming.

The latest riots are a case in point. People believe the democratic system has failed to deliver on its promise of a better future. So the anger boiled over.

Disappointment with "democracy" is curdling into suspicion and outright rejection. That is pushing voters to the extremes and feeding the rapid rise of far-right and far-left parties. The New York Times cited the latest Pew Research Center poll: 69% of French people are dissatisfied with democracy, against 68% in Spain and 62% in Italy. The United States is neck and neck with France at 69%.

The result is startling. If most people no longer see the current democracy as a "good system," how can the leaders it elects, or the decisions they make, command the public's trust?

Pew: 69% in France, US dissatisfied with democracy.

A friend who read the piece dug up a similar survey from 2020. The shift is stark: back then, 58% of French people were dissatisfied with democracy; the figure has since climbed 11 percentage points. Among Americans, it rose 10 points.

Two Failures, One Reckoning

Why are Americans and the French growing so fed up with democracy? The article cites MIT professor Daron Acemoglu, who pins the malaise on two failures.

The first is the failure to deliver on shared prosperity. The working class has taken the hardest hit, and leaders have forgotten their contract with voters: keeping the infrastructure of daily life running smoothly.

The second failure runs deeper. Ruling elites dominate the traditional parties, yet they look down on the issues their supporters care about, or simply ignore them. The result? Working people have drifted to far-left or far-right populist parties, above all in France and Germany.

For ordinary people, democracy is not just a lofty slogan hung high on the wall. It is supposed to solve their problems and improve their lives.

Yet France's parties of every stripe have long been trapped inside the system, elbowing and tripping one another while the country's problems pile ever deeper.

Trapped in a Doom Loop

One columnist reached back 20 years to recall former French Prime Minister François Fillon warning that he was a leader facing national collapse, and that this could not go on. At the time, France owed 1.2 trillion euros, or 64.2 percent of GDP.

His urgent warning changed nothing. Instead of turning around, the crisis went into overdrive. Today the debt has swollen to 3.6 trillion euros, or 119.3 percent of GDP, and interest costs have climbed to nearly 5 percent. Money that should go to better public services and education now goes to paying interest. How can the public not be furious?

France's centrist parties must keep their core voters happy, so 32 percent of the education budget goes to paying civil servants' pensions. That leaves little left to improve classrooms and teaching facilities.

France is not alone. Other Western European countries suffer from the same disease: governments must control spending to shrink their deficits, but cutting welfare and education inevitably ignites public anger. So they keep spinning in a doom loop.

The result is a deeper hole. Voters grow more disillusioned with their governments, and their patience is running out even for the haloed "democratic system" itself.

The Bill Comes Due

Europe's four most populous countries go to the polls next year.

Public anger with traditional democracy will shape the results, and it will spread to other countries.

At a time when people in many countries are fed up with and disappointed in "democracy," some of Hong Kong's yellow camp are still beating the drum. Isn't that ridiculous?

Lai Ting-yiu