I have a deep, visceral mistrust for anyone who says God is on their side. When has Providence ever sorted winners and losers like this? Didn’t we learn better from the bloody Crusades? Or centuries of ruinous sectarian violence? Or Tim Tebow’s NFL career?

Of course, these days we’re meant to believe that God is on the side of the vast majority of the people unnecessarily dying of COVID-19—because that’s what they keep claiming. Apparently, he’s calling them home to tell them to their faces that they’re fucking cretins. 

So this kind of thing isn’t new. Not at all. And the idea that God picked Donald Trump for something other than beta-testing debilitating brain parasites is basically an article of faith among Republicans these days. But last weekend, during the latest leg of the conservative Reawaken America tour, Trump scion Eric outdid them all. (Yeah, I could have written this sooner, but I was trapped near the inner circle of thought.)

Watch:

ERIC TRUMP: “By the way, believe me, talking about religion? Hillary outraised us like six to one, all right? We raised $300 million. A lot of that was money he put in himself, which was like the first time a politician had ever done that in history, actually putting their own money into a race. So we had $300 million. She raised $1.5 to $1.6 billion, right? So, believe me, God was watching down on us, because there’s no way you would have been on the stage right now. There’s no way you would have been on the stage if someone wasn’t looking down and watching. By the way, he’s going to watch us again in 2024. Believe me, he’s going to watch us again in 2024.”

So God made Trump president in 2016, took a breather in 2020, and will get back to it in 2024? I have a hard time believing that. In fact, after congressional Republicans refused to give the Trump impeachment evidence a fair look in late 2019, God almost immediately sent a plague. Sure looks to me like God wasn’t terribly keen on another four years. If Trump ever wins again, I fully expect hailstones the size of Louie Gohmert’s head.

Of course, you’ll also be shocked to learn that Eric is lying about the amount of money each candidate had at their disposal in 2016. Then again, if I checked every feverish Trump family statement for accuracy, my Googlin’ fingers would all look like ruddy Christmas hams by now. They don’t—yet—but give it another year. And the bit about Trump being the first candidate to ever kick in his own money for a campaign? I won’t even bother to check that one, because Jesus Christ, dude.

People who claim they know God’s motivations are almost always swindlers—at least in my experience. I mean, I can thank God for the $20 I found on the sidewalk—and if He actually arranged for me to find it there, yeah, that’s nice. But someone else lost it. Meanwhile, plenty of kids continue to get cancer for no discernible reason. Is God too busy to help them because He wants to put the most venal man on the planet back in charge of the most powerful nation in history?

Again, I have a bit of a hard time believing that. Unfortunately, the kinds of people Eric talks to these days will believe just about anything.

It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.