Evangelicals fabricated martial ancestry for Trump to validate his masculine authority

Evidence

Just a little over a year after Trump’s inauguration, two of his evangelical supporters published The Faith of Donald J. Trump: A Spiritual Biography. Given the paucity of evidence available on the topic, David Brody (a journalist at Christian Broadcasting Network) and Scott Lamb (a vice president at Liberty University) went to creative lengths to craft a portrait of the president that would appeal to evangelicals and assuage any misgivings some might still harbor. Though they conceded his lineage might be a little sketchy, according to “family history,” Trump’s ancestors included “an incredible soldier who fought the English at the Battle of Bannockburn (depicted as the final scene of Mel Gibson’s Braveheart).” There was also “a good chance” that Trump had “Viking blood running through his veins.” His Scotch ancestry, too, linked Trump to “the land of John Knox,” a man of God who “spoke truth to power,” a man (like other Scots) known for his “straight talk,” a man celebrated by the likes of Doug Wilson and Doug Phillips. — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 608

Categorization

• CANDY: The detail that Trump’s Viking and Bannockburn ancestry was invented by evangelical authors seeking to prove his virility is a striking, tweetable absurdity.
• XREF: Connects to the book’s earlier chapters on evangelical warrior masculinity mythology (chapters on Doug Phillips, Vision Forum reenactments) — this is the same patriarchal masculinity framework applied to Trump.