![]() ![]() … But you know what? I want to be greedy for our country.” Even if we assume that Trump means this sincerely (which is by no means certain), there’s little reason to believe it will work out in practice. Or, as Trump puts it, “I’ve always been greedy. It is the common currency of demagogues to assert that they will yoke themselves to the people such that their unrestrained ambition serves the people’s interest. Perhaps the root of the dread that sincerely Christian commentators like the New York Times’s Ross Douthat have about a likely Trump nomination is that Trump entirely lacks even the modicum of humility that graces even the most ambitious and vainglorious of American politicians. And what should give us pause is that it appears that what those Americans who admire Trump admire most about him is precisely that lack. On the other hand, if we want to find the personification of arrogant assertion without any restraint in this contest, we surely need look no further than presumptive nominee Donald Trump. The comedy of Cruz’s rebellion is all too human. Neither is Mitch McConnell, nor Reince Priebus, nor Paul Ryan, nor the so-easily-overthrown Jeb Bush, nor any other luminary of the GOP. The target of Cruz’s rebellion, though, simply doesn’t measure up to the majesty or consequence of Lucifer’s. And the spectacle of Cruz choosing his running mate immediately after it became apparent that he had almost no chance of becoming the nominee recalled Lucifer’s petulant declaration that he would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven (even though reigning in hell is as worthless a title as being Ted Cruz’s vice presidential pick). There’s clearly something of Lucifer’s spirit to that. For essentially his entire life, he’s been actively disliked by most people, and yet he has turned virtually every setback into a launching pad for further advancement. Consider the way he has conducted himself as a senator, eagerly tearing down both his party and the Senate itself for the sake of private ambitions that seemed comically implausible. Much of what makes him so compelling a figure is how effectively he converts his own misery - his terrible fall from grace and his painful knowledge that for God this act of banishment was almost an afterthought - into purpose, and power.Īnd that sounds a lot like Cruz. Well, Milton’s Lucifer is indeed a rather miserable son of a bitch. So what about Ted Cruz? How does he measure up to Milton’s conception of the Prince of Darkness? Thus he becomes humanity’s adversary as well. Nonetheless, out of sheer spite he sets out to frustrate God’s plans by corrupting his terrestrial creation. Milton’s Satan sees himself as God’s adversary - he believes himself to be self-created and has the titanic ambition to defeat and overthrow God himself, an ambition he pursues even after he knows it is absurd because he was just almost casually cast out of heaven and has no way to return. These two sides of this figure’s personality are united in the greatest literary conception of his dark majesty: in Milton’s Paradise Lost. But when a character named Lucifer first appears, in Isaiah (as an epithet for the ruler of Babylon), he is God’s adversary, the personification of the arrogant assertion of self against all restraint. ![]() To answer that question requires a brief inquiry into who the devil Satan or Lucifer really is. The word “Satan” derives from the Hebrew word for “adversary,” and when he first appears in the Book of Job it is as the adversary of mankind: Satan walks the Earth looking for evidence of sin and brings the evidence of human weakness and failure to divine attention. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.” The comment earned the headlines it subsequently solicited, both as a barbed contribution to the fray of this presidential campaign, and a delayed form of personal payback.īut was it good literary criticism or good theology? Was Lucifer - fallen angel, ruler of hell - really a “miserable son of a bitch?” If so, is Ted Cruz a reasonable choice of avatar? Or do other candidates perhaps better deserve the title of satanic majesty? And finally, whether or not any of the current candidates actually resemble Satan, would they do as good a job as Satan at directing American foreign and domestic policy? “I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. In a candid conversation with Stanford students last week, former Speaker of the House John Boehner was asked his opinion of Ted Cruz.
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