Trump Isn’t the Disease. He’s the Fever.

By LONNIE KING

For a long time, I told myself a story that felt both hopeful and convenient.

I wanted to believe that Donald Trump was the problem with American culture. That he was an aberration. A distortion. A loud and jarring interruption in a society that—while imperfect—was still slowly bending toward decency.

And if we could just remove him from the center of public life, I believed things would begin to heal. The temperature would come down. The volume would lower. The country would find its footing again.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Not because Trump has become more powerful, but because the truth has become harder to ignore.

A fever tells you something is wrong

Trump didn’t invent what we’re seeing in America right now. He merely revealed it.

He didn’t create racial grievance, religious nationalism, or the hunger for strongmen. What he did was give permission. Permission to say the quiet part out loud. Permission to discard restraint. Permission to confuse cruelty with strength.

Trump isn’t the disease. He’s the fever.

And a fever doesn’t cause the illness. It tells you the illness is already there.

That’s why the idea of a politically constrained Trump—limited by elections, courts, or time—no longer offers the comfort it once did. Because even if the fever breaks, the infection still needs treatment.

The problem that lingers

What remains, even if Trump were to disappear from public life tomorrow, is a relevant minority of Americans deeply invested in one thing: ownership.

Not shared citizenship. Not pluralism. Ownership of a culture.

A belief that America belongs to certain people more than others. That power is proof of righteousness. That equality feels like loss.

That minority doesn’t have to be large to be dangerous. It just has to be convinced it’s entitled to rule—and willing to sanctify that belief with moral language.

Increasingly, it does exactly that.

When religious certainty becomes a warning sign

Recently, I came across a social media post that stopped me cold.

I didn’t go looking for it. I encountered it after Adam Kinzinger responded publicly, which prompted me to seek out the original post to understand what he was pushing back against. Given his public profile and the moment we’re living in, his response felt necessary.

The post itself was written by a man who openly identifies as both a pastor and a Christian. The message wasn’t subtle. It trafficked in exclusion and hierarchy, wrapped in the confidence of moral certainty.

I’m intentionally not linking to that post here.

Not because it isn’t important—but because it already exists in an ecosystem that rewards provocation with attention. Linking to it would give it additional life and extend the reach of a worldview that depends on amplification.

What matters isn’t one man’s rhetoric. What matters is that this kind of rhetoric now circulates openly, confidently, and under the banner of faith.

That should give us pause.

A deeper fracture beneath the noise

What we’re dealing with isn’t simply a Trump problem. It’s a values fracture.

One vision of America understands power as something to be constrained, shared, and held accountable. The other understands power as proof of righteousness.

One vision sees difference as part of the social fabric. The other sees difference as a threat to be controlled.

Trump didn’t create that divide. He simply stopped pretending it wasn’t there.

The work that remains

This realization doesn’t lead me to despair. It leads me to clarity.

The work ahead isn’t about waiting for politics to return to normal. It’s about refusing to excuse cruelty because it’s familiar. Refusing to sanctify power because it wears religious language. Refusing to confuse silence with neutrality.

Naming what’s wrong isn’t negativity. It’s leadership.

And on a Sunday morning—whether we sit in pews, on couches or somewhere in between—that feels like a truth worth sitting with.

Grace and grit to you! — LK