Isiah called Cyrus the lord’s anointed. When Donald Trump arrived, evangelicals saw him as Cyrus, a man of the world that god is using. The analogy flattered everyone and the instrument. It was a theology for the transaction. Pew found that 81 percent of white evangelicals voted for him in 2024. Judges, religious liberty and a verdict on abortion were the temple. Nobody pretended the man was a saint.
Two years into his second presidency, Trump has dashed their prayers. And the voters read him the commandments. Their anger achieved what Democrats could not for decades. Voters elected Democrats to the Senate from Texas, which had not elected one since 1988, from South Carolina, which had not since 1998, and from Kansas, which had waited 94 years. Six pastors, former pastors and seminarians won as Democrats.
The Ten Commandments are a collar on power: devotion must be rationed, authority is borrowed, life is not that of the ruler to spend, property and truth are held in trust, and desire needs a ceiling. Held up beside the presidency, the commandments work as a mirror.
The first commandment is unambiguous: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Trump built a cult of personality around the presidency and demanded loyalty from officials and legislators as an article of faith. His choice of whom he backed and whom he threatened was all about loyalty. His conduct on the international stage was again about ‘Him’.
The second commandment says, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,” prohibiting creation of objects of worship. Trump deployed religious imagery to elevate himself. He posted an AI image of himself as a Christ-like figure, light in his hands, healing a man in a hospital bed.
Following an uproar, he deleted it but added, “I thought it was me as a doctor.” His own people objected—and it was not just about bad taste.
Trump routinely blends politics with religion and has framed the war with Iran in religious terms. He hailed the rescue of a downed airman as an “Easter miracle”. The third commandment says, “Thou shalt not take the lord’s name in vain.” Aghast at the war, Leo XIV, the first US-born pontiff, said, “Even the holy name of god, the god of life, is being dragged into discourses of death,” adding later, “Enough of the idolatry of self and money!” As if on cue, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth led a prayer at Pentagon where he read a fictitious hitman’s lines from the movie Pulp Fiction. Trump dismissed the pope’s advice with a curt “I am not a fan”.
The commandment to “Honour thy father and thy mother” is as much about respecting family as it is about honouring responsibilities of place and persons. Even his most ardent supporters have cringed at Trump’s utterances on the campaign trail—especially the monologue on the posterior of Jon Husted, a Republican senator and candidate from Ohio. In the same state, Vivek Ramaswamy aired an ad much reviled by Republicans and Democrats as it pitted a mother against her daughter. Trump didn’t agree. “I suggested that Vivek should keep it up.”
“Thou shalt not kill.” Under Trump, killing acquired a casual shrug: in Minneapolis by ICE agents or schoolgirls in Minab, Iran by missiles. Theologians have argued over the commandment and the doctrine of a just war for 16 centuries and more. Six in 10 Americans in an opinion poll said the US took a wrong decision in taking military action against Iran. The commandments place the moral responsibility for the decisions taken during war on those who order it. The cost of the war, as per Pentagon, is over $47.1 billion till date. Trump conceded that the conflict’s effect on energy prices cost his party. Households that never voted on the war were billed for it.
The unstated expectation is that the presidency, defined by the motto ‘E pluribus unum’, Latin for ‘Out of many, one’, will preserve the integrity of the office. The eighth commandment—“Thou shalt not steal”—is not just about petty pelf but also about fidelity to the trust about what an office confers and who keeps it. The anger over data centres is about costs, but also about Trumpian promiscuity with billionaires. The Boeing 747 from Qatar with gold plated interiors, $2.2 billion in 2025 income, $1.4 billion of it from crypto and meme coins, and priced early access to Truth
Social posts have brought his conduct into focus. It is unsurprising that Robert Garcia, the incoming House oversight committee chair, has asked Trump to “Lawyer up”.
The ninth commandment says, “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” The 2020 election was thoroughly probed by courts and the claim of stolen victory failed in each. Yet Trump and his acolytes persist in a narrative based on a lie.
The 10th commandment states, “Thou shalt not covet.” The caution is not confined to money—although the collections for the presidential library may be probed—but a reminder that pursuit of power can become an end in itself. The tablets prescribe limits; politics prescribes a calendar.
The modern-day Isaiahs who hailed Trump as Cyrus expected their woes to be addressed. Trump promised affordability, Trumponomics denied it. Those who voted for Trump find that the geography of grievance has survived the promise of redemption.
The scriptures speak of teshuvah, a return, and of metanoia, a change of mind. Asked what the Iran war had cost his party, Trump said: “If I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again.” The voters who had once hailed Trump began the return without him.
Read all columns by Shankkar Aiyar
Shankkar Aiyar
Author of The Gated Republic, Aadhaar: A Biometric History of India’s 12 Digit Revolution, and Accidental India (shankkar.aiyar@gmail.com)