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Was the Trump Bible Photo Op Just an Oops, or Does it Tell Us Something?
Examining aberrant behaviors can provide important information about underlying problematic patterns.
Citizens extensively criticized Mr. Trump after he used government forces to clear his stroll from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op with a Bible. While numerous sources claimed that he held the Bible upside down, the video indicates that the was actually holding it right side up. Commentators spoke much less about the extremely awkward way in which Mr. Trump shook the Bible up and down with both hands, twisted his torso to pose with the book, rotated it slightly while giving it a quizzical glance, and finally raised it aloft in his right hand.
Was Mr. Trump just feeling anxious? Were his strange, clumsy motions a sign that he was feeling uneasy? Was he still feeling that he was in danger after emerging from his basement bunker? Anxiety seems an unlikely source for his awkwardness, because he was both well protected, and, as a reality television star, well accustomed to posing for the camera, particularly for a photo-op he himself orchestrated.
Was the discomfort he displayed just unfamiliarity with handling a book? He held it as if it were a totally alien item — a prop, for…
