Reviewed by: Kierkegaard Trumping Trump: Divinity Resurrecting Democracy by Curtis L. Thompson Ronald F. Marshall Kierkegaard Trumping Trump: Divinity Resurrecting Democracy. By Curtis L. Thompson. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf & Stock, 2019. xiv + 199 pp. Curtis L. Thompson, emeritus professor of systematic theology, Thiel College, Grenville, Pennsylvania, has written about six ways that Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) can help Donald Trump and his supporters become better citizens. The first way is by trading Trump’s dark vision of life for Kierkegaard’s “more upbeat” one (31). Second, Trump’s self-absorption should be replaced with Kierkegaard’s self-transformation (36, 52). Third, Trump needs to abandon his nasty, bigoted, selfish standards (56, 59, 63, 67) and replace them with Kierkegaard’s standard of love for God, self and others (74)—which is “the heart of the corrective Kierkegaard offers” (81). Fourth, “Trump is the master of the momentary,” he worships it and is enslaved by it (82–84, 99), which always puts him on the attack with sensational and outrageous ploys (94). He should replace this with Kierkegaard’s eternal which suppresses the temporal and then brings it back to the eternal through love (106, 108). Fifth, in Trump’s narrow, transactional view of leveraging people, he mistrusts them and isolates himself (110–112). He should exchange this for Kierkegaard’s helping others to choose themselves and become more “fully alive” (127, 132, 154, 158). And sixth, Trump is trapped in a “mythical past” built on revenge and cynicism (133, 135, 144), which should also be replaced with Kierkegaard’s prophetic future which rejects escapism in order to build a better life on earth (147, 153). But there are problems with this ambitious proposal—which Thompson admits, calling his book “just spade work on the surface” (55). First, more is needed about Kierkegaard’s supposed positive vision. He can sound like the bleak Bob Dylan in “A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” (1963) when he says that he is like the “rain-warner” bird, signaling that “a storm is brewing in a generation” (Journals, ed. Hongs, §5842). He also said that when you get closer to God, “the most intense catastrophe of existence” befalls you (Journals §2081). Second, Kierkegaard also used nasty words, not unlike Trump. In his book on love he says that he sees in crowds “the wild, nocturnal howling of bloodthirsty beasts of prey” (Kierkegaard’s Writings, ed. Hongs, 16:169). Third, regarding isolation, Kierkegaard believed that [End Page 486] only God knows us and so we cannot make ourselves “understandable to others” (KW 24:92). Fourth, saying that living with “zest and verve” is part of Kierkegaard’s message (158) is squarely shot down by him (Journals §3097). And fifth, in terms of making life better on earth, Kierkegaard says that all we ever have is life being “less passionate and more petty” (KW 16:370). There is also a textual problem. When making his point that Kierkegaard, unlike Trump, wants to help people become free and hopeful (124), the long passage he favors from Kierkegaard has its ending chopped off, whereby Kierkegaard insists that we still “owe” God everything and he still “controls everything” (Journals §1251). Would that Thompson had explained his abbreviation. Thompson hopes that his book will help reconcile Trump supporters and critics (8). But linking Trump to Adolph Hitler does the opposite (20, 37, 66). So does his lack of positive studies on Trump (164). Zito & Todd’s The Great Revolt (2018) is not even listed in his bibliography. The two best books defending Trump appeared too late to be included, but their earlier reporting could have been— Victor Davis Hanson, The Case for Trump (2019), and John Yoo, Defender in Chief: Donald Trump’s Fight for Presidential Power (2020). Ronald F. Marshall First Lutheran Church of West Seattle Seattle, Washington Copyright © 2021 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc