Here’s The Deal

I have no idea whether or not Omarosa Manigault Newman is correct that Donald Trump had wanted to be sworn in as the President of the United States on a copy of his own book, The Art of the Deal. But I cannot see the problem if he did. 

Thanksgiving was invented in no small measure to supplant Christmas. It is sometimes suggested that Thanksgiving was a continuation of Puritan and older Harvest Festivals in East Anglia. It was not. Such things did and do go on in Europe, but certainly not among the Puritans. Next, you will be telling me that they believed in religious liberty. Whatever next!

And the American Founding Fathers were not Christians. They were Deists, and their position is exemplified by The Jefferson Bible, from which he excised all reference to Christ’s Divinity, Resurrection or miracles; copies were presented to all incoming members of Congress until the 1950s. 

However, the phrase “the separation of Church and State” does not occur in the Constitution. Rather, the First Amendment’s reference to religion was designed to stop Congress, full of Deists as it was, from suppressing the Established Churches of several states, although they all disestablished them of their own volition later on precisely because they had fallen so completely under the Founding Fathers’ influence. 

The 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, “of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary”, was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams, was ratified unanimously, and specified that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion”. Although he attended Episcopalian services with his wife, George Washington did not receive Communion.

All in all, there would seem to be a very strong case for the swearing in of all Presidents of the United States on a copy of The Jefferson Bible. But none for the preclusion of anything else. For example, at any Second Inauguration of President Donald Trump, The Art of the Deal.