TRUMP: A DATE WITH JUNE 2028?

O. JASON OSAI raises many questions on the Trump Presidency

I study the scriptures of all religions painstaking with my God-given intellect switched on. Consequently, I burrow beneath the parables, allegories, metaphors, symbolism and other “dark sayings” in search for the deeper truth. In other words, I go beyond sucking the milk like babies and eating the meat like adults to cracking the bones of obfuscations to savor the marrow of deep spiritual meanings in the scriptures of any religion I lay my hands on.

Informed by my study of the Book of Revelation (13) in the literature of Judeo-Christian theology, I wrote an OP-ED titled “Trump in the Bible?” That was during the Trump presidency. I sent it to numerous newspapers including Washington Post, New York Times and major newspapers in Nigeria. As it turned out, only The Tide published it on December 4, 2017. The article took a critical look at the persona of  Trump vis-a-vis the biblical description of the Beast with special reference to four elements of interest in Revelations 13:2 thus: (1) “like unto a leopard”, (2) “his feet were as the feet of a bear”, (3) “his mouth as…of a lion”, and (4) the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” In verse 5, the fifth element of interest is thus: “and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.”

The article reviewed the global order and the idiosyncrasies of Donald Trump as President of the US. It then related the persona of Trump to the symbolisms of leopard, bear and lion; it furthered that the dragon under biblical reference is the Electoral College, which gave Trump victory over Hilary Clinton who won majority votes. Anchoring on the essence of verse 5, the piece  projected that Trump will win a second term; that projection turned erroneous as Trump lost to Joe Biden.

When Trump won the GOP ticket, I wrote “Trump as 47th President of the US?” in which I projected Trump victory. Holding firmly to the biblical assertion that “power was given unto him to continue forty and two months”, I projected that Donald Trump will win the November 2024 presidential election and thereby emerge as the 47th President of the US and will “continue” for 42 months. This implies six months short of forty-eight months that make up the four-year term US President.

On Saturday, October 26, 2024, I wrote on Music Elders Forum (a social media platform) thus: “something strange and inexplicable tells me Trump will make it”. After Trump won, I wrote again on the platform thus: “The same something strange and inexplicable tells me Trump has a date on June 2028 ”. That opinion, which draws from my reading of Revelation 13:5, informed the essence and title of this piece.

The number forty-two has diverse meaning and significance in various societies, cultures and belief systems. For Buddhists, numbers are not just mathematical symbols, they are considered as carriers of spiritual energy each with its own meaning and significance. This means that numbers are much deeper and more complex than ordinarily thought. In Buddhism, the number 42 signifies a period when a person reaches Nirvana or Moksha, which is the final goal of life. In Christianity, the number 42 is associated with the 42 months that the Antichrist will rule over the world. Is Trump the anti-Christ? That is not the trajectory of this piece. Given this view, it is believed that each number possesses a specific vibration that can influence personality, destiny and even challenges a person faces in life.

           Many have searched for representations of the number 42 in order to unearth any hidden meaning it might possess. In some Spanish-speaking countries, there is a phrase that translates thus: “42 is the answer to the final question”. It’s a number that just might help answer the greatest question of all, “What is the meaning of life?” Does a Trump presidency hold the promise of answering “the final question?”

            Without dwelling much more on the significance and meaning of forty-two, the following standalone questions are asked thus: does Donald Trump have a date with destiny in June 2028? If so, will he finally be a victim of another trigger-happy assassin? Given his age, will the stress of Oval Office enfeeble and incapacitate him? Will he die of natural causes? Will he be impeached, again? Since he will not qualify to run for another term, will he step aside after forty-two months and let James David Vance, the Ohio-born author of Hillbilly Elegy, preside over the US thereby availing Vance the power of incumbency to coast to the continuation of GOP presidency?

 Jesus’ preaching was eschatological, “end time” ministry and for more than two thousand years Christians have emphasized that thought. Is the human race finally at the end time or are we only watching the beginning of the decline of the US as the numero uno world power? In other words, has the US peaked in global power play thereby marking the end of unipolarism?

Now that many world capitals have acquired the capacity for mass destruction from hitherto unimaginable distances, is humanity on the cusp? With Israel declaring war in the Middle East, can humanity survive a nuclear conflagration? Was Bob Marley wrong when he sang: “have no fear for atomic energy, for none of them can stop the time?” Is Donald Trump destined to lead the US and humanity to extinction? Or will our cosmic neighbors intervene? Of course, we have cosmic neighbors who are watching us very keenly and closely.

Questions, questions, questions!!! And just one more: Am I paranoid?

Professor Osai writes from Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt