Is Donald Trump a Salafi?

A recent tweet by US President Donald Trump has had some social media users scratching their head about the POTUS' religious leanings.

Narrated

1 min read

The New Arab

27 Jul, 2017

Donald Trump has attempted to maintain his appeal to America's religious right [AFP]

Is US President Donald Trump a Salafi? The simple answer, of course, would be no. But in his recent attempts to please America's religious Right the Twitter-fingers-in-chief ended up perhaps sounding less presidential and more like a puritanical preacher.

"IN AMERICA WE DON'T WORSHIP GOVERNMENT - WE WORSHIP GOD!" Trump tweeted on Wednesday.

In the tweet, the president shared a link to a video in which he is seen telling an ecstatic crowd of supporters that "family and faith - not government and bureaucracy - are the foundations of our society".

In a word he told Americans that God trumps democracy.

The tweet received close to 30,000 retweets and over 100,000 likes.

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"Guy turned out to be a Salafi," wrote another, drawing parallels between the president's tweet and Salafi Muslims' zealous insistence on refraining from all acts that could be deemed as idolatry.

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Elsewhere, US social media users were split between those who are not convinced by the president's new-found religious enthusiasm and those who see him as a protector of traditional 'family values'.

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