While working on a transcript of a DP sermon, I get a better idea of his manipulative technique. Primarily he's presenting himself as clueless to God's intent for him, then pretending to discover it, and being surprised by the revelation. He knows that his true fans are already brainwashed into seeing him as an apostle/prophet/savior/all of the above, so he's playing on this by pretending to realize what his followers already believe about him. So in their minds, Dave is working out what they are already convinced of. They really believe he's like Moses or Jeremiah who did not want to be God's prime man, and so they are even more convinced when Dave plays this whole thing up about getting it wrong. They see him as just trying to figure all this stuff out, and God is holding his hand walking him through everything. So in the minds of his true fans, it's because of his humility that he gets things wrong. They are then primed to accept whatever conclusion he makes about the office he sits in. The reality is that he wants the power, but he has duped his followers that he really doesn't, that he's just in a process of discovering that he happens to be the one God has chosen. It's like Palpatine who humbly accepted the office of dictator, because it was the right thing to do.
