Campaign folly

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” Donald Trump said in Sioux Center, Iowa, in January. And he will continue to say such things.

How do we know that? Without being a prophet, how do we know what a man is likely to speak before he speaks it? Because the Bible tells us so, that’s how: “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). A fool will return to his folly; you can set your watch by it (Proverbs 26:11). Maybe not the next day, but here is a biblical principle on which you can rely: The fool shows his colors sooner or later. Or to quote John Lennon: “One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside.” In Old Testament phrasing: “If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3). The wise man stands by and watches the fool self-destruct.

Sure enough, early impressions of Trump still seem fresh as a daisy. Folly after folly tumbles out of the hole in Trump’s face, with no more thought behind them than a wind-up doll with 10 recordings on the tape, all bad. The Bible calls foolish even the man who cleans up after the fool, “for if you deliver him you will only have to do it again” (Proverbs 19:19).

One of Trump’s early campaign attacks was against Sen. John McCain. When I watched him say he preferred soldiers who weren’t captured, my distinct impression was that he didn’t even mean it; he just said it because it came into his head and he has no mind-mouth filter. This filter is usually in place by age 9 in a civil society, but certainly before promotion to leader of the free world. Which is to say, before the fate of a Denmark at peace is at stake, to muse on Ted Cruz’s nightmare of waking up to find Trump had nuked the Scandinavian nation.

Trump not only survived the McCain and Rosie O’Donnell insults but became wildly popular.

But Trump did not self-destruct. Trump would not only survive the McCain and Rosie O’Donnell insults but become wildly popular. So what’s up with that? Has the Bible failed? Is it not really the case that “dead flies make the perfumer’s ointment give off a stench; so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor” (Ecclesiastes 10:1)? Is it erroneous that “whoever desires to love life and see good days” will “keep his tongue from evil” (1 Peter 3:10)? Or that “death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21)? Or that “it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (Matthew 15:11)? Is Lady Wisdom’s exaltation of “discretion” and “lips [that] guard knowledge” (Proverbs 5:2) overrated?

These Bible sayings are all true. The present situation merely deepens my puzzlement, as it deepened the Apostle Paul’s: “You bear it if someone … puts on airs, or strikes you in the face. To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that!” (2 Corinthians 11:20-21). And yet there it is: There is something in human nature that, for whatever reason, will rally behind a self-absorbed boaster. There is something in people that even wants to flatter his ego: “They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17).

The twisted dynamic is not unforeseen in Scripture. One day the boaster of all boasters will rise up, and rather than laughing him off the podium, people will follow him in droves. He will have “a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words” and will be “allowed to exercise authority” and “to make war” (Revelation 13:5-7). Not only that but “all who dwell on earth will worship it” (verse 8).

All biblical principles are true in their own time. There is a time that “whoever works his land will have plenty of bread” (Proverbs 12:11) and a time when “the wages of the laborers” are “kept back by fraud” and “the cries of the harvesters” reach “the ears of the Lord of hosts” (James 5:4).

We shall wait and see how this plays out in God’s capable hands. And hope for the best for Denmark.

Email aseupeterson@wng.org