I’d buy one of Trump’s $60 bibles, but I just spent $400 on his sneakers. Sure hope this poor guy gets back on his feet.
Of course none of the above is true, but I guess there’s some fun to be had while watching the clown show called the Trump campaign. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be laughing because Trump (seen above in a public domain photo posted on wikimedia commons) may just become our next president. He and his followers could well be getting the last laugh, a painful prospect indeed – but that will be then.
This is now – and for now, I’m wondering how many of Trump’s followers who are adherents of the moral imperatives in the Holy Bible have stopped a minute and thought about the irony and absurdity of this latest venture in Bible sales.
His sales pitch? Here it comes: "All Americans need a Bible in their home, and I have many. It's my favorite book. It's a lot of people’s favorite book."
Right.
I saw somewhere (can’t find it now) that Andy Borowitz, the inimitable satirist at The New Yorker, wondered if Trump had read in his “favorite” book the story in the Old Testament about David paying hush money to Bathsheba.
Republican Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming representative, put it more succinctly on X, writing, “Happy Holy Week, Donald. Instead of selling Bibles, you should probably buy one. And read it, including Exodus 20:14.”
For those without a Bible close by, the passage that Cheney refers to is the commandment about not committing adultery. I’m not sure that Trump has ever admitted to breaking the commandment, but the story line for decades says otherwise.
Then there’s that Ninth Commandment about not bearing false witness, i.e. lying, a blatant violation that Trump was recently found to have committed in a civil fraud judgement against him in New York. The court found that for years he repeatedly overstated the value of his properties in order to get favorable financing treatment by his bankers.
Trump has said that no one was hurt as a consequence of his false presentations, but that’s not the point. The point is that lying to your bankers about how much you’re worth is as serious a business no-no as there is. It violates sacred and secular laws.
Meantime, here in South Dakota we have leadership that continues to support Trump — no matter what, apparently.
Gov. Kristi Noem has made no bones about her willingness to be on the Trump ticket as his vice-presidential nominee, and our senior Sen. John Thune has endorsed him for president. I know nothing of Noem’s appreciation or understanding of the Bible, but Thune, with his strong Bible-oriented background (he got his B.A. at Biola – the Bible Institute of Los Angeles), should be exceptionally sensitive to the gap between the Donald Trump who is a presidential nominee pushing his religious pretensions, and the Donald Trump who in real life couldn’t care less about his commitment to religious imperatives.
Are Noem and Thune the fools referenced in Ecclesiastes 9:17? The verse goes, “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.”
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Reprint with permission.
