Donald Trump always has been brutally honest about his intentions to get even with his enemies. In a speech to business leaders, Trump said: “You know in all fairness to Wharton, I love ’em, but they teach you some stuff that’s a lot of bullshit. When you’re in business, you get even with people that screw you. And you screw them 15 times harder. I really believe in trashing your enemies.”
We always have known Trump believes in revenge. Now he has personalized and incarnated it in an indictment. The enemy du jour, James Comey, former director of the FBI, has been indicted by the Southern District of Virginia U.S. attorney for making a false statement and obstruction in a criminal case.
“The only word I have found to identify this inexcusable abuse of justice is hypocrisy.”
The only word I have found to identify this inexcusable abuse of justice is hypocrisy. The word means “putting on a mask,” a pretentious display of morality and ethics, an act of utter falsehood. Claiming to be a reality show, hypocrisy is fake.
Trump and his followers are just truthful enough to condemn others and keep the faithful in tow. But the moral tragedy: MAGA evangelicals are close to the kingdom and their failures are greater because their actions and Trump’s are all the more disastrous for America. They fail to notice the house of hypocrisy isn’t “marching to Zion” but is on “the road to Sheol, going down to the halls of death.”
Hypocrisy makes a mockery of truth and justice
The five-year statute of limitations for charging Comey runs out on Sept. 30. The hastily filed charges by the Trump administration show all Trump’s cards. To exact his revenge, the president had to have these charges filed before next Monday. This is not about justice; if so, it is a rush to justice.
Trump has been gunning for Comey since the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Trump and his cronies labeled the investigation a “witch hunt” and a “hoax.” This shines a bright light on the meaning of hypocrisy. Multiple government reviews concluded Russia did interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. Now, Trump conducts a personal “witch hunt” against Comey and he manufactures evidence which will prove to be a hoax.
One of my rhetorical friends observes: “We live in a world where up is down and down is up, where virtue is vice and vice is virtue. Where the just is unjust and the right wrong. Plato would be turning over in his grave. Evangelical Christians should know better.”
Hypocrisy fails to obey the law
As president, Trump is required by the Constitution to uphold the laws of our nation. Instead, he is persecuting and prosecuting his political opponents and alleged enemies. He is, in this one action alone, a “clear and present danger” to our government.
“All America has been indicted by a rabble led by a renegade populist determined to demolish all he touches.”
Our president treats the law and the truth as if they were horse dung under his feet. He has manipulated his followers into a public kind of active despising of the truth — of the normal habit of truth-seeking and truth-telling. This is not just about Comey. All America has been indicted by a rabble led by a renegade populist determined to demolish all he touches.
Neither Trump nor MAGA realize they are ravaging democratic norms, undermining faith in justice and demolishing truth. Trump the avowed “strong man” acts not like a blindfolded Lady of Justice but as a blinded Samson, pushing against the pillars of the Philistine temple and bringing the entire edifice down on himself and the crowd. What Trump now produces is not only murder, it is suicide.
Hypocrisy reeks of hateful emotions
In 1919, William Butler Yeats wrote, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” And we now have a president who rules by the raw emotions of his dark mind — with the “sad passions” that invoke destruction.
A revenge-riddled president, in full view of the public, replaced Erik Siebert, U.S. attorney, Eastern District of Virginia, with one of his former personal lawyers, Lindsey Halligan. Siebert was pushed out by Trump because he insisted there was insufficient evidence to charge Comey with any crime.
Halligan is a Florida insurance lawyer with zero experience as a prosecutor. Her attraction from Trump’s point of view: She will bring whatever charges the president wants.
Paraphrasing historian Robert McElvaine: “The attitude of Trump toward evidence seems to be something akin to the charming notion of some creationists that God put fossil evidence in the rocks of the earth to test people’s faith. We who respect truth and justice see the Comey indictment as evidence that a heavy-handed, rogue president will crush justice according to his whims.
Trump posted to Truth Social a rant that underscores his total commitment to revenge. “Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’”
Hypocrisy deepens when embraced by Trump’s followers
Since hypocrisy is a performance, a spectacle, MAGA enjoys Trump with a sense of jouissance. There is an extra load of hypocrisy when the reason for prosecuting Comey is buttressed by lies told by the president.
“Hypocrisy does the most damage when it is supported by willing accomplices.”
Hypocrisy does the most damage when it is supported by willing accomplices. When evidence is lacking, make up evidence and lie. Matthew describes the drama surrounding the prosecution of Jesus: “Now the chief priests and the whole council were looking for false testimony against Jesus so that they might put him to death, but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward.”
Hypocrisy rises slowly from the depths of hell
Trump, with a long memory for revenge, has been building a case against Comey for years. In 2017, Trump called Comey “a liar.” Dana Milbank of the Washington Post reported, “Of course, Trump called Comey a liar: That’s always been his strategy.”
Trump’s strategies are so simplistic, impulsive, reactionary and fixed on revenge. How this has worked its “medicine man” magic for this long is a mystery.
“Make stuff up.”
“Distract people from real issues.”
“Lie and defend the lie.”
“Claim God is on our side.”
“Attack the other side with fierceness.”
Say things like, “Democrats hate America.”
“They are destroying our country.”
“They support drug gangs.”
“Comey is a criminal.” Revenge is a nasty practice. Hypocrisy is its pimp.
The French have a word that better defines Trump’s emotion: ressentiment. Max Scheler, in Ressentiment says, Ressentiment is a “self-poisoning of the mind” in which a subject is consumed by emotions and affects such as “revenge, hatred, malice, envy, the impulse to detract, and spite.” Trump sees ghosts of resentment years past in his nightmares.
And here the hypocrisy thickens. Trump supporters enjoy the hypocrisy because they are as guilty of this abhorrent behavior as Trump. As professing Christians, Trump supporters know they are not to be revenge-seekers. They know they are not supposed to practice getting even with others. But blinded by the unmitigated gift of power, they are happy to enable Trump’s revenge tour. With open Bibles they will lead the revenge tour because they are as resentful of liberal Christians (for more than a century now) as Trump is of everyone else.
Here’s what the evidence will show. Any trial of Comey will be a sham, a fixed trial with a pre-determined verdict. The Innocent Project would easily reverse the conviction on appeal. The absence of evidence, the falsity of the charges, and the obvious motivation of revenge makes Trump and his crowd hypocrites of the highest order.
Trump is serving the American people the junk food of hypocrisy and it’s hard to digest.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.