Echo of Then and Now: Leaders who Burn their Followers
Bad leaders cannot exist without bad followers; but sometimes the followers suffer the most.
Thirty-one hundred years ago a man was willing to commit crimes to gain power. He found help from his family, tribe, and religion. He used their support to pay henchmen for his crimes. And he became a tyrant who hurt his followers most of all.
We’ve heard stories like this before. Happens all the time. But this particular tale was told in the Bible — and millions who love the Bible are now reliving this tale of a bad man betraying his own followers.
Two Ambitious States
The ancient city-state was Shechem, thirty miles north of Jerusalem, in what is now the “West Bank”. Its name literally meant “shoulder”, in the sense of carrying burdens, but in poetic Hebrew “Rise up early and achieve” is how some scholars render its meaning. So I’m going to call the city “Achieva.”
The modern echo of “Achieva” is “America” — proud, polarized and not as great as it once was. Throughout history, dispirited citizens have always been easy marks for demagogues.
When we compare what happened to Achieva with what America now endures, the future of Trumpism may turn even darker for its supporters than they expect.
Two Bad Hombres
The man of the hour in Achieva was Abimelek, son by concubinage of the famous Hebrew leader, Gideon.
Gideon — Abimelek’s father — was like the George Washington of his day. (He was also called Jerubbaal). He was a farmer turned general who won a spectacular war of independence, and then refused to be proclaimed king. Gideon also refused to allow his seventy sons to inherit his office of “Judge”.
Abimelek burned with ambition to become a king. This may have been fueled by the name he was given, which means “My Father is a King” (The truth was, Gideon was a “judge” or deliverer, never a king). So let’s translate Abimelek’s name: “Regal” … Reggie for short.
The Hombre of our day was given the name Donald by his father — a name that means, guess what? “King of the World”. That, too, oversells the boy’s promise.
Two Tough Challenges
The problem for Reggie was that to become King of Achieva, he needed:
- His father to die
- All of his brothers to die (because every one of them had a better claim to royalty than he)
- Money to operate
- A popular movement to “draft Reggie as King”, which was tough since he was from outside the dominant culture of Israel
Those obstacles appeared insurmountable… until they weren’t.
Donald was an unlikely candidate, too. He needed to:
- Win a campaign as a political outsider
- Overcome his lack of personal cash, without bursting the mirage of being “very rich”
- Beat 20 experienced, knowledgeable candidates who actually knew something about government
Twin Brittle Psyches
Reggie was absolutely unqualified to be an ancient King, even in the Bronze Age before monarchs needed much bureaucratic skill. Reggie could have used
(1) a knack for inspiring loyalty. And (2) the ability to calm rebellions. He clearly lacked both.
Donald, also, was unqualified to be a modern President. I state that as objective fact but obviously on November 3rd there were 74 million Americans who disagreed. Psychologists, journalists and historians have solid professional reasons for distrusting the Donald, along with the 81 million Americans who voted against him. What surprises me is that so many Christians can’t see his disqualifying character.
I should mention that I’m not writing here to complain about their politics. I am concerned about their moral compass. Bad followers cannot blame the bad man they follow.
Although he might have lasted a bit longer than Reggie as a Bronze Age small-bore tyrant, Donald’s deficits mirror Reggie’s: narcissism, corruption, and addiction to grievance/revenge as a way of life.
The Same Secret Weapon
Both Reggie and Donald had a killer advantage: a powerful spiritual minority supplied them with cold cash and partisan loyalty. For Donald, it was the Evangelical Right, which liked his pro-life, pro-Israel and judicially conservative stance. They cheer when he trashes his enemies, ignores “conventional wisdom” or “political correctness”, and disses intellectuals. In short, he seems to channel the macho style they admire in the Old Testament God: “He spake and it was done”. “Who can withstand his indignation?”
Today it’s hard to relate to the spiritual appeal of a Reggie — eleven centuries before Jesus and after Noah. In those days, worshipping Baal (the god of thunder and rain) made economic sense. Sexually obscene rituals must have also seemed more appealing to Reggie’s crowd than the alternative — Levitical morays which relentlessly demanded sexual obedience and moral self-examination.
When Jerry Falwell Jr., Ralph Reed, Franklin Graham, and their many followers embraced Donald … and the entire priesthood of Baal weighed out silver to Reggie from their temple treasury, both men were off to the races.
The Same Dislike of Immigrants
Reggie’s whispering campaign to seek kingly power had been built on racial resentment. His mom was from Achieva, and he grew up away from his Jewish half-brothers.
But there were lots of Jews in the city of Achieva, who felt foreign to the “native” tribe. It’s funny how that works. Every tribe tends to forget that there were others there when they arrived. The Baal cult saw Achieva as “theirs”. So did the Yahweh cult who came and went several times before.**
In America’s story, Donald has risen to power by stroking white entitlement, belittling the complaints of the oppressed, and fanning xenophobia. It was always here, but Donald made it worse.
The Same Ignorant Appeal
The biggest strength of both Reggie and Donald was the lack of discernment of the people whose approval they sought. They expanded the supply of bad followers. Both exploited:
- Authoritarian cravings — “Wouldn’t you rather have one king than 70 sons of Gideon?” That’s how Reggie framed the choice between flamboyant lawlessness and rectitude. Donald sold himself as decisively destructive of the status quo … a one-man solution to Congressional gridlock and government bureaucracy.
- Nativist pride/racism — Reggie embodied a native-born King, with ties of kinship to his supporters, instead of the Jewish tribes who had moved into the area after being liberated from Egyptian slavery. To the Canaanite tribes (who had themselves always been drifters) the Israelites still seemed alien. Two centuries of coexistence left rival tribes tired of their neighbors**. As Donald descended the escalator and accused Mexican immigrants of rape and murder, he resonated with the deep bass notes in many people. George Stephanopoulos thought it was a fatal mistake the first day*; time proved there was a market for xenophobia.
- Anti-intellectual resentment — to folks tired of cautious, conscientious leaders like Gideon or Obama, the simplistic, authoritarian ignorance of Reggie and Donald felt refreshing. Certainty trumps complexity.
The Same Killer Instinct
When Gideon died of old age, Reggie sprang into action. The religious cult he favored gave him silver from the Baal temple, and the “prince” weighed out a handsome fee to any scoundrel who would pick up a sword for him. The shocking bloodbath he bought with religious money must have felt reassuringly authoritative to the people of Achieva, because they promptly hailed Reggie as their king.
Donald didn’t commit physical murder — though he bragged that he could if he wanted to. We all know what he did: normalized cruelty, weaponized ignorance, corrupted government, ran a crooked campaign. But if you want data points, here’s the FBI report that hate crimes have accelerated year by year.
Some historians think the scale of Reggie’s cruelty was unprecedented — 70 brothers snuffed out, with every expectation of impunity. Reggie showed the ancients a new level of bloodthirst. Constantine was civilized by comparison.
Both Meet a Nemesis Named Jo…
But one of Reggie’s intended victims escaped: his youngest brother.
Can you guess his name? Jotham. “Yoe” will do for short, respecting the absence of a J sound in Hebrew.
Donald, too has had one rival whom he feared, named “Joe”.
We’ve lived through the constant attacks and schemes against Joe that Donald has mounted. He was willing to risk impeachment and betray an ally to weaken Joe’s reputation. But now Donald has lost to him anyway. What did he call Joe? “The worst candidate in history.”
The Prophecy Against Reggie
When Yoe escaped Reggie’s assassination attempt, he climbed to a natural amphitheatre. Standing where, centuries before, the tribes of Israel had heard the blessings that would come to them if they followed Yahweh, Yoe predicted the curses that would come to Achieva if they followed Reggie.
“Citizens of Achieva! Listen to me, so that God may listen to you!
“Once upon a time the trees decided to elect a king.
They said to the Olive: Reign over us. The Olive said,
‘Should I stop making oil that honors God and men,
to prance around trying to hold sway over the other trees?“They asked the Fig to be a monarch, and she said,
‘Should I give up my sweetness and rare fruit,
to prance around trying to hold sway over the other trees?’“They asked the Vine, ‘Rule over us’, and the Vine said,
‘Should I give up my juice that gladdens God and men,
to prance around trying to hold sway over the other trees?’“So the trees said to the Thornbush, ‘Come and rule over us.’
The Thornbush replied,
‘if you are choosing me in good faith,
come shelter under my shadow. But if not,
I’ll send out a fire that will burn up the very Cedars of Lebanon.’ ”
Isn’t that rich? Yoe puts words in Reggie’s mouth … the truthfulness of which is revealed by subsequent events. Reggie, the man who just ordered the assassination of all his brothers, postures as though he is being invited to rule, and challenges the people of Achieva: “Are you asking me ‘in good faith’?”!
In other words, Yoe depicts Reggie as demanding their loyalty and threatening that he will turn against them if they change their minds. Was it fake news? I don’t think so.
Yoe also puts in a little dagger — “…come shelter under my shadow.” He is mocking his would-be assassin, because desert thorn bushes are too low to the ground, and too prickly, to cast any meaningful shade.
We have in this clever poetry a window into the heart of a malignant narcissist. It’s not that Reggie doesn’t have a clue what is right and wrong. It is that he doesn’t care. He sees virtue as a cloak he can wear as he wills. It is he, the potentate, who defines rightness — and reality — by what he wants it to be.
Yoe now finished his riddle, and spoke plainly to Reggie and the Lords of Achieva who supported him:
“If you have ‘acted honorably’ by making Reggie your king,
and if you have ‘acted in good faith’ by treating Gideon and his sons
as they justly deserved —
yes, my father who fought for you and
risked his life to rescue you from our enemies,
and my seventy brothers whom you have killed—
then I wish you to enjoy Reggie, and I wish him to enjoy you.“But if not, here is my prophecy:
He will burn those who chose him,
and ignite those who oppose him.”
Then Yoe climbed over the mountain of Blessings and disappeared.
Prophecies Against Donald
The warnings of coming trouble that came to Donald when he came to power were no less public, and just as dire:
In December, 2016, President Obama hosted Donald at the White House and said, “We want to help you succeed.”
One way he helped was in natural disaster planning. An all-day workshop in January, 2017, for incoming cabinet members and White House staff, taught Donald’s key players how to respond in coordination — across multiple agencies. Specific emergencies dealt with in the seminar included group exercises: a hurricane striking Puerto Rico, and a pandemic “sweeping through Asia, then reaching the U.S.” In the simulation this disease was expected to be the worst American disease catastrophe since the Influenza of 1918, and predicted serious shortages of ventilators and PPE for health care workers. Participants were warned that thousands or millions of people could die without a proper response.
But unlike Reggie, Donald received multiple prophecies.
In 2017 epidemiologist Michael Osterholm published Deadliest Enemy, describing the dangers of a virus epidemic, and spelling out preventive measures. Johns Hopkins praised it as a “Best Book” of 2017.
In 2018 Donald disbanded his own National Security Council team — a multiple-agency structure designed to avoid the difficulties faced by the Obama administration in quickly snuffing out a virus pandemic before it can do major damage.
Willful ignorance. It goes hand in hand with pride.
In the second year of Donald’s term, Michael Lewis published his book about the transition process. It is called The Fifth Risk, and details dangers that made outgoing scientific experts nervous as they tried to teach Donald’s “best people” how to manage the weighty responsibilities of modern government.
An outgoing Department of Energy official saw “Nuclear Accidents” as his most frightful major risk; but he found no one in Donald’s administration who would pay attention. His “fifth risk”? (which became the title of the book) “Project Management”. More precisely, the absence of good project management in the government, due to willful ignorance on the part of the incoming administration.
The danger of killing a whole lot of people through simple negligence scared conscientious outgoing public servants … and should scare everyone who is able and willing to think ahead.
One of those public servants was Dr. Cathie Woteki, a professor of human nutrition at Virginia Tech who had discovered why large numbers of Mexican-American migrant worker children were dying. The milk was killing them — not a poison in it but an allergic reaction to lactose which Dr. Woteki discovered was peculiar to many Mexicans. She became passionate about trying to protect human health through wise agricultural policy, and that led her to work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA feeds millions of poor people through the school lunch program and SNAP (food stamps).
When Sam Clovis, Donald’s temporary appointment as Senior White House Advisor to USDA arrived in January 2017, Dr. Woteki said to herself of Donald, “He’s going to politicize the science.” Why? Perhaps because Clovis, whose impressive resume as an Air Force fighter pilot and professor of business and public administration did not include any science or agriculture experience.
Clovis had shown up to advise Woteki after serving in Donald’s campaign with the belief that science was misleading the USDA.
He had run unsuccessfully for the Senate, was the Iowa chairman of Rick Perry’s campaign, who “ripped Trump loudly and righteously because he had ‘no foundation in Christ.’” When Rick dropped out Clovis became a co-chair of Donald’s campaign, and now pops up as the chief scientist at USDA [senior White House advisor to the USDA] as the Trump administration begins. This plum job was formalized when he was promoted to acting Undersecretary in July 2017. Difficulties with his Senate confirmation caused him to withdraw his name by November. That was a happy ending.
But Donald’s Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, scuttled nutritional improvements to the school lunch program that the Obama administration had secured.
Then he relocated scientific departments that research food security and climate change from the nation’s capital to Kansas City. Over fifty former USDA scientists and officials prophesied that this move would set research back five to ten years. Now, over a year later, the damage is clear. Four of five specialists on honey bee policy are gone. Ten of twelve researchers on agricultural trade have been forced out by the move.
Which of course was the whole point of the action.
The prophecies continue to pour in, freely available to anyone who can read or listen. I have not scratched the surface of the damage to America that Donald has accomplished, and multiple “prophets” have chronicled.
Both face rejection
The ancient story of Reggie, and the modern story of Donald are mirror images, in that after three years both began to face major opposition.
In Reggie’s case, the very leaders who supported him grew disenchanted, and threw their support to another scoundrel.
In Donald’s case, the religious supporters continued to believe, and white males held firm … but many suburban voters, college educated women, and seniors abandoned the man they helped elect.
Both respond viciously against his own people
In the Biblical account, Reggie attacked his home town with a small army. He chased his opponents — including many of his mom’s relatives and the priestly class who gave him his start by funding the murder of his brothers — into the new Baal temple that had just been built in the aftermath of his father’s death.
What’s left of the temple of Baal-Berith can still be seen today. Its foundation stonework is seventeen feet thick. Its tower, made of wood, looked like a castle, and a thousand citizens of Achieva are reported to have sought refuge there when Reggie attacked them. So he set the tower on fire, and killed them all.
Donald’s war against his own nation is still unfolding. Calling its election “rigged” is a frontal assault on democracy itself. The damage to the courts, Congress, and public spirit can scarcely be calculated.
As I write, the President has still not accepted the reality of his election defeat. The recounts have been completed, sixty legal challenges have been rejected for lack of evidence to support the claims of fraud on which they were based. The votes have been certified in each state legislature, and all of the electors have been chosen. The election is over.
Still, millions of people have been persuaded by the fiction Donald fumes — and in the last week small pockets of violence gave the disquieting impression that more literal flames of destruction may yet emerge.
What’s most remarkable, is that the damage being done to Donald’s party, the association which calls itself Republican, is even greater than the damage to the Donald’s opponents. Republican voters in Georgia, for example, may hesitate to vote for their own candidates next month, because of disbelief that the electoral system will count their votes correctly.
They both self-destruct — and lie about it
Which brings us to the denouement of both stories: the thornbush kings lose the goal they sought, because of their own actions.
Reggie — Abimelek in the book of Judges — chases a second band of those who resist his rule into a tower. Only this time, as he is preparing to torch the building, a woman on the roof drops a millstone on his head. He sees the danger coming, but cannot escape. Mortally wounded, and ashamed that a woman defeated him, he orders his sword-bearer to pierce his heart, saying he does not want it to be said that a woman killed him.
But of course, as has always been the case, he cannot change reality simply by telling a lie. And all history has set him down as a proud man who was killed by a woman.
Donald’s story is still being written. Will he continue to deny his loss? Will his grift of supporters’ dollars cause them to eventually lose their trust? Is Trumpism on its way out?
While we may not know the answers to those questions for a few more years, it appears certain that the more than three hundred thousand victims (so far…and still counting) of the current pandemic will forever be a testimony to the damage that can be caused by a leader who is more concerned about his own power than the health and happiness of those whom he should be serving.
And finally: both salted the earth behind them
Perhaps the most remarkable correlation between the ancient story and the one we are living through today is the vindictive nature of both prickly men. Reggie — Abimelek— salted the fields of his own nation state. He wanted to turn it into a permanent ruin, if he could not rule it himself. The archeological record shows that for two centuries afterward, Achieva — Shechem — was sparsely inhabited, but after a couple of hundred seasons of spring rains washed away the bitterness he had left, its natural location at the crossroads of the world brought the city back to prominence.
It became the place where Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, met with dissatisfied representatives of the ten tribes — and loses most of his kingdom because of his youthful pride. Soon after that, “Achieva” became the first capital of the ten-tribe kingdom of Israel under Jeroboam, and a hotbed of activity until the Maccabean period. Then it declined for another couple centuries and was an important village to the New Testament writers — because there Jesus of Nazareth met a Samaritan woman at the well Jacob had dug seventeen centuries before … and caught the attention of his own disciples by inspiring her with the claim that he would be the Messiah for her, the Samaritans, the Jews, and all people everywhere.
Now we know it as Nablus … but Achieva is still a great name for what we see growing on the Judean hills today:
And what about Donald? Is he trying to salt the ground?
I suppose it depends what information sources you are willing to consult. It seems obvious to me, and to many of the commentators I see on MSNBC, ABC, CNN, and PBS, that “salting the earth” is exactly what the outgoing president intends to do. Just days ago, Donald seems to have ordered the Secretary of Defense to halt classified briefings of the incoming administration. Precisely at the moment when the nation has learned many of its computer systems have been badly damaged by sophisticated Russian hackers. Good thinking, Donald.
We hear calls for special prosecutors to be embedded in the justice department — to salt the earth for Biden. We see efforts to fire employees, thwart accountability through pardons, and make administrative changes that could embed hostile actors where they will be difficult for a new administration to dislodge — to salt the earth for Joe.
Time will tell how many people will die and how much the rest of us will suffer. But the lesson should be clear to my Christian friends, at the very least: if you love the Bible you will listen to what it has to say about character and integrity in the people you support.
Reggie won some battles, but every victory he won was a defeat of his supporters, and therefore a narrowing of his own power as well. And in the end both leader and followers lost out entirely.
The warning, it seems to me, could not be clearer. Christianity is on trial. Are we paying attention? Are we bad followers, lending support to bad leaders? Are we the salt of the earth, or salting the earth?
__________________
Footnotes:
*See Michael Cohen: Disloyal, p. 204.
**Shechem — “Achieva” in my retelling — had been set up by Joshua as one of six “cities of refuge” in the confederation of Jewish tribes. That meant a constant stream of refugees, who showed up at the gate to be protected from “avengers” who were hot on their trail, charging them with crimes such as manslaughter or armed robbery. This was a taxing pressure on every citizen, who had to take turns hearing cases and listening to lots of litigation. Because the tribe of Levi lived in the city, there was a large bureaucracy of religious men who had no duties other than the ceremonies and scholarly work of the Yahweh cult. Accepting and cooking animal sacrifices, copying manuscripts, singing hymns, reading endless legal regulations … these spiritual customs were no doubt irritating to the indigenous Canaanites whose worship of the “Lord of Rain and Dew” was older and felt more natural to a pagan mindset.
