The Book of Matthew Stays in the Saddle at the White House Rodeo
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Matthew 5: 5-6
THE WORLD’S ONLY RODEO WITHOUT VARIATION
When people watch a rodeo, they expect that the experience will provide plenty of surprises.
By contrast, President Donald J. Trump’s presidency has been a rodeo in which the same course of events repeats and repeats and repeats. Principle rides into the arena, hoping to prevail over self-interest. Instead, self-interest quickly bucks off principle, and principle flies out of the saddle and into the dirt.
Every event is a foregone conclusion: self-interest will pitch the principles of the President’s declared Christian faith into the dust.
There are no Gold Buckle rides in the White House Rodeo.
Yet.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY: BY THE WAY, YOUR NATION NEEDS YOU
In the summer of 1991, a public official asked me to speak at a very visible forum on a controversial issue in Washington DC.
I said I couldn’t fit it into my schedule.
“You have to come,” the official said. “Your nation needs you.”
No one had ever said that to me before.
In the spring of 2020, I keep hearing that same statement, but with one big difference: this time, I am saying it to myself.
My nation needs me.
This week, I am giving myself an unusual birthday present: unconstrained permission to express my honest judgment of President Donald J. Trump. I am doing this because I believe it would be wrong to conceal my dismay over his conduct. And I believe it would be equally wrong to admit that dismay without offering an element of hope.
Following this mission, I am departing from orthodox opinion on both the right and the left. I believe the President could change his course, and I believe he could succeed in ways that would benefit him, not just for the term of his presidency, but for eternity.
MY MAIDEN RUN AT A FORTHRIGHT JUDGMENT OF THE PRESIDENT
As President of the United States, Donald J. Trump is a failure. In an international crisis on a scale beyond estimation, he has been both unwilling and unable to persuade the majority of his constituents to join in a common cause on behalf of our nation’s well-being. Quite the opposite: he has deepened our divisions. This is no small achievement, given that our divisions were already very deep before his election. Most damaging, he has surrendered and forfeited the core power of the presidency: the power to preside over difficult deliberations on life-and-death issues.
And yet, as a human being with a soul, President Trump is not trapped by inevitability, fate, or destiny. He has the privilege and the burden of free will.
This leads to the question that has claimed a place at the center of my attention: How closely—and how recently—has the President read the Bible?
To put this another way, I dream of redemption.
A SCENARIO OF REDEMPTION
The President has a restless night. Unable to sleep, he sees a Bible nearby and says to himself, “Since I have declared that I am a Christian, I suppose I should take a look at the Bible now and then.”
By an intervention of providence, he opens the Bible to the Book of Matthew, Chapter Five. He begins to read.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
With his long record of vindictiveness and retaliation, the President is pleased by what he reads which he sees as a validation of his conduct.
But, this time, he reads on.
“But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other side.”
At this point, the President examines the book he is holding. Could someone have tampered with this sacred text?
But he still reads on.
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you.”
At this point, the President is a man in crisis, challenged to his core by reading the words of a book which, he has publicly declared, holds his faith.
He sleeps fitfully, and at daybreak, he is a new man. The benefits to the nation begin with his recognition that the transition he has undergone is hard to fit within the limits of Twitter. But he settles on these eighteen words as his widely celebrated final round of Tweeting: “I exist to elevate the glory of God. God does not exist to elevate the glory of me.”
THE OBSTACLE OF THE MOMENT
I continue now with my commitment to honesty in stating my current judgment of the President. Here is a position I adopted months ago but have never presented publicly.
If President Donald J. Trump expressed an interest in speaking at an event sponsored by the Center of the American West, I would not host him. Throughout its institutional life, the Center has enshrined the practice of civil and respectful exchange. On a number of occasions over the years, I have interrupted participants in Center events when they have substituted personal attack and character assassination for the serious exchange of ideas.
If President Trump can persuade me that he would abide by the Center’s customs and refrain from ad hominem attacks, stay on substance, and maintain the qualities of civility and respect without interruption, I would reverse course and agree to host him.
How likely is this to happen?
I make no claim on the ability to predict the future.
I do not know that these changes are possible, nor do I know that they are impossible.
MY DREAM OF AN ALLIANCE WITH THE FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN COWBOYS
I have not yet made an overture to the leaders or members of the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, and I refer to this organization here only to say that I would be honored if providence made it possible for me to meet them. I am not sure that they would want a university-based Western American historian as a friend and an ally, but this is, after all, an essay about hope.
To the core of my soul (in the spirit of full disclosure, a soul at present without church affiliation), I believe that the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, and other groups of similar spirit, could move fast into the national arena and rescue this rider who is also our President. Yes, there’s risk for us in this effort, but cowboys—and maybe especially rodeo clowns—are used to that.
The co-founder of the Fellowship of Christian Cowboys, rodeo clown Wilbur Plaugher, died in 2018 at age ninety-five. His wife of sixty-nine years said this about him: “He never fought or argued with anyone . . . He absolutely would not respond—only in kindness. That’s the kind of heart he had.”
President Trump, providence is coming to your aid. The inspiration of Mr. Plaugher’s values and faith could save you.
