In just a few days, the storm is coming. Trump will be inaugurated and move into the White House.
MAGA Republicans are celebrating this as a continuation of the American Revolution of 1776.
It’s time for a little history lesson.
In 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a book that became the second most-read book of its time, after the Bible.
Paine, a deist who believed in God but didn’t believe in organized religion, argued that the colonies should jettison the British monarchy in favor of independence, the equality of citizens in a democratic republic and freedom of conscience. He was rejecting the religious/political doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings.
This Divine Right doctrine asserted that monarchs were installed by God, that the monarch was accountable to no one except God, that the people were mere subjects of the monarch and that any effort to challenge or resist a monarch was an act against God.
Not to get too Bible-wonky, but the Divine Right doctrine correlates with a literal reading of chapter 13 of the Book of Romans—a chapter often and reverently quoted by Republican leaders to portray how law-abiding they are. Written by the Apostle Paul, this chapter advised Paul’s first century readers:
- To obey the governing authorities, whom God himself has established.
- Not to rebel against the authorities God has instituted, and so risk bringing down the judgment of God upon themselves.
- That if they “do right” they would have nothing to fear from the governing authorities.
- However, if they “do evil” they should be afraid, because for those that “do evil,” the king “executes wrath” and “beareth not the sword in vain.”
- That obeying the authorities is not just avoiding punishment, but a moral act in and of itself.
- To pay all taxes owed to the government.
In short, Paul presented a deferential, compliant attitude toward the ruling authorities, whoever they might be. This attitude fits nicely with Divine Right ideology.
Whatever Paul’s reasons for being so submissive, it is clear that in this passage there is nothing about opposing unjust rulers or changing unjust laws.
There is nothing to support rising up against King George III and instigating the American Revolution.
There is nothing about subverting existing fugitive slave laws through participation in the Underground Railroad.
There is nothing that supports the French Resistance sabotaging Nazi supply lines.
There is nothing about taking to the streets in principled dissent, protest and calling leaders to account for their corruption and misdeeds.
There is nothing about human rights or civil rights.
There is nothing about nonviolent civil disobedience.
And there is nothing about elections by which We the People regularly have the opportunity to “depose” leaders and temporarily install new leaders, which is what potentially can happen in every election.
Instead, Thomas Paine found a biblical argument for his biblically literate readers against compliant submission to the political powers.
Paine found that argument in the 8th chapter of 1st Samuel in the Old Testament. In that chapter, the Israelites confront the prophet Samuel, demanding that he anoint a king for them so they can be like the surrounding nations.
A displeased Samuel takes this demand to the Lord, and the Lord tells Samuel to warn the Israelites that if a king reigns over them, they will be miserable. Their sons and daughters will become the king’s slaves. The king will take their best fields, vineyards and olive groves and give them to his quislings. The king will take their male and female servants and make them his own. He will require a 10th of their grain and wine, the best of their cattle and donkeys, a 10th of their flocks, and in a final blow, “you yourselves will become his slaves.”
1st Samuel chapter 8 says that it will get so bad that the Israelites will experience severe buyer’s remorse: “You will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you on that day.”
The significance of 1st Samuel chapter 8 in the overall Bible narrative is that this event was followed by hundreds of years of kings, mostly bad, who led Israel into spiritual, political and social disaster.
Similarly, Paine used 1st Samuel chapter 8 to show the colonists that they shouldn’t want a king, didn’t need a king, that the British king would enrich himself at the colonists’ expense, that he would curtail their liberties and in the end that the colonists would learn to regret clinging to the king as if he were divinely ordained.
Paine’s message gave the colonists the strong medicine they needed to break free from Britain and to establish representative government.
Paine’s message was not just relevant for his own time; it is relevant for ours. Trump is a “wannabe” king who has told us he will be dictator “from day one.” He wants total loyalty; he doesn’t want any checks to his power or balances to his avarice. Republicans won majorities in both the House and the Senate that seem eager to rubber-stamp anything Trump desires. The Supreme Court has granted Trump king-like immunity from criminal prosecution, effectively placing Trump above the law, accountable to no one.
Are we going to roll over and let Trump rob the country blind? Are we going to resist his mass deportations? Are we going to be silent when Trump rips immigrant families apart—again? Are we going to accept concentration camps for the homeless?
What if Trump tries to abolish environmental regulations, giving corporations carte blanche to poison our air and water? Or disembowels Social Security and Medicare? Or dismantles federal aid for poor school K-12 districts, for students with disabilities (special education), for college aid to poor students (Pell Grants) and for civil rights enforcement in schools?
Or severely restricts freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of the press? Or unravels progress in sustainable energy? Or demolishes the Affordable Care Act, putting millions of Americans with preexisting conditions at the mercy of rapacious health insurance companies—again?
Or gives even bigger tax cuts to morbidly rich billionaires while increasing regressive taxes on the middle and working classes? Or weakens the Centers for Disease Control, inviting more pandemics? Or tries to enact a nationwide abortion ban?
Or prosecutes journalists for doing journalism that doesn’t praise the Dear Leader Trump? Or designates nonprofits critical of Trump’s foreign policy as “terrorist” organizations?
We are Americans, are we not? Are we going to fall for the Divine Right of Trump? To surrender our human and civil rights to someone who has shown nothing but contempt for the Constitution?
If we do, “the American experiment” will be over.
Instead of slavishly accepting the Divine Right of Trump, let’s take a page from Thomas Paine and 1st Samuel chapter 8. Let’s be courageous like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, John Lewis, Malcolm X, Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, Muhammad Ali, Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, James Baldwin and Thurgood Marshall.
Let’s pursue common sense and the common good. The Divine Right of Trump lacks both.
