The Peripatetic Preacher Never Give Up the Power: Donald Trump and Samuel the Prophet

Last updated on: December 7, 2020 at 3:24 pm by John C Holbert

The Peripatetic Preacher Never Give Up the Power: Donald Trump and Samuel the Prophet 2020-12-07T15:24:32-05:00 John C Holbert

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In this second week in December, 2020, a full five weeks after the November presidential election, an increasing number of persons in the country, even a piddling number of Republicans (only 27 of some 240 polled), are beginning to say publically that Joe Biden is in fact and without doubt the President-elect of US America, and come Jan.20, 2021 will actually be inaugurated and will move into the White House, forcing the incumbent of the moment to find other quarters. Despite that dawning certainty for many sad losers, the president for the next 44 days continues to refuse to concede the race, claiming once again and just as absurdly two days ago in a Georgia rally, purportedly for two Republican candidates for the Senate but what turned into another Trump show, that he had in fact won the presidential election, but Democratic (along with “terrible” Republican (!) fraud and evil) had denied him his victory. Donald Trump simply cannot concede, cannot face the reality of his election loss. He will not give up his power easily, and one can imagine that come Jan.19, 2021 he will still be crying, “foul,” at the top of his shrill voice and in all caps on his twitter account. Nevertheless, he will move back to Mar a Lago resort next January, and no conceivable series of miraculous fraud discoveries will impede the U-Haul from its necessary journey south.

The spectacle of a US American president refusing to recognize his election defeat is surely unprecedented in our long history as a democracy. Even after the astonishing and lengthy debacle of 2000, when George Bush defeated Al Gore, fueled by an amazingly small 537 votes in Florida, and a Supreme Court decision to stop the count in that state, Gore gracefully conceded to Bush in the spirit of proper election decorum. Decorum of any sort seems unknown by Mr. Trump, and so the charade of his “victory denied” continues unabated. And now that his chief defender and personal attorney, the unfortunate Rudy Giuliani, who has now contracted COVID-19 and is in the hospital for treatment, is out of action, one can only hope that no other Quixote will appear to tilt at the fast-disappearing windmills of presumed voter fraud. However, the more apt literary analogy may portray Giuliani as Sancho Panza to Trump’s Quixote, who may indeed ride his noble steed, Rosenante, crowned by a golden shaving bowl for a helmet, against the nefarious Democrats who would deny him his rightful victorious prize. The need for power, and the need not to give it up easily, appears to be driving this president on to “his destiny” as leader.

Donald Trump is hardly alone in his demonic desire to retain his presidency; he is far from the first person to be reluctant to step down from a seat of preeminence, fame, and adulation. Who would naturally give up those luxury rides on Air Force 1 and that seat behind the “Resolute” desk in the Oval Office? History is littered with those who have lost favor with the people, who have been driven from office by a superior force, or who have, as in the present case, lost an election. Power, once gained, is a heady brew, a precious elixir, a needed drug that must be infused regularly if that person is to maintain any sort of equilibrium or balance. As usual, the Bible offers to its readers a fascinating analogy for what is happening before our eyes in US America. The story may be found in the book of 1 Samuel in the Hebrew Bible.

I have long said that the tales of the prophet Samuel, the first king of Israel, Saul, and his successor David, enshrined in the books of 1 and 2 Samuel, are clearly the most beautifully written stories in the ancient world, eclipsing in subtlety and wonder even those of the fabulous Homer, usually seen as the epitome of ancient storytellers. I imagine the books of Samuel have not received their full due because they are in the Bible, and have thus been read as some sort of religious propaganda, where Samuel is YHWH’s unimpeachable prophet, Saul is the evil king, and David is kingship’s paragon, “a man after God’s own heart,” as the story claims. I find each of those characterizations far too simplistic, and finally untenable, but it may be the figure of Samuel who has been most simply drawn in the minds of readers over the centuries. Far from a mere mouthpiece of God, Samuel may be seen as a human being who has real power over the people of Israel, but when that power is threatened, resorts to various tactics to retain that power right up until the day of his death. In fact, Samuel’s power is so absolute, so rigorously maintained, that even after his death, he holds sway over Saul, the very man Samuel appointed king. His reluctance to give up his power may be seen in two subtle actions.

The personal attempt to retain power in the family may be found in 1 Samuel 8:1- 3. “When Samuel grew old, he made his sons judges over Israel.” This at first seems a reasonable action on the part of the aging prophet. He has played the role of judge and leader, both legal and military, in the land for decades, and now that he sees his age coming upon him, he decides to appoint his sons to follow him in those roles. The boys are Joel and Abijah, “YHWH is God” and “My father is YHWH” in translation, two names fully worthy of a prophet’s sons. Unfortunately, both boys are little better than trash! “They turned toward cash rewards; they took bribes and perverted justice” (1 Sam.8:3). In real alarm, the people who have witnessed first-hand the depredations of Sam’s boys, are having none of it. They demand a king. “But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to govern us’” (1 Sam.8:6). The source of Samuel’s “displeasure” is not immediately clear. Is it a religious objection? He does go to YHWH, demanding that the God deal with these people who have refused the power of his sons. Or is Samuel’s “displeasure” of a more personal variety? Is he in reality angry that the power he has wielded in Israel, and has now passed to his boys, is slipping away due to his own sons’ nefarious behavior?

That the latter explanation may be at least part of Samuel’s “displeasure” may be concluded from an offhand comment the prophet makes in the middle of his supposed farewell address at the coronation event for the new king Saul. Samuel begins his speech with an obviously self-serving bit of pathetic bragging about his long service and his advancing age. “I have listened to you in all that you have asked of me, and I have set a king over you” (1 Sam.12:1). We should note that Samuel emphasizes that he alone is the one who has made the king possible for them. “Look,” he continues, “it is the king who leads you now, while I am old and gray” (1 Sam.12:2). One might at this point hear the subtle strains of a violin chorus to accompany this cry for pity. But then he adds this: “but my sons are with you” (1 Sam.12:3). Never forget my sons, says the prophet Samuel, those I appointed to follow me, those you cruelly rejected, forcing me to make this king for you. Samuel will not relinquish his power over Israel without a fight, and in the subsequent speech of supposed farewell, he excoriates the people of Israel for their demand for a king, calling down the power of YHWH to destroy their crops as a sign that the old man retains his power (1 Sam.12:3-19). At the end of the speech, the people are groveling before the prophet asking him to forgive them, hoping for his favor still. Through this terrible scene, the new king of Israel, Saul, stands silent in the shadows, witnessing the prophet wield his power with awesome force. In the appalling story that follows, Samuel impedes Saul’s kingship in every way he can, finally stripping him of royal authority due to a ridiculous technicality of sacrifice, publically humiliating the king (1 Sam.15), reducing Saul to a blubbering and lonely fool, and at the end a suicide on Mount Gilboa (1 Sam.31). And before Saul’s ignominious end, he consults a medium, demanding that she call up the dead Samuel, of all people, to tell him what he should do (1 Sam.28). Samuel’s abuse of Saul extends even beyond his death. It is indeed a harrowing tale of power abused and power denied.

Like the ancient Samuel, Donald Trump is reluctant to relinquish his power, and as a result has resorted to the most outlandish and egregiously false claims about election abuses, absolutely none of which have found any traction among election officials, even those of his own nomination, and surely not among any legal authorities anywhere in the nation. Still, as the story of Samuel recounts, power is a dangerous potion, not readily evacuated. Yet, to hang onto power, no longer one’s own, is to court personal and public disaster. Donald Trump is in the process of tarnishing whatever might remain of any sense of dignity or decorum. He will depart the White House forever tainted with his childish and foolish clinging to his lost power. Like Samuel, whatever good he may have done for his people will forever lie in the shade of his unwillingness to cede what is no longer his.

(Images from Wikimedia Commons)

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