The Biblical Backsliding Of Western Leaders And Their Totalitarian Mentality

By Robert Kimball Shinkoskey Photos: Wikimedia Commons The Bible’s Old Testament summarizes the history of the ancient Middle East under both ruthless and righteous leaders. It spells out the easy backslide-ability of human beings from laudable reaches of goodness specified by God for self-governing societies. These societies invariably regress back to their basement evil capacities in a time of constitutional ignorance and tyrannical rule. All of this was set up in the beginning of human civilization after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden. Their son Abel’s life of integrity as a simple, honest sheep herder was soon enough shattered by their other son Cain’s murderous criminal behavior, which introduced the earth to the depths of human capacity for evil. That original story of good beginnings in the Garden followed by many stories of socio-economic stress, duress and backsliding has come alive once again in 21st century with the crass behavior of the once exemplary behavioral leaders of the Western world, Christian America and Jewish Israel. Let’s begin with Christian America. President Trump during his second term is tossing out clear indicators he believes he has absolutist power to rule over 330 million Americans in the United States and also to manipulate billions across the globe. For example, he threatened to bomb the oil transportation hub infrastructure on Kharg Island off the coast of Iran “just for fun.” Most politicians don’t do outrageous things for fun. They worry about the political, economic, and social consequences of their actions. Not Trump. Nor Vice President JD Vance, who earlier excused much of his bosses’ behavior by saying, “We’re just having fun.” Again, on the subject of Kharg Island, Trump said, “I’ll knock the hell out of it.” Using an idiom more characteristic of a heavyweight boxing champion than a statesman balancing competing interests is further indication of his megalomaniacal tendencies. Our President has been getting an earful on gas prices, blowback on the war from anti-war members of his own party, judicial collapse of his economic-domination-by-tariffs strategy, awkward revelations from the Epstein files, and pushback on his attempts to criminalize the activities of his political opponents. (Politico, 3-16-25) However, he still believes he has unlimited power through workarounds and through new assertions of power. For example, regarding Cuba he has said, “I can do anything I want with it.” Israel’s Netanyahu, for his part, is proving the axiom that hot war in a time of ignorance and ethical backsliding can get a politician out of hot water. Both he and Trump are well aware of this time-honored strategy. Trump has been using Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba to get himself out of political trouble. Netanyahu is using current military success in the West Bank, Iran, and Lebanon to add to his fabulous American-aided success in dominating Gaza and killing or starving Muslim civilians there. Accordingly, his people have forgotten all his sins and crimes and now support him like Iraqis supported the earlier authoritarian Sadaam Hussein, reportedly with 90s-percentile-level support in poll numbers. A dictator increases his “popularity” by combining religious-like faith in his improbable political promises with the fear of social ostracism and/or political retribution if the people do not support those promises. All of this is nothing new for Trump. Early on, he famously said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. He said he would be a “dictator” on “day one” of his second term. He said, “I can do anything I wanna do. I’m the President.” No. 47 has made good (Renée Good) on the first boast, fulfilled the second boast in spades, and continues to do whatever the hell he wants to do wherever he goes. Jesus didn’t say, “I can do no wrong” like Trump says. Jesus said, “Follow me” in doing what is right. Moses didn’t say, “Hate those who are different than you.” He said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18) Unfortunately, the Moses people and the Jesus people have not been undertaking any systematic program of law-related education in schools or sophisticated study of the Judeo-Christian scripture in churches and synagogues to help rectify this severe western world ignorance and backsliding. Accordingly, it is likely to get worse before it gets better. Robert Kimball Shinkosky is an award winning citizen editorial writer for Utah, west coast, and national newspapers. As a long time state government worker and student of the American presidency, he speaks out boldly about the need for citizen participation, a renewed democracy, and constitutional limits on absolute power. Kimball’s most recent book is a scholarly interpretation of the scope of the Ten Commandments, showing how those laws applied to government as well as citizens in ancient Israel. They match provisions found in the U.S. Constitu