Christian nationalist pseudo–historian Rick Green appeared on the “FlashPoint” program earlier this week, where he laid out what he claimed were biblical standards for political leadership set forth in Exodus 18. Green’s purpose in doing so was to argue that President Joe Biden fails to meet these standards, though all he did was unwittingly make the case against his own preferred candidate, former President Donald Trump.
Green, who bills himself as “America’s Constitution Coach,” is the founder of Patriot Academy and a co-host of the radio program “WallBuilders Live” with fellow religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton, who shares Green’s obliviousness about Trump’s failure to measure up their own stated biblical requirements.
“We’ve got to start loving truth again,” Green said. “And if you look at Exodus 18, it tells us the kind of leaders we need to choose: ‘Able men such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness.'”
“Four things: able men; such as fear God; a man of truth; hating covetousness,” Green reiterated. “[Biden] fails on all four. He’s not capable. He certainly doesn’t fear God. He certainly is not a man of truth, and he loves to covet, or take bribes as other translations [put it] … This guy just absolutely fails all four.”
First of all, as Right Wing Watch has explained before, Exodus 18 is not about telling us “the kind of leaders we need to choose,” but rather is passage in which Moses is advised by his father-in-law Jethro to select judges from among the people who can help ease his burden of leading the Israelites.
But more importantly, if anyone “just absolutely fails all four” of these biblical standards, it is Trump and the fact that Green doesn’t even realize it is rather remarkable.
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