Trump Cabinet Picks

This last week President Trump started announcing his cabinet picks and what appears to be their most significant quality is loyalty.  The average Trump voter, I would assess, agrees with the strategy.  Choose loyal people.  Definitely don’t select disloyal ones.

What about Abraham Lincoln?  Didn’t he pick a team of rivals?  Loyalty doesn’t mean pushover or doormat.  It does mean among other things keeping the questions and challenges inside the room.  Someone working for Trump knows his position.  He should not join to undermine or cause factions.

Factiousness and Heresy

The Apostle Paul in his epistles deals harshly with factiousness.  The word in the King James Version is “heretic,” which transliterates a Greek term, that speaks of a factious or divisive person.  For a church, heresy diverts off the path of truth as established by the congregation; its doctrine.  The New Testament warns against division again and again.  This doesn’t mean challenges can’t be made, but loyalty is necessary.

When someone defects in the Bible, that defector left the group.  The group coalesced around a particular belief and practice and a person ejects from the group.  1 John 2:19 describes someone who goes out from the assembly, because he was not of the assembly.  He would have continued with the assembly if he was of it.  By going out, he showed he never was of it.

The usages of heretic or heresy in the New Testament indicate a divisive person.  He breaks with leadership just to break with leadership.  The person is a trouble maker.  He never joined with the idea that he would try to get along.

Whose Agenda

People are drawn in magnetic fashion to the power of the federal government.  Booker T. Washington talked about this from his first visit to Washington, DC from Tuskegee, recorded in his biography, Up From Slavery.  The White House is a blazing hot center of the political power of the United States of America.  People want to burrow their way into this honey pot like ants at a picnic.  They aren’t necessarily and probably there to serve the President and with him.  They want to use this as an opportunity for their own agenda.  That is not the idea of a team of rivals.

Donald Trump was clear about his agenda.  He ran on it.  The people saying they want to join him know good-well what he said and what he’s trying to accomplish.  He is right to pick only those who will be loyal to him and his agenda.

For instance, Trump will bring up ideas that maybe have little merit.  He suggests them and perhaps they are stupid ideas or thoughts.  But he wants the freedom to talk about those, what sometimes people call “brainstorming.”  Those around him tell him what they think.  They say they don’t like it and it won’t work, giving their best arguments.  Trump wants that.  What he doesn’t want is to read about that episode in the paper or hear it in the national news on television that night or the next day.

Trump employees join especially in this present administration with full knowledge of what and who he is.  None should expect to leave and write a tell all book for bookoo bucks.  They are serving at his pleasure.  If they join and find out that they don’t like it, that doesn’t mean leaving to undermine his agenda.

Disloyalty

In the recent campaign, the media and the Democrats used the statements of former Trump team members.  They spoke against Trump themselves.  John Kelly gave a personal story in which he claimed that Trump said that Hitler’s generals would have obeyed him.  Kelly used that to harm his former boss.  Mike Pence did the same on different occasions.  In order to justify themselves, these men hit Trump.  Maybe their feelings were hurt.  They should have stayed loyal.  If they were not going to remain loyal, then they shouldn’t have joined Trump in the first place.

When I use Kelly and Pence, as examples, and I don’ think they are equal (Kelly was worse), this is not saying they couldn’t disagree.  Pence said he couldn’t employ a particular application of the U. S. Constitution.  Fine.  Do what you’ve got to do.  But leave it there at least.  I’m living 20 minutes from Columbus, Indiana, Pence’s hometown.  Most are not happy with Pence there.  It is the issue of loyalty.

Just as a related topic, what about the loyalty of Donald Trump?  Maybe Trump himself isn’t loyal either.  It’s not something I’ve seen, based on what I’m writing here.  Trump follows his own principles of loyalty.  He isn’t loyal to those who are disloyal to and remain disloyal to him.  For his business and his goals, I understand it.  How can you give a presidential job to a disloyal person?  The disloyal people are poison to the administration.  I get it.

The Same Thing for Church and Friends

As I did a search on my blog here, I didn’t find one post on loyalty.  Someone couldn’t say that it is a pet subject for me.  However, I believe in it.  It’s a good trait for someone to have.

What I’m talking about with the new Trump administration, I would say the same of a church and those who are your friends.  True friends will show loyalty.  I can say that I’ve had several who called themselves my friend through my life who were disloyal to a great magnitude.  Again, I’m not talking about remaining silent without saying anything.  That’s not loyalty.  What I do mean is someone who treats someone like a friend.  That person will not then trash his “friend” to others, even many others.  He won’t join in with others who will do the same.

A real friend, a loyal one, is someone who will be there for you when you’re down.  What I’m describing goes along with what I’m saying about Donald Trump.  I’ve had a few loyal friends through the years.  Not many, but I have some and I’m thankful for them.  I’m planting that flag of loyalty in the ground too.  Above all of course, I want to be loyal to God and His Word.