Really?

Last year in the local news in Utah, I saw where Utah Senator Mike Lee compared Donald Trump to Book of Mormon hero Captain Moroni.  At the time I read Lee's comparison, I saw that over 400 people wrote a comment. Most were critical of Lee, but many supported it. I am not sure which bothered me more, Lee's comparison or the many others who agreed. He later tried to excuse it by saying Moroni was not a prophet  and that he didn't mean to offend people.

Let me begin by saying that Donald Trump is the antitheses of Moroni. Trump has none of the qualities, character or courage of Moroni. In fact if I were to compare Donald Trump to a Book of Mormon character, it would be Amalickiah, who, it is recorded was "desirous to be a King" (Alma 46:4).  Amalickiah was a "man of many flattering words," who won a great personal following, had obtained "power by fraud and deceit" (Alma 48:7), and "led away the hearts of many people" (Alma 46:10). "A large and a strong man" of imposing presence (Alma 46:3); and to a powerful and persuasive rhetoric he added the fierce resolve to one who "had sworn to drink the blood of Moroni," his chief opponent (Alma 51:9). Shrewd and calculating, "a man of cunning device" (Alma 46:10), he knew how to preserve himself: "He did not come down himself to battle" (Alma 49:11). Amalickiah was willing to pay any price to gain his objective, for he "did care not for the blood of his people" (Alma 49:10).

Amalickiah could always count on a strong backing by the king-men. "And those people who were wroth were also desirous that he should be their king" (Alma 46:4).

Moroni was caught off guard by the vicious and deceitful nature that his own guileless spirit was slow to anticipate. "When Moroni, who was the chief commander of the armies,...had heard of these dissensions, he was angry with Amalickiah" (Alma 46:11), and he reacted in a quick and spectacular manner; the drastic measures that he took to alert the people to show that they needed waking up in a great hurry. "He rent his coat,...took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it--In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives and our children" (Alma 46:12). He put the torn garment on a pole and called it the "title of liberty" (Alma 46:13), and went forth among the people, calling upon them "with a loud voice." Hearing Moroni, and seeing the banner, "the people came running together" (Alma 46:19-21).

Unlike Trump and his disregard of the Constitution, Moroni was wholly dedicated to defending that constitution which Mosiah had given the nation when he laid down his kingship, in which the sum of wisdom was equality. Mosiah said, "For thus saith the Lord: Ye shall not esteem one flesh above another, or one man shall not think of himself above another" (Mosiah 23:7). He tells us what kind of equality is indispensable if a people are to enjoy liberty, namely "that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land...to answer for his own sins" (Mosiah 29:38).

This is what Moroni was willing to fight for. He knew that the King-men would destroy any equality and Moroni had a grand passion for equality, without which, according to the Book of Mormon, there can be no freedom.  Moroni was a great warrior, a great general but above all he wanted peace. Because of his magnanimous nature as a lover of peace and fair play, he always called the enemy his brothers, with whom he was loathe to contend. He held no grudges and at the end of the fighting he proposed a settlement. He refused to take advantage of the enemy who was too drunk to fight because that would be an "injustice" (Alma 55:19). With never a thought of punishing a beaten foe (Donald Trump?), Moroni sought no reprisals even after the gravest provocations. He was satisfied to take his defeated adversaries at their word and trust them to return to their homes or settle among the Nephites as they chose (Alma 44:6; 11, 19-20).

Moroni was the greatest of all the Book of Mormon warriors, and yet he was the most magnanimous, and he tells us why:  "And we have suffered...all this that perhaps we might be the means of saving some soul, and we supposed that our joy would be full if perhaps we could be the means of saving some" (Alma 26:30). He knew that the harder way of winning over an enemy was the better way, and all his converts underwent a most marvelous change of heart; "Now there was not one soul among all the people who had been converted unto the Lord that would take up arms against their brethren; nay, they would not even make any preparations for war; yea, and also their king commanded them that they should not" (Alma 24:6).

At the sight of Amalickiah, the king-men's idea of a Nephite patriot, leading a Lamanite army against the Nephites, they saw him in his true colors after having been won over "by fraud and deceit" and they were willing to switch to the faithful Moroni.

The freemen are the Nephites who supported Moroni in his opposition to a dangerous coalition led by Amalickiah. The king-men's combination consisted of rich Nephites who were outraged by what they considered interference by "Helaman and his brethren" in their private affairs. Other king-men included monarchists, influential and intriguing families, a self-styled aristocracy, social climbers "lifted up in their hearts" by their new wealth (Alma 45:24), haughty and aspiring judges, power-hungry officials (Mike Lee?), including "almost all the lawyers and the high priests"--men taking advantage of church positions (3 Nephi 6:27), and many ordinary church members beguiled by the powerful and impressive rhetoric of Amalikiah.  Only one comprehensive label fits that combination.

The freemen were not left wing, not at all. For them there were no wings--equality was their watchword, and their torn, trampled garments and tattered "title of liberty" announced to all that they considered themselves nothing more than God's typically weak and fallible children, whom he loves all alike. They were not militant, but were peace-loving, noncompetitive, and friendly, appealing to the power of the word of God over the sword. Like Moroni they were "taught never to give offense," and never aggressive, but they were terrible indeed when the king-men pushed them too far, but quick to spare and forgive. They were not class conscious, but prized equality among the greatest of blessings. In their personal lives, they placed no great value on the accumulation of wealth and abhorred displays of status and prestige like the Trump Tower. They were not desirous or envious of power and authority; they recognized that they were "despised" by the more success-oriented king-men of the world. They shunned the climate of conspiracy in which the king-men delighted, and avoided aristocratic pretenses and aspirations as well.  

None of these qualities are found in Donald Trump nor in his enablers like Senator Lee, who at one time could not hold back his disdain for Trump, who called on Trump to step away from the presidental nomination after the Access Hollywood Tape, but because he wanted to be in the circle of power perhaps he sold himself and his values to support Donald Trump and violated his Oath of Office to uphold and defend the constitution and its liberties for all people. And to even think that Donald Trump could be compared to Captain Moroni stretches the credibility of all reason and fact, and is, to put it simply, embarrassingly ignorant.

I have never met Donald Trump. I have, however, heard him and read extensively about him. I have listened to him, have seen his tweets, and have read almost every book written by those who either worked for him, were part of his family or part of his administration. They all tell the same story. He is nothing like Moroni. I would have loved to see him be a good president, and to overcome his narcissism, his racism and hate for those who do not fall at his feet and worship him, but it did not happen and it will never happen. One thing I know for sure. He cannot hold a candle to Captain Moroni! Moroni would never use bone spurs, real or invented, as an excuse not to defend the liberty of his people.

Postscript- See this Article dated June 21, 2022 in the Salt Lake Tribune