Phil Gulley is a Quaker pastor in Indiana and a clear-eyed observer of the human condition. Quakers value peace, integrity, community, and stewardship of the Earth–values that our mad would-be king disdains and desecrates. Phil recently shared an essay in which he described the multiple ways in which Trump and his MAGA base offend Quaker, American and human values, and he graciously allowed me to share it. It’s below. (He also has a Substack, for those of us who follow him.)
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A Criminal Syndicate
Have you ever met someone who reminded you of someone else? When I first heard Pete Buttigieg, I was reminded of Richard Lugar, another well-spoken, intelligent Hoosier. When I met my wife, she reminded me of Katharine Hepburn, with whom she shared a classy, no-nonsense manner. I’m sure my rugged good looks reminded her of Spencer Tracy. When Donald Trump emerged on the political scene, I felt a spark of recognition. I know that man from somewhere else, I told myself. Then I remembered. Donald Trump reminds me of Tony Soprano. Both are swaggering bullies. Both are vicious, violent, and rapacious criminals, heading up criminal syndicates. Except one is fictional and one is not.
There is no such thing as a Trump Administration. There is a Trump Syndicate, a crime family, a consortium of thugs, underlings, felons, and grifters, purporting to be public servants while carrying out a global campaign of theft, pilfering America’s treasury, peddling access to the Mobster-in-Chief, Donald Trump, while gutting the very agencies that would hold them accountable to the rule of law.
Theirs is a master class in fraud, unparalleled in American history. The foxes are guarding the henhouse, which by the end of his term will be gutted. A democracy almost 250 years in the making has been stripped bare in one bleak and wintry season. The collective effort of twelve generations of Americans has been decimated by Hair Hitler and his Brownshirts. This is what I grieve the most, that tens of millions of Americans voted for a man who’d made no secret of his disdain for decency and duty. All his life, he has been the poster child of decadence—greedy, grasping, uncaring, and corrupt. He has never had a friend, only servile bootlickers collecting the crumbs that slip through his tiny hands, selling their souls for thirty pieces of silver. They, like he, merit a Judas death—abandoned and ashamed—their names a curse on the lips of history.
He ventures from the White House only long enough to plunder, gathering jet planes and sweetheart deals from the sponsors of global terrorism, peddling his cryptocoins, favoring those who purchase them, tyrannizing those who don’t. Like all crime bosses, it is himself he is serving and no one else, so he will leave the presidency far richer than he entered it. His is a transactional presidency, our shared public treasure rummaged at fire-sale prices to his cronies.
Anyone who dares protest is called out on middle-of-the-night tweets—Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, colleges, professors, foreign presidents with the audacity to stand against tyranny, Mexico, Canada, and liberals. What an honor it would be to be singled out for attack by Donald Trump, to be labeled an enemy of his brutish ignorance. If we are known by the company we keep, we are also known by the company we find so repulsive we would dedicate our lives to resisting it. If he is naming his enemies, number me among them. I detest everything about him and all he represents−fascism, meanness, ignorance, and cruelty.
Like all mob bosses, to remain in his good favor requires an envelope of cash slipped into his silken pocket. His goons rise each morning and go forth, strong-arming America, threatening, intimidating, collecting the daily take, promising safety to those who comply and ruination to those who refuse. Now we are separating the men from the boys, and shame on the boys, shame on those who buckle under, the law firms and tech bros, whose donations fund this Thief-of-State. With billions of dollars at their disposal, with teams of lawyers at their beck and call, they tremble in fear of this strutting bully and what he might tweet about them. Their spinelessness is not only appalling, but traitorous. A pox upon them all.
Washington and Lincoln have their memorials, but there will be no such marker for Trump. Should one be erected, it will be torn down by those who cannot bear to see such a man saluted. There won’t be enough tomatoes in the world to register history’s disgust, nor enough guards to safekeep his marker. He should enjoy the braying accolades he is receiving now, since his future will lack the faintest note of praise.
“This is what I grieve the most, that tens of millions of Americans voted for a man who’d made no secrecy of his disdain for decency and duty.”
Yes. That is heartbreaking.
Outstanding! Phil has cut through the bullshit prepared daily by the media and served to Americans on their televisions.
I do believe that Trump had one friend, and that was Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey even bought a house next to Dear Leader in Florida so they could chum around together – “…the company we keep.”
My only word of opposition is that Trump is a wannabe Tony Soprano. Tony wouldn’t have bankrupted casinos multiple times in Atlantic City. I mean, you have to be a special type of ignorant to bankrupt a casino when the house always owns the odds. The only question is how much of the take you want.
I would say that Trump is more in line with a flim flam man or con artist. His whole political persona is a con. He specifically said, while he was a registered democrat, that if he ran for office, he would be a republican because they are gullible. He essentially branded them as his mark, and they still fell for it. You have to be a special kind of stupid to bite on a con who tells you in advance that you’re the mark. 😉
The in-fighting is getting worse, and so is the offensive against other nations who call out their stupidity. Pete Hegseth’s verbal war against China is such an expression of being outclassed that it isn’t funny. Trump’s tariffs have driven Asian countries together, yet Hegseth claims China is an imminent threat to other Asian countries.
The problem is that all their egos are overcompensating for their lack of brains. Trump refuses counsel, and Hegseth has fired all his confidants because he thinks they are making him look stupid by leaking to the press. Driving people away is a classic example of egoic megalomania.
I didn’t think they’d turn on each other this soon, but it’s already happening, which spells bad news for the coming months…
So- when and how do we take in and do more than intellectualize that the Bully relies upon fear and intimidation for His Success? We can recognize his ancestors who include Hitler, but also most of the “Fathers “ of our country. Democracy then as like now relied upon the compliance and seeming ignorance of the Poor White Men- however most of us have much more potential power to fight back with our voices, bodies, hearts and minds. Our young and oppressed will Lead. Will we strongly support them or will we instead vainly try to appease oppression with palliatives? Socialism isn’t The Answer. The Answer is Multiple Paths of using our brains and hearts to resist and those who can and are resisting. It’s dangerous individually and necessary. Blame- no help! Learning from our past mistakes important. Loving, challenging Resistance! My father took us to a protest in Lafayette, In in 1961. His resistance ended with his death from cancer at age 46 in 1964. Im lucky to be in good health at 74 now- CA easier than IN—- but people falsely feel safe here. Do what you can!
So if Trump is suing CBS why isn’t he being deposed? Show his real craziness? He brought the suit alleging interference with the election by an edited tape. I don’t think there is enough OFFENSE to his craziness. We are always on the DEFENSE. Capitulation must stop and the courts / judges/ attorneys must put him and his ilk on the hot seat. Make Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem appear in court and then get them uncomfortable, etc. after swearing in. I just don’t see anyway to slow down the Trump regime unless there is more offense. Let’s get some non MAGA Republicans talking about Trump’s behavior and keep telling the voters how much money he is costing us: military review, refurbishing a plane, weekly visits to MaraLago where he can charge the government for rooms at the place…and how about that gold office. Hey Jake Tapper – if you can write about Biden and stir things up – get more information out there about Trump instead of creating an opportunity for the Trump administration now to “investigate the pardons and auto pen” of Biden. When is a journalist going to ask Trump if he has ever been to a national park? More questions from journalists for his “mess” secretary please that shows she is clueless. And the Dems need a visible, admirable, leader on whom to focus – more Dem rallies opposing Trump. Get him in the crowd size. We can keep reinforcing our perceptions but we have to get more people to see who he is and the damage he is doing.
Much of the electorate agrees with Phil Gulley.
In a couple of weeks, we will be on the streets again in large numbers with our TVs off, so Trump’s birthday party will be unattended. It’s not much resistance, but it’s a start of something much larger — a show of democracy alive and well here in one of its birthplaces.
Every time we protest, a few will cross the street and join us. Every election day, a few will also join us at the most critical protest at nationwide polling places.
We can do this, and we have to. Anything else is hollow and pointless. Numbers count a great deal in a democracy, and we have the time to build them.
Of course, crowds need leaders, and they will emerge from followers over time and with sufficient resources.
We got this.
Phil Gulley has always had wise words to share.
Thank you Sheila.
whereas my foulmouth critique would say the same, i am enjoying a intelligent view.it made my morning drive in NoDak with no hope enjoyable..
Thanks for the upbeat jive for the drive.. best wishes all..
Thank you, Sheila, for bringing this letter to us and to Mr. Gulley, thank you for the beautiful response to our current state of affairs.
I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Gulley about 30 years ago. I am so pleased to know that he is still around and as witty as before.
I particularly liked his new title for DJT as “Thief of State.” One little letter that says it all. Let’s make that meme go viral!!
This will be difficult for some of you to believe but, we are living in an era in America that I often can’t find words to describe my reactions to what I am seeing. My brain seems to shut down and refuses to function at its usual full speed ahead to spout out my views but my beautiful, loving, brilliant granddaughter who stood up for the rights of all and turned her back on all she had stood for. For a brief time she lived her dream of being a nurse, specializing in pediatric heart surgery, saving the lives of all babies and children here at Riley Hospital for Children, going to foreign nations to save little black babies and children in Uganda and training their staff – on two trips with their special Pediatric Heart Surgery Team, then the only nurse to accompany their leading pediatric heart surgeon to China to work her special talents on little yellow babies. She married a Republican Catholic and gradually shifted her support to both organizations; I no longer know what she believes or who she believes in because we have so little to talk about on the rare times we are in contact. She is, to me, the Poster Child of the new MAGA followers; there are many all of us know and love and feel this deep loss to the Fascist King and his Court Jesters.
“There is no such thing as a Trump Administration. There is a Trump Syndicate, a crime family, a consortium of thugs, underlings, felons, and grifters, purporting to be public servants while carrying out a global campaign of theft, pilfering America’s treasury, peddling access to the Mobster-in-Chief, Donald Trump, while gutting the very agencies that would hold them accountable to the rule of law.”
The simplicity of the Quaker beliefs and their chosen life style made me think of the utter waste and ridiculousness of the Catholic hours of global coverage of Pope Leo’s first mass. The Catholic laws, and they are laws, maintain their women in segregation as second-class humans as Republicans are doing as they remove their names and military records from Arlington Cemetery and the Pentagon archives. Women are the source of all life; which takes me back to Scottish poet Dilys Lainge’s quote I haven’t posted in awhile but now is the time to resurrect it.
“Women receive the insults of men with tolerance; having been bitten in the nipple by their toothless gums.” That includes all Kings, Emperors and all world leaders, including Democrats and Republicans who continue to ill-abuse them in general while allowing a few individuals to work along side of them on most levels till they can no longer be of use.
We do not need to become a member of the Quaker religion and they are not proselytizing seeking converts, they simply speak their beliefs for others to accept or ignore. “The Would-Be King” is lying, stealing and destroying this government as his way to convert us or pay a heavy price for our disagreements.
Yes, thank you to both Sheila and Mr. Gulley!
“All his life….” As I’ve been saying, the wanna-be man has been a grifter, and worse, forever.
I will be in transit on the 14th, not able to join any protest, not do i feel quite safe doing so in Florididia, living amongst so many who rally for his sake.
Power to the people!
The other day I referred to Trofim Lysenko, Stalin’s ” genius” agrarian star, comparing him to RFK,Jr, particularly, and the rest of the Trump cast of fools. Here is a bit of that history spelled out in HCR’s timely piece, today:
The Guardian authors note that science is “the most important long-term investment for humanity.” They recall the story of Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko, who is a prime example of the terrible danger of replacing fact-based reality with ideology.
As Sam Kean of The Atlantic noted in 2017, Lysenko opposed science-based agriculture in the mid-20th century in favor of the pseudo-scientific idea that the environment alone shapes plants and animals. This idea reflected communist political thought, and Lysenko gained the favor of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Lysenko claimed that his own agricultural techniques, which included transforming one species into another, would dramatically increase crop yields. Government leaders declared that Lysenko’s ideas were the only correct ones, and anyone who disagreed with him was denounced. About 3,000 biologists whose work contradicted his were fired or sent to jail. Some were executed. Scientific research was effectively banned.
In the 1930s, Soviet leaders set out to “modernize” Soviet agriculture, and when their new state-run farming collectives failed, they turned to Lysenko to fix the problem with his new techniques. Almost everything planted according to his demands died or rotted. In the USSR and in China, which adopted his methods in the 1950s, at least 30 million people died of starvation.
“[W]hen the doctrines of science and the doctrines of communism clashed, he always chose the latter—confident that biology would conform to ideology in the end,” Kean said of Lysenko. He concludes: “It never did.”
Gulley’s views are spot on, and his writing beautiful.
Thank you, Sheila, for sharing this excellent essay.
Phil Gulley eloquently described Hair Hitler and his Brown Shirts’ criminal destruction of what is left of our pseudo democracy, even though it has always leaned somewhat towards being an oligarchy. When I first read the “Hair” Hitler sentence I thought hair was misspelled, but then I realized he spelled it that way on purpose.
I plan to share the essay with friends, but not with family because as far as I know they all voted our country’s Chief Felon back into office.
Continued preaching to the choir. When will the masses care?
“A democratic culture depends on something more than institutions. It depends on the instincts of politicians and citizens. It calls for a willingness to choose solutions that the greatest number of people can live with. It requires conventions about how even lawful powers will be exercised so as to avoid capricious, vindictive or oppressive decisions. Above all, it requires people to treat political opponents as fellow citizens with whom they disagree — and not as enemies to be smashed.” Jonathan Sumption in NY Times
Thanks for the share, gave me my first smile of the day.
I’ve read that one of the most effective forms of resistance against tyrants is humor – that tyrants love to hear of people hating them and take perverse pride in it, but humor drives them crazy. Evidently they don’t know what to do with it and it also cuts through to many supporters who are uneasy about what’s going on. So, Phil, since you are a great humorist, how about a regular piece lampooning Trump?
Carol Johnston – So you haven’t seen the countless lampoons of The King? More humor, just what we need to feed amusing ourselves to death instead of real action.
Satire, making fun of, ridiculing the avarice, greed and hypocrisy of Maga and trump is media resistance and fact sharing to millions. It’s one weapon in the toolbox of modern-day communications and politics that gets people’s attention.
The distortion of facts and misplacing blame onto vulnerable scapegoats causes unnecessary burdens and pain to many people and communities. Magas m.o. is to build their base with threats and coercion while their inner circle is swirling in a tornado of corruption and robbing US blind. We need huge spotlights put on their grift continuously.
When the disparity of treatment has been turned so not the right kind of “Christians” are arrested for praying in the Capitol and the violent mob that desecrated that same building and killed police officers are honored and set free, we know that trump’s justice is Un-American and corrupt.
Get out there on June 14, make your best signs opposing Mad Kings, Pumpkin heads and illegal tariffs! In the meantime, have you called the feckless Todd and Jim and oppose the Reckless Reconciliation Bill (aka BIg Beautiful Budget Bill) that will allow Hair Hitler to ignore court rulings, create massive debt, while giving the ultra wealthy tax breaks all at the expense of the working folks. Cut Medicaid, Medicare, rob schools of non profit status, etc. it’s certainly Big but not Beautiful.
As a side note, Quaker Worship of anticipating a direct communion with the Divine connects us all to the source of Love and Life, thereby encouraging us to seek the path of peace, simplicity, integrity, community and environmental stewardship.
Thank you Shelia, that is a fantastic article.
Yeah sorry I missed this in the beginning.
The man who would be king, my favorite part was at the end, Michael Caine had Sean Connery’s head in a bag, how the mighty had fallen.
Tony Soprano was a fictitional character, based on the real deal. “Vernon The Ghost writer” knows all about how that works.
The things we learn through life, some good some bad, but definitely once you put the pieces together, really opens your eyes. Most wander through life oblivious to what’s right in front of them. Certain ones, feel they are owed, they feel they are being replaced, they feel they should be at the top, looking down on everyone or everything else, because of privilege. But very few actually attempt to do something about it. Some don’t even believe that scenario, at least outwardly. But I think it’s more common than most people believe.
You wouldn’t think that those who are billionaires would feel that way, but they’ve grifted their way through life, and they found the nooks and crannies to proclaim a sort of bizarro world success story. But usually, the success is littered with the bodies of former business partners, contractors, banks, friends, maybe some enemies, that were used, abused, and tossed in the trash bin. One or two on every step up the ladder so to speak. More than likely acolytes or wannabes, who ended up paying the ultimate price. Kind of like the man who would be king? Or maybe the king who would be a god!
Like I mentioned, I don’t know how many actually have their eyes open towards these things, but it absolutely without a doubt, points the way to what’s going on today. Yesterday, the talk was about unions and a lot of the grifting going on there, but that’s just a microcosm. You have the little itsy bitsy dictators, hiding in small towns and cities, and then you have those in counties, or maybe even townships, then you have those in particular states, then you have those in the legislative branch, or the judicial branch, or even the executive branch. Anyone or two or three might not really cause too much of an issue, they could be handled by the rest. But when the rest start to believe that they have a disadvantage, and, are disadvantaged by others taking away what’s rightfully theirs, now you have a problem. Now you have burgeoning acolytes that tend to band together. They feed off each other’s disdain, they feed on each other’s fear and loathing of everything that they believe is holding them down.
They want the social revolutions to be about them, because they feel it could glorify them. And there are plenty that want to be glorified, those that have already self-agrandized, but they want other individuals to see that aggrandizement. So they keep leading anarchy and leaving the destruction of society in their wake, they have no compassion or empathy for anyone but maybe themselves, I believe narcissism, named after the god narcissus, has plenty to do with it.
The Man of lawlessness, the composite man that’s mentioned in scripture, walks among those like a God, because they’ve made themselves a God! Once they make themselves a God, the acolytes follow. They have god-like authority, they perform powerful works, like a God would, except all of their powerful works are on the backs of the average citizen. They are on the backs of those acolytes who give that God it’s power.
Hitler saw himself as a god, Mussolini saw himself as a god, Stalin saw himself as a god, the emperor of Japan saw himself as a god, Pol Pot Saw himself as a god, emperor Constantine saw himself as a god, Alexander the Great saw himself as a god I mean we could go on and on and on throughout history looking at all the men who thought they were gods. And they didn’t have any power except for those that they used and abused and their bodies cushioned their steps. I imagine throughout history, it’s in the billions. You think humanity would have figured it out by now?
Well humanity has not, and will never figure it out. It’s getting to the point of no return on this planet. It took a long time for humanity to destroy the only home he has, and kill off those who might have actually had a brain cell. It’s too bad, humanity loves to have thugs as their God.
Because those itty bitty tiny brained acolytes stand behind their self-created gods, and yell across the precipice, that their God can beat up all of the other gods. And vice versa! And they do it while they’re standing inside of the burning house. The house that they’ve destroyed, the only house there is to live in. And in their last breath they’ll be claiming that it’s too bad, why didn’t we see this coming, too bad!
Scripture equates the coming together of religion and the political state to control civilized society, as fornication.
“And the kings of the earth who committed fornication with her and lived in shameless luxury will weep and beat themselves in grief over her, when they look at the smoke from the burning of her, while they stand at a distance because of their fear of her torment and say, ‘Too bad, too bad, you great city, Babylon you strong city, because in one hour your judgment has arrived!’”—Revelation 18:9, 10.
I can still see the crippled and mangled up Michael Caine handing the bag over with the would be kings head inside. The man who really wanted to be a god.
So true.
So well stated.
So sad.
Thank you for sharing this, Sheila.
I feel sorry for PG – he makes moral judgments about T yet he doesn’t even believe in hell. That’s a made up kind of
religion based on human opinion.
Gail, just because I’ve stopped believing in the superstitious dogma about hell does not mean I have forsaken morality.