Some time ago, a friend invited me to hear him speak at a luncheon meeting of one of the civic organizations in a city near my home. I was seated between the speaker and his lovely and charming wife. After the presentation, he opened the floor for questions. My friend is a widely acknowledged expert in the areas of foreign relations and military strategic planning. Although these were not the subjects of this luncheon presentation per se, several of the questions touched on those areas – particularly military strategy and leadership. One of the audience members asked why the USA had not pressed its early tactical advantage in the current conflict with Iran on to victory.

From my seat next to the speaker’s wife, I whispered, “Because Donald Trump always drops the football on the two-yard line,” whereupon she promptly and quietly, but emphatically (and quite rightly) shushed me!

Make no mistake. I continue to believe as I always have that Donald Trump is an intolerable boor lacking any desirable presidential qualities. It is frightening that the American electorate (including myself) has handed the reigns of the world’s most powerful nuclear superpower to a whimsical man-child with a virtually limitless ego that is paradoxically so easily bruised.

The fact that “The Donald” is an incurable, transparent liar is almost universally acknowledged even among his fervent supporters. But of course, outrageous lying makes Trump just one of the crowd among the world’s politicians. Since time immemorial people around the world have come to expect almost all their political leaders to be liars, cheats, and psychological manipulators who are more than willing to abandon any principle in their continuous quest for increased political power. What’s most concerning about Donald Trump’s obvious lies is that he, his advisors, and his die-hard supporters apparently actually believe the horse hockey he continually spouts.

Full Disclosure – With all that said, I have to admit I did vote for Donald Trump all three times he ran for President. At the time and still today, I consider him the smallest of two tiny insects occupying a cotton boll. It utterly breaks my heart that in our mighty nation of hundreds of millions who qualify under the Constitution we can’t seem to find any candidates better qualified to be president than the ones we’ve nominated over the last few decades. So, I just held my nose and cast my vote for my selected candidates. But just because I voted for them does not imply I supported them in principle. How could I? Almost all political candidates don’t have any principles – at least none that survive their election. In truth, I have never fully supported any of the candidates for presidential elections in which I have voted over the last half-century.

I’m convinced that along with me, most (or at least enough) of the American electorate simply ignored Donald Trump’s obvious flaws, considering as I did the even worse alternative offered by his opponents, and cast our votes ceding to him the most powerful political position on Earth. Surely almost none of us are surprised in the least by his outrageous daily shenanigans in office. I for one simply choose to look the other way and hold on until January 20, 2029 (assuming I live that long) hoping against hope that America’s presidency will pass peacefully to some new huckster politician for the 47^th consecutive time. I suspect that most of my fellow American voters are doing the same.

So, I stand by my sarcastic aside to my friend’s wife. Donald Trump’s track record on any number of issues during his time in office bears out my contention that he does indeed always drop the ball on the two-yard line. But the question then becomes, “Why?”

My friend’s answer to the question about why American/Israeli military victory against Iran has so far eluded us reminded me of something my father often said, “If your leaders are saying and doing things that seem crazy to you, then you must assume they know something you don’t. Otherwise, you will surely go crazy yourself.” My friend’s answer wasn’t quite so trite, but in essence, it was the same as my dad’s. He began by uttering three words rarely spoken to public audiences by “experts” in their fields – “I don’t know.”

How refreshing that was compared to the usual “ignorance speaking with the voice of authority” issuing forth from most political “talking heads.” But he went on to point out that we “rank and file” political news consumers are never privy to all the information that the political decision makers are. Although my friend didn’t say so, any information we do receive is always colored by the preconceptions and self-serving agendas of its sources. Our only option becomes to gather information from the widest possible variety of sources, and then as my wife’s grandmother was fond of saying, “separate the poo from the punkin.” The fewer sources we have, the more the poo appears as punkin, so we must continually guard against drawing any of our own unfounded conclusions or establishing our own ignorant political beliefs and simply admit to ourselves as my friend humbly stated, “I don’t know.”

But listening (after I got shushed) to my friend’s answer I had another uncomfortable thought. It really doesn’t matter what I believe about the personalities of America’s political leaders or those of other nations around the world. The fact of the matter is that they hold their positions of power by the very will of God almighty. In his letter to the church in Rome, the apostle Paul admonished Christian believers to subjugate ourselves to earthly authorities regardless of their character or conduct, simply because they hold their authority by the will of God.

This is a tough row to hoe for someone like me who has born an almost instinctive resistance to authority since childhood. When I entered the Air Force, I was trained to “respect the rank regardless of the man.” I have always rebelled against this idea. My father taught me to respect and honor personal integrity as a rare commodity among men.  Of course, he also told me to always exhibit personal integrity myself – something to my shame I haven’t always done perfectly.

I have always found the idea of respecting the position rather than the man’s words and deeds a very hard pill to swallow especially when we find ourselves under the rule of a crude buffoon like The Donald who rarely gives the impression of any personal integrity and frequently exhibits disrespect and outright disdain for his own military subordinates. Nevertheless, I will continue to subjugate myself to his presidential authority, simply because God’s Word tells me it is the right and proper thing to do. Furthermore, I know and trust that God will never allow any earthly authority He has ordained to ever take any action, speak any word, or even think any thought except by God’s will. I hold as my anchor an abiding trust that God’s will is always perfectly good and best for all mankind.

Having said all that, simply because I choose to subjugate myself to the authorities God has emplaced, does not imply that I must honor or approve their personal character or conduct. Instead, I simply trust that God must have a broader concept of “the big picture” than I. This sure knowledge allows me to remain calm in the seeming chaos of the world around me. Once again, I consider the advice of the apostle Paul to his protégé Timothy.