Philistines and hypocrites

It’s bad enough that Donald Trump gets his “God Bless the USA” Bibles made in China, for $2.85 a pop, then sells them in the USA for $59.99 to $1,000 apiece, when any church or Salvation Army outlet will give you one for free.

“Ah,” you say, as you load your guns, “but the Trump Bible includes a copy of the U.S. Constitution!”

Well, you can get that for free, too. However, the Constitution in the Trump Bible excludes Amendments 11 to 27, which, among other things, abolished slavery in the United States and gave women the right to vote.

In this way, the Trump Bible mimics the Bibles that Southern slaveowners gave to their preferred slaves in the 1800s, which omitted much of the Old Testament and nearly half of the New Testament because slaveowners believed they contained passages that might incite rebellions.

“Global trade records show a printing company in China’s eastern city of Hangzhou shipped close to 120,000 of the Bibles to the United States between early February and late March,” the British newspaper The Independent reported this month.

“The estimated value of the three separate shipments was $342,000, or less than $3 per Bible [$2.85, to be exact], according to databases that use Customs data to track exports and imports. The minimum price for the Trump-backed Bible is $59.99, putting the potential sales revenue at about $7 million,” The Independent continued [$7,198,800 to be exact, assuming all those Trump Bibles sell for the low low price of $59.99].

Kudos to The Independent and its reporters Richard Lardner and Dake Kang for their thorough report on this story.

Closer to home, The Washington Post reported that Oklahoma Schools Superintendent Ryan Walters has demanded that all Oklahoma public schools teach the Bible, and ordered the state “to buy 55,000 classroom Bibles, and the request for proposals includes some specific requirements: The books must include the Declaration of Independence and other founding documents. They may not include commentary. They must be leather-bound, or at least use ‘leather-like’ material.”

Strangely — Can you believe it? What a coincidence! — the Trump Bible meets all these requirements! And may be the only such Holy Book that does!

Now, 55,000 Trump Leatherette Bibles at $60 a pop comes to $3.3 million. That’s enough money to buy 623,818 Big Macs at today’s average price of $5.29 — enough to buy two Big Macs for every registered Republican in Houston! Talk about corruption! And in a safe Republican state!

Here’s another amazing fact, according to The Oklahoman newspaper: Though Schools Superintendent Walters wants 55,000 Trump Bibles, “there are only 43,000 classroom teachers in the state, and many fewer teaching just history or literature.”

In a fine story attributed to Oklahoma Watch reporters Jennifer Palmer, Paul Monies and Heather Warlick, The Oklahoman reported: “A salesperson at Mardel Christian & Education searched, and though they carry 2,900 Bibles, none fit the parameters [of the Trump & Walters Extortionist Bible].”

“Separation of church and state concerns aside,” the Oklahoma news outlets reported, “Paperback versions of the New King James Version are available online for $2.99 each, less than 5% of what the Trump-endorsed Bible would cost. There are many free Bible apps, too.”

Far be it from me to denounce Don the john Trump as a hypocritical money-grubbing Judas, or Superintendent Walters as a slimy bottom-dwelling slug nosing his way up the backside of a swine, pitifully begging and trying to bribe his way into a job in a Trump administration, but … where were we?

Oh, yeah, in the United States of America, 2024.

(Courthouse News columnist Robert Kahn has read the Bible top to bottom, in the King James Version. His favorite parts are the Sermon on the Mount, Ecclesiastes, and the psychedelic parts of Revelation.)