Hoping Congress is, unlike Trump, faithful in much

If Donald Trump had a sense of humor — and if he ever admitted making a mistake — he might have been able to mitigate a clumsy reference to a book in the New Testament when, during the campaign, he alluded to “two Corinthians.” He might have said something like, “That reminds me of a joke: A Nazarene, a Samaritan and two Corinthians walk into an inn …” However, Trump has no sense of humor (remember the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner?), and he never admits a mistake.

Even though Trump cannot apply scripture, any number of scriptural passages might well apply to him. One that comes to mind — short enough to fit in a tweet, in fact — is this passage from the Gospel of Luke: “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much” (Luke 16:10, KJV).

This passage suggests that, contrary to common advice, you should sweat the small stuff because how you handle the small stuff indicates how you’ll handle the big stuff. It also suggests that someone who lies about small things is likely to lie about big ones. Such was the point that a reporter raised during Trump’s first solo press conference back in February, when the leader of the free world strayed from the assigned topic (again) to brag and lie (again) about his Electoral College victory. When called on it, Trump failed to acknowledge the falsehood (again) but blamed someone else (again).

Not only is Trump consistently “unjust in the least,” but also he routinely turns the small stuff into big stuff, whether it’s delusions about the size of the crowd at his inauguration or a department store’s dropping his daughter’s fashion line. Even when he has an opportunity to show he can handle big stuff — like his first address to Congress — he shows that he is utterly incapable of doing so. With bald disingenuousness, he asserted, “The time for small thinking is over, the time for trivial fights is behind us.” This from the poster boy for small thinking and trivial fights, who shows no signs of growing up.

During the first weeks of Trump’s term, most Republicans in Congress — many of whom excoriated Trump during the primary election campaign — seemed to be gleefully marching in lockstep with the bumbling tyrant, perhaps regarding him as their own “useful idiot” whom they could use to their partisan advantage.

Since then, however, resistance has been growing, evidenced by such things as the Senate’s reluctance to embrace the ill-conceived health care bill that the House passed and the bipartisan outrage over Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, both the firing itself and the shabby manner in which it was done. Ironically, this blatantly self-serving action may have reinvigorated the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Trump’s ties with Russia, big stuff indeed. (If that weren’t enough, we found out last week that Trump tried to get Comey to stop an investigation and perhaps leaked sensitive intelligence information to the Russians, of all people.)

Maybe, then, there is hope after all. Maybe more Republicans in Congress are beginning to realize that, with his tangled web of conflicts of interest, his astonishingly cavalier ignorance (especially about health care), his undermining the First Amendment, his erratic approach to military engagement, his blatant nepotism and, of course, the Russian connection, Donald Trump is a woefully compromised president — an aberration, in fact, that simply cannot be accepted as normal.

Maybe more members of Congress will disavow the unethical, unwise and dangerous actions of the administration. And if an investigation into the Russian connection — or into any of Trump’s numerous other abuses — reveals grounds for impeachment, maybe Congress will begin that process without hesitation. Then we would know that the members of Congress, unlike the president, really are “faithful also in much.”