An acquaintance of mine posted this on facebook, and he gave me permission to post it here online. It's about the lessons that the Book of Mormon teaches, and how they apply to modern times.
I promise that even if you don't believe in the Book of Mormon or know anything about it, you will still enjoy this if you care about the fate of our nation or have a bunch of Mormon friends. You don't have to know the Book of Mormon stories, because I quote them for you (and the quotes are short and action-packed!). I have taken some time to write it all out, so you can understand what I'm concerned about.
In summary, a group calling themselves the "king-men" decide they want to change the law to have a king. There is a vote and the vote fails, so the king-men go to war to force their way on everyone else. And of course the leader of the movement, Amalickiah, wants to be the new king. Violence ensues, but ultimately the plot is defeated when an old-timey-ninja Teancum sneaks up in the middle of the night and assassinates Amalickiah with a javelin to the heart! I liked this story so much that I made up a board game based on Teancum when I was a kid.
It's honestly a terrific story! I am providing a link in case you want to read it. There's a whole saga but the best part is chapter 51:
I'm very concerned about potential violence in the US. Lots of people are aware of this threat, even if you are just hearing it now.
The conflict between the Nephites and the king-men led to significant strife and division among the people, which can be likened to the current political polarization in the U.S. Like Amalikiah, Trump seeks power at any cost, utilizing conflict and manipulation to achieve his goals.
Not convinced? Stick with me and I'll show you some of the similarities between them.
Alma 47:1-4: "And it came to pass that Amalickiah sought the favor of the Lamanites; and he began to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites; yea, he did appoint men to speak unto the Lamanites from their towers, against the Nephites."
Donald Trump, Oct 13, 2024: "I think the bigger problem is the people from within. We have some very bad people, some sick people, radical-left lunatics. We have two enemies: We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within. And the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries." (This is a direct quote from Trump just days ago)
Donald Trump tells Republicans that other Americans are their enemies. More dangerous than Russia! He's fomenting hatred and fear within our country.
Donald Trump is trying to do the same thing to us that Amalickiah wanted to do to the Nephites. He's mad that he couldn't be king and he is stirring up hate to try to bully his way back into the White House.
I don't say this lightly and it's not a joke. Many serious people are saying this out loud! According to Trump's top general, who is a very serious and widely respected man, Trump is a danger and a total fascist.
Trump's Top General: Trump is a Danger
(Just watch the first 3.5 minutes)
You are going to see it happen. You are going to watch Donald Trump claim that he won the election. He's going to say it was rigged against him. He's going to call for violence. He did it last time. He will attempt to invalidate the votes of those he disagrees with, and is already making false claims of cheating.
Trump's good friend Geraldo Rivera agrees that things in the US are not so bad—and that Trump is a danger to our entire country, saying "The former president Trump is a sore loser, who cannot be trusted to honor the constitution."
Now listen to conservative Liz Cheney describe the plans of the Republican party to overturn the results of the election if Donald Trump loses:
Liz Cheney: Trump Plans Violence for Nov 5
But aren't we in a terrible emergency with financial problems and crime and immorality? Don't we need someone cruel and hard to deal with our nation's problem?
No, we are not, and no we do not. This is another lie. Things are less bad than they were 2 years ago, in the wake of the pandemic. The rate of crime in the US has gone down in most of the country. The economic situation is clearly better than it was 2 or 4 years ago. The Biden administration worked with the GOP senate to try to pass a VERY conservative border bill this summer, and Harris has already promised she will sign the same bill if elected, which will improve the border situation. We have many unresolved issues as a country, but the Biden administration has not destroyed the country.
Don't believe me? Listen to Trump's friends in the Republican party, who are beginning to admit they supported him for personal benefit (lower taxes for the rich) but that he is now too dangerous to be elected:
Geraldo Says Trump is Dangerous
If you disagree with these things, I ask you, who told you otherwise? Go look these things up yourself, it's easy to do. We are NOT in an emergency situation that justifies overthrowing the government, and the majority of us do not want that at all! We are prospering more than any other nation on earth, but a small group of people wants to steal our nation. We don't need someone like Donald Trump. The world has serious problems--and we need leaders who can keep the ship steady and bring us together. What we don't need is a raging 78 year old man bent on revenge.
Whatever policy disagreements we have, it's urgent to stop the modern-day king-men from destroying our constitution. I think these warnings are here for us to see in the Book of Mormon. Don't believe me? Read on! It's all spelled out for us in the Book of Mormon.
Amalickiah, determined to be a king, uses deceit and manipulation to gain power. Amalickiah’s leadership is marked by the corruption and moral decay of those around him, convincing others to abandon their principles and follow his wicked causes.
Alma 46:10: "Yea, we see that Amalickiah, because he was a man of cunning device and a man of many flattering words, that he led away the hearts of many people to do wickedly; yea, and to seek to destroy the church of God, and to destroy the foundation of liberty which God had granted unto them, or which blessing God had sent upon the face of the land for the righteous’ sake."
Over and over again, Amalickiah uses lies to trick people so that he can betray them. Amalickiah’s leadership is also marked by the corruption and moral decay of those around him, convincing others to abandon their principles and follow his wicked causes.
And Trump, too, is notorious for telling lies. Even among politicians, he stands out as extremely dishonest! Perhaps Trump's biggest and boldest lie is that he won the 2020 election. And he forces other people to repeat this lie. He punishes anyone in his circle who dares to say that Trump lost. As of 2022, about 70% of Republicans falsely believed that Biden is not the legitimate winner of the 2020 election. If you believe it, you have been tricked. It's untrue and there's no evidence of it.
Trump and his family know all perfectly well that he lost the election. Claiming he won and forcing other people to support this lie is evil. He knows it's a lie--every once in a while you will catch him admitting it, but then he goes right back to lyign and cliaming he won:
Trump, September 4, 2024, in an interview with Lex Friedman""I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, 'You would win. You can't not win.' And I got millions more votes than that and lost by a whisker."
Trump received about 74 million votes nationally in 2020, compared to 81 million for Joe Biden.
Trump's dishonest associates also spread lies on his behalf. Public figures were willing to openly lie and cover up for Trump for money—to normalize him and to deceive people into thinking he was an acceptable leader. Sean Hannity was one such person--and made suer that Fox News supported Trump's lies after the 2020 election--even though he knew Trump's claims of fraud were false.
Fox spread many election lies, telling viewers that the machines had changed people's votes. Fox was then sued by the companies who made the voting machines that were falsely blamed. Fox had to pay $787.5M dollars for their defamatory comments during the 2020 election. Tucker Carlson was fired because of his role in spreading those lies—which they knew to be lies at the time.
You can read about that lawsuit here, it's pretty brief:
Dominion Voting Systems v Fox News Network
Paid pundits are paraded in front of you and also all the people you know—their goal is to normalize Trump and distract from his criminal history. They do this for money. When you lie for money that is called fraud. I'm not presenting you with accusations of fraud. I just presented you with evidence: A court case where Fox lost hundreds of millions of dollars for maliciously lying about the election outcome. As some of you know and some may not, winning a slander/defamation lawsuit is exceptionally difficult. You have to prove not only falsehood, but also intent. In other words, the outcome of the lawsuit proves that Fox not only lied for Trump, but they knew they were lying for Trump.
Amalickiah was always stirring up violence and creating chaos so he could seize power for himself:
Alma 47:1: "Now we will return in our record to Amalickiah and those who had fled with him into the wilderness; for, behold, he had taken those who went with him, and went up in the land of Nephi among the Lamanites, and did stir up the Lamanites to anger against the people of Nephi, insomuch that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation throughout all his land, among all his people, that they should gather themselves together again to go to battle against the Nephites."
Once king, Amalickiah leads the Lamanite armies against the Nephites, not out of any ideological or defensive necessity, but purely out of a desire for revenge:
Alma 48:3: "Therefore he had accomplished his design, for he had hardened the hearts of the Lamanites and blinded their minds, and stirred them up to anger, insomuch that he had gathered together a numerous host to go to battle against the Nephites."
Compare this with Donald Trump's call to use the army against his political opponents:
Trump, on October 13, 2024 on Fox News: “I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within. We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
Donald Trump is also circulating false claims that FEMA is not helping or that the FEMA budget was taken by immigrants:
Trump, October 8, 2024, Michigan: “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season. We’re missing a billion dollars they gave … to the migrants that came in and now we don’t have the money.”
To be clear, federal law prohibits noncitizens from legally voting in federal elections, and there’s no evidence any disaster relief money is “missing.” If you are repeating these things, you are repeating a lie. These are lies.
According to FEMA, no money was rerouted from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which is funded by Congress separately. For fiscal year 2024, which ended Sept. 30, the Disaster Relief Fund had almost $57 billion in total budget resources, including about $20 billion in initial appropriations from Congress and more than $25 billion in supplemental appropriations. This is clearly on the FEMA website, and there's no evidence otherwise; just divisive lies designed to make people upset!
Trump claims over and over again that illegal immigrants are voting, but it's just not true! They aren't allowed to vote, and those that try get caught and put in jail. It's federal law that only US citizens can vote. If people are telling you otherwise, ask them for evidence! Because it is a huge lie. The pattern here is to tell people lies about "the other side." It's classic gang warfare. It's a method of dividing the people—and Amalickiah and Trump are both great at it.
He is no longer presumed innocent. He has been convicted of a large number of felonies related to fraud. Like Amalickiah, he's a backstabber. A friend of mine who was a bail bondsman told me, "You can bail out a killer, because a killer can still be a man of his word. But you don't bail out a man accused of fraud because you will lose your money every time!"
Amalickiah was a sneak, a fraud, and a liar:
Alma 47:4: "Now behold, this was the desire of Amalickiah; for he being a very subtle man to do evil therefore he laid the plan in his heart to dethrone the king of the Lamanites."
Alma 48:7: "Now it came to pass that while Amalickiah had thus been obtaining power by fraud and deceit, Moroni, on the other hand, had been preparing the minds of the people to be faithful unto the Lord their God."
Trump is not only notorious for fraud and deception, he and his company were convicted of it in multiple different cases.
As king of the Lamanites, Amalickiah led his people in a war against the Nephites, employing commanders who shared his ambitions for conquest and power.
Like Amalickiah, Trump doesn't just stir up hate, he encourages violence and chaos. If beating people up solved crime problems, we would have solved crime centuries ago.
Trump, September 29, 2024 in Erie, Pennsylvania: "We need one real rough, nasty, violent day of policing ... in order to eradicate crime immediately. One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately."
Trump loves to bully people. He thinks it solves problems. He threatens people all the time. And he plans to claim he won no matter what. We know this because He already did it before and he is saying the same rhetoric again as he did in 2020 before the election:
Trump, September 9, 2024 on his website, Truth Social: “The 2024 Election, where Votes have just started being cast, will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
Notice the emphasis on "when" rather than if. Donald Trump has no evidence of widespread fraud. He never has had any evidence. No evidence was presented to the courts. And now he's threatening to put people in jail for voter fraud if he wins—but more importantly, if he loses, he will claim he won and that voter fraud is afoot. Again, he has no evidence. This is just laying the groundwork for his false accusations later. The problem is, he has never had any evidence, and he was both impeached AND indicted for trying to fabricate it!
Trump recently announced that he intends to use the US military against his political opponennts:
On Oct 13, on Fox News, Trump said: "We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics... And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or really necessary by the military, because they can't let that happen"
Amalickiah got other people to commit violent or murderous acts on his behalf:
Alma 47:23: "And it came to pass that Amalickiah caused that one of his servants should administer poison by degrees to Lehonti, that he died. Now when Lehonti was dead, Amalickiah did cause the armies to march down to the land of Zarahemla to battle against the Nephites."
Trump does the same thing with words. He prides himself on coming up with mean nicknames to make fun of his opponents. He makes up lies to help people justify violence and hatred. ON Jan 6, trump used a lot of different phrase sto call for and justify violence in his speech. Violce then ensued, and trump did nothing to stop it.
From Trump's speech on Jabn 6, 2020
"We fight like Hell and if you don't fight like Hell, you're not going to have a country anymore"
"You'll never take back our country with weakness"
"We're going to walk down to the Capitol"
"When you catch somebody in a fraud, you're allowed to go by very different rules"
"You have to show strength, and you have to be strong"
"We won this election, and we won it by a landslide"
If you believe otherwise, take a moment to read the public record regarding the incident. If you have never read it yourself, how do you know what it says? In fact, if you are suspicious of my ideas in this article, what better way to reassure yourself than to see what actual evidence there is about this.
Each of these are well-sourced articles that I have personally reviewed. There are links to court documents. This information is in the record of the courts. The conclusions in the article are generally well-documented, and you can read the original article.
January 6 United States Capitol attack
Many hundreds of people have been indicted and arrested for the crimes of Jan 6, including Donald Trump. Over 400 people were charged with violent crimes against police officers. 89 individuals have pleaded guilty to felony charges of assaulting law enforcement officers
Guy Reffitt, a far-right militia member from Texas who was convicted of multiple felonies for his actions at the Capitol, had threatened to forcibly remove members of Congress including the House Speaker said:
“I don’t care if Pelosi’s head is hitting every step while I drag her by her ankles—she’s coming out.”
Cleveland Meredith, another participant who traveled armed to the nation’s capital on January 6, vowed to put “a bullet” in Pelosi’s head on “live TV” according to court documents. And Donald Trump says he wants to pardon the felons responsible for the violence and deaths that day:
Trump, March 12, 2024, on his website, Truth Social: "My first acts as your next President will be to Close the Border, DRILL, BABY, DRILL, and Free the January 6 Hostages being wrongfully imprisoned!"
He wants to pardon the violent people who committed crimes on his behalf.
Amalickiah was a sneaky and violent killer who used both poison and blade to dispatch his victims.
Donald Trump is not accused of killing anybody himself. However, he's notorious for a different kind of violence: a civil court found that he sexually assaulted at least one woman. All by itself, that seems pretty bad. But Donald Trump stands accused of dozens of sexual assaults. As of 2024, at least 26 women have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1970s.
This is not normal.
Any church leader, military officer, company officer, or public servant who was accused of dozens of sexual assaults would be fired. We should definitely not tolerate leaders who behave like this.
The idea of voting for a candidate who has been convicted of multiple felonies strikes me as outrageous and risky! And even worse since his felony charges include organizing a plot to overturn the election. He openly claims that the election is rigged, every day. It's not. There's no evidence that it is. This is a lie—and he forces the people around him to repeat the lie. You know it's a lie. Would any good or decent person FORCE everybody around them to repeat a lie?
What are the chances that Defendant Trump is innocent of all the crimes he is charged with and convicted of? I would say close to zero! Trump is a billionaire and he can afford counsel. He was afforded every possible consideration in court. There's a pattern of fraud and crime.
Can you seriously believe all these are somehow false accusations? That thousands of people, many lifelong conservatives and many appointed by Trump himself, somehow conspired against him? I mean, if you think that, just go read the evidence against him. It's a public record. He very clearly did the crimes, and that's what the juries believed. He was indicted because the evidence was damning, and he was convicted because he was guilty.
This might be the first time you have even HEARD some of these accusations. And if that's true, then it's evidence that your news is being filtered. Because these are well-documented and widely reported events. Here are the pending Felony indictments against Trump:
Indictments against Donald Trump
Trump himself is directly charged with a series of very serious felonies related to the 2020 election. Because of his wealth and power, he has been able to delay his trial repeatedly, but 4 of his co-conspirators have pleaded guilty:
And dozens more people have been charged with conspiring with Donald Trump to unlawfully disrupt the election process.
I don't think everyone is aware of all the facts. I can't imagine rational people voting for a political movement that refuses to accept the outcome of the election and that intends and calls for and has used violence to attempt to overturn the vote.
On top of all of this, I think he really is losing his mind!
I really think Trump is in cognitive decline, and I'm not the only one.
Joe Biden was not the smartest guy in Congress. I was very relieved when Joe Biden decided not to run for re-election. He was clearly very old and tired. In fact, he said when he ran he wouldn't seek re-election! And Trump is aging, too. He is 77 years old, and showing real signs of cognitive decline. Trump was always a much better public speaker than Biden, but he's hardly himself anymore. He's often confused and his policy ideas are not just evil, they are increasingly insane.
Trump is claiming that immigrants are eating people's cats and dogs! It's so memorably stupid and malicious that they made a song out of it! I certainly hope none of you say things like that—because (a) it's false and (b) it's easy to disprove and, (c) it makes you sound like you need to be institutionalized.
Civil war is not something that we want in our country. It is totally uncalled for. We do NOT want to end up like Iran, with crazy religious extremists running our country!
If you think he has some good qualities you think I am overlooking, then you are missing my point entirely: Trump is a convicted felon and a divisive threat to our country. He's a mad man ranting about immigrants eatign people's pets. He's 78 and his brain is failing and he love Vladimir Putin, a warlord and dictator (Trump admires Putin for ebing rich and powerful). There's nothing special about Trump that makes up for the threat he represents to our country. I'm not saying he will end our Republic if elected, I am saying he clearly plans to try. Don't take my word for it: Many solemn and serious voices are saying the same thing I am:
List of Republicans who oppose the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign
Here's a video of Mike Pence discussing some of the many Federal Indictments of Trump and explaining how Trump tried to get him to break his oath to the constitution:
Mike Pence on Trump's Indictments
Pence concludes: Anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States. And Trump tried to get me to do that!
Here's a Republican sheriff saying, unironically, "let's put a felon in the White House":
Republican Sheriff on Putting a Felon in the White House
Trump is clearly exerting a corrupting influence on our country. This Republican sheriff who is upset about prison reform openly admits that Trump is a felon and wants to vote to put a felon in the White House. Trump's followers take him seriously and you may think HE is joking but THEY are clearly not. Trump has corrupted the people around him, and he has attracted violent and corrupt people to him.
You can go see the records of the juries and judges yourself. Trump did the crimes.
Amalickiah became king of the Lamanites, which seems like a pretty good place to stop. But he was a vengeful person, which led directly to his death. Trump's many crimes will likely prevent him from being re-elected and possibly land him in prison, and so he seeks to commit another series of crimes to get power. I see a strong parallel between these men and maybe by now you do too.
Armed Trump supporters have been threatening federal disaster relief workers and FEMA, saying they were going to HUNT the federal workers who were there to provide disaster relief:
Armed Militia Hunting FEMA Hurricane Responders
As Trump becomes more and more desperate and deranged, he is going to call for more and more violence, and continue to spread lies designed to alienate us from each other and weaken our nation—because he wants to take it over through subterfuge and violence. I challenge you to briefly look at each of the documents I have linked here
I hope you will take a moment to consider these things.
Everyone who actually gets to know him comes away really hating him. You can verify these quotes from Donald Trump simply by searching for them. This was not written by an AI. I looked all this up myself.
I think many people in your sphere of influence are being tricked and I am worried they might be part of this. If you have close friends who are unwittingly supporting Trump and his movement, please forward this to them. I know a lot of people still support him—and I'm pretty sure it's because they don't know who he really is.
Fascism, like Communism, is a specific political ideology. Despite these terms being wildly thrown around as insults, they have actual meanings among serious people. Here's a great little YouTube video that explains the fascism and its specific characteristics:
Watch the video:
© 2024 - This work is licensed under CC BY-ND 4.0