All the King's men

 It's been over a decade, about 14 years, since I last attended church (at least regularly, I've gone for special events for family members who invited me). So I've forgotten a lot of the things I learned, the stories that we'd discuss, aside from the most common or popular ones. One story I do remember takes place in the book of Alma, the largest book within the Book of Mormon. I share this story not because I believe it actually happened but because I see a parallel with what's currently happening now in our society and the events laid out in the Book of Mormon.

There were two main peoples, the Nephites and the Lamanites. At this point in time the Nephites were ruled by judges rather than kings. My best understanding of the government is that it was some sort of republic. The book continually refers to popular votes ("the voice of the people"). And apparently there are judges. I imagine it might be similar to the way we have tiered judges in our federal government. There's one person who is the chief judge, which I suppose might equate to the Supreme Court.

At any rate, in the later parts of the book of Alma, there are a group of people--mostly wealthy people--who want to overthrow the government and replace the system of judges with a king. Those elites and the people who support them call themselves king-men. The government put the question to the people for a vote and the majority vote was to reject the king-men. Those who opposed the king-men were called freemen. This is explained in Alma 51. 

Now, I have my own suspicions on what conservatives would view as the side of the king-men and the side of the freemen in today's society. So I'm going to lay out why I believe the way I do. First, I don't necessarily believe that the Republican party (prior to Trump) was necessarily "king-men". However, let us examine the description of the king-men from Alma and compare that with facts in the real world.

Now those who were in favor of kings were those of high birth, and they sought to be kings; and they were supported by those who sought power and authority over the people. (Alma 51:8)

 Let's talk about high birth. Donald Trump was the son of a rich man. According to Wikipedia, Trump's net worth is $9 billion. The second richest president after him was George Washington, whose wealth would be worth half a billion in 2022. He is by far the wealthiest president we've ever elected. I don't see how anyone could objectively argue that he is not of high birth. 

To address the matter of seeking to be a king, I cite an address that Trump gave in 2024 at an event organized by Turning Point Action. During the address he made the following remark. 

"in four years, you don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so good, you're not gonna have to vote."

The full video of his address is available on YouTube here.  The way I see it, there are only two ways you can promise people that they'll never have to vote again. One way to interpret that is as a death threat--that they won't live to see the next election. The other is that elections will have ended by then. Since I do not believe that Trump was threatening to massacre the Christians he was addressing at this event, I think the latter interpretation is more likely. Effectively, he made a promise to the group of Christians he was addressing that elections would be obsolete within 4 years. How would he do that? By establishing his family as a dynasty in an authoritarian regime. He definitely seeks to be a king.

To get back to the story of the Nephites in the Book of Alma, in chapter 60 a military leader by the name of Captain Moroni writes a letter to Pahoran, the chief judge of the government. In this letter, he does not hold back his scathing judgment of the neglect that his army has seen. He writes of wanting for provisions and men that are not being sent. He threatens to march on the capital of Zarahemla, stirring up insurrection among the people as he goes and rallying all freedom-loving citizens to his cause as he marches to the capital to root out the corruption. At the time of writing the letter, he doesn't know that the kerfuffle with the king-men is the reason that he's not been getting the supplies he needs to fuel the war.

In Alma chapter 61, Pahoran immediate writes back to Moroni, explaining the situation. The king-men have overthrown Pahoran and have taken control of the city. Pahoran has sent out a rallying cry and freemen from all over have flocked to Gideon, where he is, to support him in the name of freedom. He states that he is relieved at seeing Moroni's resolve to march against the capital because he was unsure of whether it would be right to do so. He's glad to hear from Moroni that it's what their god wants them to do, and is fully supportive and invites Moroni to perform the march he threatened to do in his letter.

Now, what parallel do I see here? Let me take on particular passage that I wish to highlight from Alma 61:4. 

And it is those who have sought to take away the judgment-seat from me that have been the cause of this great iniquity; for they have used great flattery, and they have led away the hearts of many people, which will be the cause of sore affliction among us; they have withheld our provisions, and have daunted our freemen that they have not come unto you.

Those who sought to take away the judgment seat from the duly elected judge. On January 6, 2021, there was a group of Trump supporters who attacked the US Capitol. They injured many people and destroyed property. The intent of the invasion was to murder Mike Pence and prevent him from certifying the 2020 election in which Biden was declared victor. In other words, they were people who sought to take away power from someone who was duly elected by the people. And why did they do this? Because of great flattery. They were told again and again by people including Trump and Charlie Kirk that the 2020 election result were fraudulent and couldn't be trusted, that Trump actually won. Their hearts were led away and cause sore affliction among us.

And what has Trump done since taking office in 2025? He has withheld provisions from us, withholding funds for our colleges and universities, our medical programs, our foreign aid programs around the world. 

The reason I decided to write this post is because when I was LDS I believed that Moroni was awesome for behaving the way he did--for marching straight to the corruption and fighting it head on. And I know that a lot of Mormons share that view about the matter. I know that they support Captain Moroni in his decision to literally attack the government. And yet I see them saying that we shouldn't resort to violence and that peaceful solutions are always better whenever they talk about protests--particularly when the protestors are liberals. They carry guns and believe the Second Amendment is there so that the people can protect themselves against a tyrannical government and yet now that the government is tyrannical, rather than fighting them they are on the side of the tyranny. And when people stand up against the tyranny, even when they are just being peaceful, conservatives say that it's bad to protest and criticize the president and they untruthfully call the protestors rioters and accuse them of violence, even though they themselves believe that violence against the government is justified in some circumstances.