On Easter Sunday, President Trump shared on Truth Social what he considers “the golden rule of negotiating and success.” This golden rule, he says, is “HE WHO HAS THE GOLD MAKES THE RULES.”
This cynical statement glorifies raw power over principle. It is a worldview in which justice, truth, and virtue are irrelevant if you’re rich or powerful enough to achieve your aims. It denies the idea that rules should come from natural law, reason, and the consent of the governed, in favor of the “might makes right” outlook of Thrasymachus, so devastatingly countered by Socrates in the first book of Plato’s Republic.
On the occasion of Easter, let us recall a different philosophy:
“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them,” said Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount, as reported in Matthew 7:12.
We quote from Matthew 5:
“Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
