Jeremiah, Josiah and MAGA: CPI Founder uses Old Testament to explain the role of anti-imperialists in the Trump-era

In this recent livestream presentation, cut as a video entitled “Jeremiah, Josiah & MAGA,” CPI founder Caleb Maupin draws from the Old Testament of the Bible to explain the unique position of anti-imperialists in our time.

Drawing from the Book of Jeremiah, Caleb explains how, in ancient Israel, there was a large gap between the rich and poor. The rich increasingly violated the social contract on which the nation was established. They utilized loopholes in Hebrew law to exploit the poor as slave laborers. They also began conducting human sacrifices of their infant children while engaging in pagan rituals worshipping a deity represented by a horned bull. Furthermore, they disregarded the needs of widows, orphans, migrants, and other vulnerable people.

The king, Josiah, saw that these practices were weakening social cohesion and promoted Jeremiah’s movement of religious revivalism in the hopes of bringing the rich in line to save the nation. King Josiah was from the rich and powerful class, but he had the wisdom and foresight to see the long-term dangers posed by the decadence and cruelty of the wealthy. With Josiah’s help, Jeremiah built a mass movement of people calling for repentance and rallying against the rich. The movement was seen as a threat by Israel’s established priesthood. Jeremiah’s followers called for destroying a certain temple known for its corruption, and Jeremiah himself was not a priest but a common person given the gift of prophecy and known for his oratory and poetic abilities from a young age.

While Jeremiah’s movement flourished, after King Josiah’s death, it was subjected to harsh persecution. The priest Pashtur put Jeremiah into stocks and had him publicly beaten. Jeremiah lamented to God about the burden of prophecy and how he was unable to restrain himself from speaking for righteousness:

"O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived; thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay."
(Jeremiah 20:7-9)

Unfortunately, Jeremiah’s words were not heeded, and the corruption and injustices of the nation continued. Eventually, as predicted, Babylon conquered Israel because the kingdom had become too corrupt and divided to mount an effective resistance. The Jews were subjected to 70 years of enslavement and captivity by the Babylonians as a result.

CPI founder Caleb Maupin said that the United States sits at a similar turning point as a nation. The ultra-rich and their commitment to maintaining the global system of imperialism, along with their disregard for the needs of working families, is causing the nation to internally crumble. Trump, Maupin argues, has the potential to be a Josiah-like figure, a Bonapartist from the ruling class who sees the danger ahead and wants to hold the country together. This creates an opportunity for those who oppose imperialism and want a rationally organized economy that prioritizes the people’s needs to play the role of Jeremiah, build a mass movement to turn the country around, and beat back the power of the decadent and cruel rich. The hope is that this can be done before it is too late, and U.S. society deteriorates into chaos and instability as imperialism declines.

Caleb quotes the words of Rosa Luxemburg about how imperialism will lead to civilizational collapse:

"A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization. At first, this happens sporadically for the duration of a modern war, but then, when the period of unlimited wars begins, it progresses toward its inevitable consequences. Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means the conscious, active struggle of the international proletariat against imperialism and its method of war. This is a dilemma of world history, an either/or; the scales are wavering before the decision of the class-conscious proletariat. The future of civilization and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales. In this war, imperialism has won. Its bloody sword of genocide has brutally tilted the scale toward the abyss of misery. The only compensation for all the misery and all the shame would be if we learn from the war how the proletariat can seize mastery of its own destiny and escape the role of the lackey to the ruling classes."

This presentation, with its use of biblical parallels, can serve as a model for how CPI can orient itself toward the incoming Trump presidency and the MAGA movement, as difficult as it may be and as much as disagreements and political confusion may pervade.

The role of our movement is not to celebrate the potential fall of America but rather to rally working people in their own interests against imperialism and explain that the only way forward for the United States is for the country to be reborn. The road to American rebirth is an anti-monopoly coalition to defeat the power of the ultra-rich and eventually create a government of action to fight for working families.