"A worthless person, a wicked man, is the one who walks with a perverse mouth, who winks with his eyes, who signals with his feet, who points with his fingers; who with perversity in his heart continually devises evil, who spreads strife. Therefore his calamity will come suddenly; instantly he will be broken and there will be no healing." PR 6:12-15
Proverbs does not paint a very pretty picture of the The Fool. Adjectives describe a person as worthless, wicked, perverse, relentlessly deceptive, and destructively divisive. Any similarity, with current public figures, is totally coincidental.
There is no remedy for the self-destructive behavior of The Fool. He must run his course, and come to the calamitous end that he so intensely pursued. The mission statement of Thelma and Louise must have been, "FORWARD!" Screaming, as they plunged off of a cliff, they were never heard from again. No sequel. No reunion tour. No second term, so to speak.
This passage in Proverbs describes someone who is not what he seems to be. He is a con artist, a slight of hand expert. Walking one way, and pointing to another, he distracts attention away from what he is really doing. Stirring up strife, to cause a riot overshadows his personal corruption. It is his personal m.o. He lives to lie. He cannot speak the truth, even when it is in his best interest to do so.
The Fool is not a leader in the classic sense of the word. Leaders influence people, and inspire them to greatness. Fools use them and manipulate them for their own glory. Blinded by a passion for personal preference and aggrandizement, The Fool sees people are merely speed bumps, a means to an end. When the cry of people interferes with the plans of The Fool, they become road kill on highways from Benghazi to Brooklyn.
The Fool cannot see beyond his own ego, and that his actions will lead to his own destruction. The ash heap of history is full of them. Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and Omar Kadafi, just to name a few. You get the picture.
What should a Wise Man do, when encountered by The Fool? Don't imitate his behavior! Talking to, and about The Fool, leads The Wise to fall into a pit.
Talking to The Fool only puts The Wise Man deeper into the hole. When The Wise Man discovers what he is doing to himself, he must stop digging, throw out the shovel, and call for help.
Prayer is the tool God places in the hands of The Wise. It is not a shovel, designed to dig a deeper hole. It is the ultimate "Deus ex Machina" designed by God to get His children out of, what appears to be, at first glance, an impossible situation. Prayer transforms the tongue, from a shovel in a pit, into a staircase to God's Presence. Stop digging and start praying.
TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!