Plumbing The Depths of Evil

We were sitting on a 6 person ski lift enjoying listening to some people who were sharing the ride with us. They were conversing in a foreign tongue. We had been watching the TV show, “House of Cards” that year, and I asked my wife, “do you think there are people in government who are really as bad as the characters in “House of Cards?”

One from the other group shot back to me in perfect English, “Worse.”

Turned out these folks were Ukrainian. Maybe in their country it is, I thought, but here?

There was a time when I believed the world, and especially America, was peopled overwhelmingly by basically good folks. In light of recent events, however, and in retrospect as I reconsider our history, I’m beginning to think our Ukrainian visitors were right.

If most people were good would a person like Trump be leading in the polls? Not unless most people are not evil, just clueless. That could be true as well. Or, more likely, both could be the case.

Recently Trump out-Trumped himself by insulting Jews a la Hitler, going one further with a common antisemitic trope that supports the idea that Jews are the outsiders, not loyal to the countries they live in. Hitler employed this, and the “good” German folk let him murder six million. It happened in Germany, we were told, but it never could happen here. Or could it?

Trump categorized Jews who vote “democrat” as “hating” their religion and Israel. In other words, they are expected to support Israel over the USA and if they don’t they are not living up to the trope and are betraying their “race.”

The same day, he proceeded to hire, again, Paul Manafort who was imprisoned for colluding with Russian agents, categorized as “a grave counterintelligence threat” by Congress, and pardoned by Trump. The same Trump who, himself, has demonstrated he is such a risk many times over.

These are just recent examples, of course.

Given the bottomless evil of this man, it is chilling to consider both the evil of those who support him and the impotence of our justice system to stop him from carrying out his program to establish himself as the kingpin of a criminally corrupt government.

As a result of his rise to prominence, our institutions have been inundated and undermined by violent, prejudiced people who have traditionally characterized themselves as the salt of the earth, indeed, the agents of God. As I see it, they are agents of Satan, and they comprise a huge portion of the populace.

It turns out these bad people have been among us all along. Having been normalized and emboldened by Trump and given free rein to do their will, they reveal the strength of their number.

There are large groups of people creating deep AI fakes inundating the internet with dangerous disinformation, people forming criminal cadres online whose scams prey on millions. There are large groups that sadistically target vulnerable people to induce them to harm themselves for their entertainment. There’s a whole political party whose avowed purpose is to interfere with free elections and overturn the government, the same party that just left Ukraine swinging in the wind for 6 months to the delight of Putin and of dictators all over the world. Fundamentalist Christian groups actively are imposing their brand of extreme Christianity on the public sector, on the entire country. They are facilitated by a Supreme Court that clearly shares that goal and adapts its interpretation of the Constitution to suit their own political agenda. They are currently manipulating the executive immunity issue to ensure Trump is not tried for his January 6 treason. Large corporations continue to promulgate lies that permit them to go on destroying the world and harming us while raking in obscene profits. I could go on and on. Behind all of this is the materialistic value system that defines our culture, the root of all evil, greed.

House of Cards, move over. We are learning that lurking at the core of this land is a huge percentage of citizens who actively or passively promulgate a level of vile and antisocial behavior that was never previously appreciated.

At least not by me.