Evil is a moral term; but one that has metaphysical resonances which transcend the purely human sphere and invoke the notion of another dimension of reality. Its semantic root is in the Old English word yfel, which literally means full of awe: awe-full. True evil breaks the boundaries of our human experience and carries the whiff of the infernal. While I am not a believer in the traditional concepts of the divine or the demonic, there is something so grotesque in Trump that pushes the boundaries of moral categories and psychological explanations.
I HAVE A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT QUESTION MIKE - WHY ARE ANY OF US TOLERATING THIS UNFATHOMABLE VULGARITY - WHY AREN’T WE ALL SCREAMING AT THE TOP PF OUR LUNGS FOR HIS OUSTER??,
Because we know that we'd just hurt our throats. At this time, until November 3rd, there is *nothing* -- nothing lawful anyway -- that we can do towards reducing his ability to do harm to the nation.
The many court cases (like the one about the Kennedy Center), the protests, the work of the independent journalists, commentators and content creators here on Substack and YouTube, the push for the Epstein files, the pushback on the concentration camps and the data centers and even Jimmy Kimmel—I would argue that all of these have had a cumulative impact in eroding support for the madness. The election is heading in the right direction in part because of all of these efforts and the sacrifices of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.
I could not agree with you more. We need to hold the line and push back hard in any and all directions (as you have indicated). And, of course, we have to push hard to get out the vote - no apathy to be tolerated this time around. I have thought this twice before, but these may be the most consequential elections. And we must have a landslide to combat his rigging attacks. So, much to be done before 11/3. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren.
I don’t have any kids, but I still feel a debt to all those who came before me and sacrificed for the highest American ideals of freedom and democracy, as well as a responsibility to the generations that will follow me.
I'll take it a step further to say our goal should be to use the 25th Amendment ASAP, to spare the country further damage and restart the process of building an engaged citizenry.
I love, love, love that idea, but we need JD’s, Rubio’s, and the senior Republican lawmakers to pull that off - as Mr. Reich indicated a few weeks ago here in Substack. At that time, he gave it a 30% chance of happening - JD gets to be President and Rubio gets in line to be the Presidential candidate in ‘28. Sounded plausible to me.
Definitely not. We will all be in concentration camps by then or dead. They are going fast. We are going dumb ass slow. This yr would be best in my lowly opinion.
Nicely put. Trump is evil. As are his childhood family friend Ghislaine Maxwell and his favourite child Ivanka. They make up a triumvirate of evil. Evil women, in our deeply misogynistic society, use it to hide in plain sight.
Mike, you're being way, WAY, too easy on all of these "individual human beings making individual human choices to participate in something they know to be wrong."
I don’t just want it asked of every person who has bent the knee, been extorted to donate, voted against their true beliefs and against the people, I WANT ACCOUNTABILITY! I WANT EVERY ONE OF THESE FOOLS TO BE PERSONALLY HELD LIABLE. Without personal responsibility and accountability they all will get away with their corrupt acts against this country. People behave much different when they are personally held responsible legally, not morally because they have no morals.
Dude, if it was ONLY as simple as one evil guy and a bunch of "careerists". The same could be said of the Third Reich. America was based on an evil it has never admitted fully or atoned for even a little bit. There are alot of wonderful, accomplished Americans- but there are also alot of americans who wear their heartbreaking darkness on their sleeve and lack any sense of remorse. And the poorly educated MAGA class is the manipulated front for an educated and highly privileged ruling class that is rotten to the core.
Most Germans have definitely admitted that Hitler and the Third Reich were evil. The Nazi flag is banned in Germany. Strangely the Confederate flag is not banned here. I guess we are not yet that clear about completely 100% recognizing the evil of owning slaves. Too soon since 1865 to ban the Confederate flag? This was not just "the other side" with a different take. The Confederates defended slavery. What does it mean to fly the flag? If you what to have a flag to promote the South, find another flag without the stench of slavery in its fabric.
Why do you say Dems are not calling him out? You are not paying attention. Do you watch hearings? C-span? Do you read Dems even in these substacks? Have you heard speeches by Dems running for office? I could give you names, but you should look into it & find out. Have you kept track of the good legislation proposed by Dems that Repubs have blocked? Please don’t forget that the Dems are in the minority, & the Minority Party has limited power in this system. Too many people vote for Republicans. And Republicans are trying to make it so that the Republican Party is in power permanently. It’s lazy to say Democrats don’t speak up.
Why are we at war with Iran? Why aren’t all the Trump-Epstein files released? Why are we selling public lands - which belong to us - to foreign investors who are friends with
d.j.j. (jim jones) trump? Why is the trump family making billions while donald is in office? This is illegal under the emoluments clause. Almost everything they do is illegal / unconstitutional. Why are they getting away with it all? Because REPUBLICANS ARE ALLOWING IT!!! They could stop him at any time, but they are afraid of their senile mob boss / Dear Leader, or they are simply complicit out of stupidity & ignorance, or they are just as evil as he is.
"Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul-all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been—arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul-it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader." (Oliver Kornetzke)
Why? Because they have made a moral calculation and they believe that Trump advancing their goals is the lesser evil. For example, if abortions are murdering babies, it women are not living in submission to their husbands, if people are changing genders, each group that believes one of those, has made a moral calculation. Death of democracy versus death of babies? Easy choice. Death of democracy versus becoming rich? Easy.
On the question of why the media avoids the word 'evil,' besides their dedication to euphemism-making, there is another unwritten rule: if the voters chose the president, their decision must be honored as correct, or else we are questioning the very basis of our system.
To political journalists, such a suggestion would be career-ending. If I were cynical (haha), I might even suspect that advertisers would have a conniption if a network suggested that the voters (their customers) have elected an evil man, and are therefore in favor of evil.
Or, as my recent studies have shown, the Evil Seed may have been installed on one or two occasions and not legitimately elected by voters. While DJT has poisoned the well on this topic, and while Dems recline in their Barcaloungers, feel free to have a look at This Will Hold or ElectionTruthAlliance on this channel.
I’ve been berating Democratic . cough cough, leadership. . .cough. . since the end of last year for not calling this man and his Party exactly what they are; Fascists. he’s not a King he’s a Fascist dictator, he’s not unprecedented he’s a Fascist. You cannot fight that which you cannot name because without the proper name of the threat it cannot be fought adequately with the appropriate tools. The man is a gawd damned Fascist. For Christ sake Democrats, call him what he is, what they are; Fascists.
Evil is a moral term; but one that has metaphysical resonances which transcend the purely human sphere and invoke the notion of another dimension of reality. Its semantic root is in the Old English word yfel, which literally means full of awe: awe-full. True evil breaks the boundaries of our human experience and carries the whiff of the infernal. While I am not a believer in the traditional concepts of the divine or the demonic, there is something so grotesque in Trump that pushes the boundaries of moral categories and psychological explanations.
I HAVE A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT QUESTION MIKE - WHY ARE ANY OF US TOLERATING THIS UNFATHOMABLE VULGARITY - WHY AREN’T WE ALL SCREAMING AT THE TOP PF OUR LUNGS FOR HIS OUSTER??,
Because we know that we'd just hurt our throats. At this time, until November 3rd, there is *nothing* -- nothing lawful anyway -- that we can do towards reducing his ability to do harm to the nation.
The many court cases (like the one about the Kennedy Center), the protests, the work of the independent journalists, commentators and content creators here on Substack and YouTube, the push for the Epstein files, the pushback on the concentration camps and the data centers and even Jimmy Kimmel—I would argue that all of these have had a cumulative impact in eroding support for the madness. The election is heading in the right direction in part because of all of these efforts and the sacrifices of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.
I could not agree with you more. We need to hold the line and push back hard in any and all directions (as you have indicated). And, of course, we have to push hard to get out the vote - no apathy to be tolerated this time around. I have thought this twice before, but these may be the most consequential elections. And we must have a landslide to combat his rigging attacks. So, much to be done before 11/3. We owe it to our children and our grandchildren.
I don’t have any kids, but I still feel a debt to all those who came before me and sacrificed for the highest American ideals of freedom and democracy, as well as a responsibility to the generations that will follow me.
Absolutely Joseph - we can never ever forget Omaha Beach - never.
I'll take it a step further to say our goal should be to use the 25th Amendment ASAP, to spare the country further damage and restart the process of building an engaged citizenry.
I love, love, love that idea, but we need JD’s, Rubio’s, and the senior Republican lawmakers to pull that off - as Mr. Reich indicated a few weeks ago here in Substack. At that time, he gave it a 30% chance of happening - JD gets to be President and Rubio gets in line to be the Presidential candidate in ‘28. Sounded plausible to me.
Millions need to go to DC. Voting alone won’t get it. Trump & admin won’t step down even if we win.
I so agree with you. I have been wondering who will pull him out of the White House? The military? The Supreme Court?
Us. That’s the only answer at this point. Millions need to go to DC..
Voting alone won’t get it. Millions need to descend on DC.
Horsenlose. Its called impeachment that is inderd legal. I am someone will curse and/or say its impossible. Its not. Sorry
Come again?
Impeachment is legal
Yet seemingly perpetually woefully short of good-faith participants
Millions need to descend on DC.
When?
Need someone to lead & organize. Too bad it couldn’t be on his birthday.
Maybe it needs to be the next 1/_/29?!?
Definitely not. We will all be in concentration camps by then or dead. They are going fast. We are going dumb ass slow. This yr would be best in my lowly opinion.
Nicely put. Trump is evil. As are his childhood family friend Ghislaine Maxwell and his favourite child Ivanka. They make up a triumvirate of evil. Evil women, in our deeply misogynistic society, use it to hide in plain sight.
He is evil. He is hateful. Those that serve him become 2 things.
Outward facing - they become like him with the degrading language, lies and name calling.
Inward facing- they have (for different reasons) submitted to being owned by Trump.
I do not find the naming him evil out of bounds. People who find it wrong have not seriously checked their moral compass.
Mike, you're being way, WAY, too easy on all of these "individual human beings making individual human choices to participate in something they know to be wrong."
The fact of the matter is, they're evil too.
yes
Did you just now realize that?
No.
I didn’t think so 💗
I don’t just want it asked of every person who has bent the knee, been extorted to donate, voted against their true beliefs and against the people, I WANT ACCOUNTABILITY! I WANT EVERY ONE OF THESE FOOLS TO BE PERSONALLY HELD LIABLE. Without personal responsibility and accountability they all will get away with their corrupt acts against this country. People behave much different when they are personally held responsible legally, not morally because they have no morals.
I agree. Lack of accountability is a step towards tyranny. And by all indications, accountability is not present anywhere in the Executive branch.
You are 100% right!!!!!
... if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.
And a remorseful Dr. Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish:
‘My God… what… have… I… created?
https://thehobbledehoy.com/2019/03/08/british-writer-pens-the-best-description-of-trump-ive-read/
Dude, if it was ONLY as simple as one evil guy and a bunch of "careerists". The same could be said of the Third Reich. America was based on an evil it has never admitted fully or atoned for even a little bit. There are alot of wonderful, accomplished Americans- but there are also alot of americans who wear their heartbreaking darkness on their sleeve and lack any sense of remorse. And the poorly educated MAGA class is the manipulated front for an educated and highly privileged ruling class that is rotten to the core.
Most Germans have definitely admitted that Hitler and the Third Reich were evil. The Nazi flag is banned in Germany. Strangely the Confederate flag is not banned here. I guess we are not yet that clear about completely 100% recognizing the evil of owning slaves. Too soon since 1865 to ban the Confederate flag? This was not just "the other side" with a different take. The Confederates defended slavery. What does it mean to fly the flag? If you what to have a flag to promote the South, find another flag without the stench of slavery in its fabric.
Look, the Dukes of Hazzard was kinda funny at the time.
Ive been waiting a long while for someone to articulate the OBVIOUS.
The Dems shoulda been there publically a long time ago.
Why do you say Dems are not calling him out? You are not paying attention. Do you watch hearings? C-span? Do you read Dems even in these substacks? Have you heard speeches by Dems running for office? I could give you names, but you should look into it & find out. Have you kept track of the good legislation proposed by Dems that Repubs have blocked? Please don’t forget that the Dems are in the minority, & the Minority Party has limited power in this system. Too many people vote for Republicans. And Republicans are trying to make it so that the Republican Party is in power permanently. It’s lazy to say Democrats don’t speak up.
Why are we at war with Iran? Why aren’t all the Trump-Epstein files released? Why are we selling public lands - which belong to us - to foreign investors who are friends with
d.j.j. (jim jones) trump? Why is the trump family making billions while donald is in office? This is illegal under the emoluments clause. Almost everything they do is illegal / unconstitutional. Why are they getting away with it all? Because REPUBLICANS ARE ALLOWING IT!!! They could stop him at any time, but they are afraid of their senile mob boss / Dear Leader, or they are simply complicit out of stupidity & ignorance, or they are just as evil as he is.
The man is the structure personified.
"Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul-all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been—arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul-it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader." (Oliver Kornetzke)
Evil is absolutely exactly what he is. You are, however, being too kind in not extending that word to cover others you must know are evil, too. 🤲
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." — Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Yes, obviously. Most of us knew that in 2016.
Why? Because they have made a moral calculation and they believe that Trump advancing their goals is the lesser evil. For example, if abortions are murdering babies, it women are not living in submission to their husbands, if people are changing genders, each group that believes one of those, has made a moral calculation. Death of democracy versus death of babies? Easy choice. Death of democracy versus becoming rich? Easy.
Not only that, but they believe WE are evil.
It’s so nice to see someone using the correct word. It is definitely a rare thing to see.
Good idea to write this, Mike Brock. It can never be said too much. I myself took a crack at the topic of evil last October in this post (https://citizen99.substack.com/p/stare-into-the-vacuum-of-his-eyes?r=2sauq).
On the question of why the media avoids the word 'evil,' besides their dedication to euphemism-making, there is another unwritten rule: if the voters chose the president, their decision must be honored as correct, or else we are questioning the very basis of our system.
To political journalists, such a suggestion would be career-ending. If I were cynical (haha), I might even suspect that advertisers would have a conniption if a network suggested that the voters (their customers) have elected an evil man, and are therefore in favor of evil.
Or, as my recent studies have shown, the Evil Seed may have been installed on one or two occasions and not legitimately elected by voters. While DJT has poisoned the well on this topic, and while Dems recline in their Barcaloungers, feel free to have a look at This Will Hold or ElectionTruthAlliance on this channel.
I agree nothing can be ruled out.
Good article. Thanks for sharing.
I’ve been berating Democratic . cough cough, leadership. . .cough. . since the end of last year for not calling this man and his Party exactly what they are; Fascists. he’s not a King he’s a Fascist dictator, he’s not unprecedented he’s a Fascist. You cannot fight that which you cannot name because without the proper name of the threat it cannot be fought adequately with the appropriate tools. The man is a gawd damned Fascist. For Christ sake Democrats, call him what he is, what they are; Fascists.