Nice to see a NYT's columnist call Trump "evil". For that is what he truly is. An evil conman.
163
Does anyone really think it's a coincidence that the Klan and every neo-Nazi group in America enthusiastically endorses and supports Donald Trump? Or that the perpetrators of the worst hate crimes--massacres, actually, against Jews, Latinos and African Americans--did so using Donald Trump and the Republican Party's own rhetoric as their rationale?
Republicans show you exactly who they are by the company they keep.
151
The behavioral outrages of con man trump are only exceeded by the fervor of his supporters. The complicity of the republicans in congress are a naked and stark reminder of how men like Hitler rose to power. Current events are a scary reminder that America is not so special, after all, and is not immune from the same dark forces.
86
The McConnells and Grahams have been bought. Think about it: Moscow has had more victories against the USA in the last three years than any war would have brought it. Compare the costs of war vs. the cost of buying - literally buying - the allegiances of a but a handful of key representatives. A billion dollars goes a long way. Watching Graham, Nunez, and Jordan causes me to wonder what was the price.
Hoover denied the existence of organized crime and the Mafia thrived. That photo of J. Edgar in a tutu might have had something to do with it. And Lindsey is so photogenic. What was the price for him to change his mind and position to change from calling Trump a moron to his present condition of enthusiastic sycophant? What could Lev Parnes have done to get Kevin McCarthy to wrap his arms around him? And is Mrs. McConnell doing well in the cabinet? For a reference point, take a look at the GOP in Indiana in 1923 and KKK Grand Dragon, David Stephenson. Murder, money, power and GOP politics. It's sought of a how-to script for Trump's GOP. Wikipedia has a good read on it. The basic rule for unearthing what's happening right now is to just follow the money. and it is all flowing from Moscow.
70
The military is just "a bunch of dopes and babies."
Just like the Trump supporters,
at least we agree on that.
36
I hope good people who read this take it to heart. DO SOMETHING. Donate or volunteer. Fair Fight, Swing Left, Open Progress, Democracy Action are all great organizations to check out.
Find volunteer opportunities near you: https://www.mobilizeamerica.io/
36
I do not believe anymore that many people who support Trump are good people. How do we define goodness in a person? If you are a good family person and worker but you advocate an evil President and his Party are you not like those who actively supported Hitler or Mussolini? Can you still be called good when you tolerate all the craven behavior we have witnessed? I think not.
78
Adolph Hitler brought Germany back from economic ruin. He stood up to the powers enforcing the Versailles treaty. He instilled pride in the German people as a proud race with a glorious history and promised to make them leaders in the world as they once had been. He built the German military into the finest on Earth. He was a charismatic leader, brought real progress while eliminating opposing political parties. Make no mistake, the German people loved him and for a time it may have been for good reason. Then the underlying motivations became apparent. Greed for wealth, imperialism and ethnic cleansing. Listen to the Trump rhetoric. Make America great again. Christian right dominance. Distrust the press. Don't check my facts. Opposition to "the party" is criminal.
We have been here before.
80
Evil is as Evil Does
16
You sound like you're gonna cry. By all means, go ahead.
6
Yes, the Hater President, Trumpy, is evil. And, the Senators supporting him are enabling him in his evil. They are participating in his corruption and they are partaking of his depravity. They don't believe in democracy and they are actively against the rule of Law.
35
NYT Picks in this comment section say a lot about NYT, and that is not a complement. Great opinion piece by Timothy Egan. And, yes, TRUMP IS EVIL!
22
This is the truly frightening part of our current situation. People who claim to be good and decent people are aggressively supporting Trump and his agenda. He has a cult-like following much like Adolf Hitler. He can do no wrong in their adoring minds. I believe that their “goodness” is not backed up by their deeds. These “good” people are motivated by hatred and fear, and often in the name of God.
There are many parallels throughout history that show us where we might be headed with all of this. Trump is an amoral man. While many frown upon the comparisons of Trump to Hitler, we simply cannot afford to ignore them. Hitler took the European continent and world on a slow but steady road to hell, and many people were willing to follow him on his pathway to destruction. He had the support of millions. Don’t think that Trump can’t do the same.
The decline slow and deliberate. Vote and talk with everyone you know. We cannot afford to stay quiet.
42
Well you're not really good if you do nothing, are you?
9
He ---
cavorts with porn stars, manhandles women on airplanes and cheats on his wives
claims to suffer from imaginary bone spurs in his head
is a notorious tax cheat whose tax returns are not being audited
was the Founding Father of Trump University, Trump Airline and Trump Bottled Water
has a great deal with Putin where both of them do each other favors
abandoned the Kurds
likes Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and people who commit war crimes
doesn't like dogs
believes there are good people on both sides
gives big tax breaks to rich people who have absolutely no need for the money
plays golf every day except on the few days he doesn't
believes that a great vacation is one he charges to you and me
sports fake yellow hair and dyes his face orange;
separates migrant families and sends them all over the place
is building an idiot’s wall
wears overcoats and neckties that are way too long
has no sense of humor and is unable to tell a joke
doesn't read and can't spell
needed help to pass the Montreal Cognitive Assessment
has gone bankrupt on numerous occasions
ruined Atlantic City
is a pathological liar
honored Native Americans veterans by posing them in front of a portrait of Andrew Jackson
has been sued thousands of times
This is the short list.
There’s a lot more, but none of it is fit to print.
58
Well said, Mr. Egan! Trump is disgusting!
21
Of course Trump is evil and his supporters enable evil.
If you took my kids away for trying to escape a dangerous country for a better life in this one, and then you kept my kids in a cage, you're evil. It doesn't matter if I broke a law. You're evil.
37
Evil is as Evin Does
2
This piece really doesn't belong on the opinion page. This is the news. Nothing said here can be disputed factually.
27
Trump reminds me of the real estate heir Robert Durst. Their upbringing have a lot of similarities. They both are clearly psychopaths.
19
Thank you.
12
Feels like the need to react is gaining momentum. The level of hatred trump lives on is cancerous to our nation.
18
The fact that you Americans are so passive, and so lazy, not protesting like the people of Hong Kong, is really depressing.
31
I wouldn't be surprised if Donald Trump delivers the keynote at the white supremacist/anti-government militia gun-nut mob rally in Virginia on Monday. That's his fan base. Donald Trump is the president of the Charlottesville tiki-torch marches and those who agree with them, and no one else.
20
Trump's evil contaminated the senate heavily. The GOP senators are morally in ICU. They are so much infected, I do not see any recovery for them. They do not believe in truth, fairness or even God or Bible. They are totally blind with greed for power and money.
24
Fine. I will (and I am) do my part. I will support and contribute to any Democrat running against trump. I wii, and do, speak out. Where are the Republicans with the loudest voices? Where is George W. Bush? Where is Condoleeza Rice? Where are any of the Republican “leaders” past or present? Cowards all. Doing nothing while our grand Republic sinks in the Trump morass. Shame on them all. They are worse than trump. He has an excuse. He is mentally ill. What is their excuse?
34
trump gets too much 'credit' for his ugliness.
i've been yapping since he got the nomination that the 'folks' who voted for him, his lies and disgusting insults are just as much to blame.
cheering him on hasn't helped his repulsiveness.
now his cabinet, the house and senate are equally to blame.
and i would change guts to 'nuts' in this column; at least for his fellow males.
10
Trump is supposedly a Christian. He gives Christianity a very bad name. We all already know the evils of the church their cover ups and such throughout history. So here we have yet another modern day Christian behaving very unchrist like, giving the religion a bad name. And all those so called Christians who support him, are no less unchrist like than trump himself.
So sick of these “Christians” giving Jesus a bad name.
10
Trump and the Republicans who protect him are simply amoral pragmatists craving power. They appeal to a shockingly large number of racist, misogynistic and xenophobic voters. Trump is one of them and makes them feel good about themselves.
15
Trump's cult is very much like Scientology with thuggish enforcers, blatant corruption and behavior that openly challenges the law and demands an exemption from it. But what Trump promises is utterly worthless. Remember his Trump University scam? Those who think Trump is responsible for the stock market are totally clueless. Like Warpresident Bush, Trump is ignoring regulatory issues that will blow up in our face. He is advocating bribery and corruption on a grand scale. The housing bubble is gargantuan, with Chinese investors owning huge vacant mansions while ordinary Americans are unable to afford homes. That global investment is a fraud. Vladimir Putin is a genius, and Trump's base is catastrophically stupid. This cannot end well.
20
Trump and his enablers in government and the media have sunk to the level of street criminals, and should be treated accordingly.
15
If you ever wondered what you would have done if you were a German in the run up to WWII, or how you would have responded to the evil of slavery, well, you're doing it now. Are you embracing, or just looking the other way from the lawless, authoritarian, deeply immoral Trump presidency, or are you resisting in every way possible? Every GOP office-holder in America is revealing the they would have been be dressed in brown shirts and holding a whip themselves during those past eras. Let's not let that evil or those who support it win today. RESIST
25
Just waking up to the danger of what evil is right in front of us?
The gun rally in Richmond VA is scheduled for, Monday, our Martin Luther King Day holiday.
I just realized that --- that significant point, a national holiday --- when my wife pointed it out. What will Trump say and DO, this time?
What can people of good conscience do?
Protesters might be best to stay away and ignore the hate.
My friends are still local protesters who lost family members in the 1979 Greensboro Massacre who showed up to protest the KKK rally of November 3rd, 1979. --- That's only 40 years ago.
Are you awake yet?
17
Sad to say you're singing to the choir with this column. Those who measure everything by the balance in their bank accounts are just fine with a depraved man as president--because he worships the same God as them: Money.
16
karma...at the end of the day the enablers and weaklings in the Republican party will have to look in the mirror
4
Trump is just a metastatic body spawned from the gigantic malignant mass that is modern Republican conservatism.
Republicans have been practicing Trump’s scorched earth tactics for decades. If you don’t agree with them, you’re “unpatriotic”. You can’t be a “real American” unless you’re a Republican. If you’re a journalist, you’re a “liberal hack”. There are Red States and there are Blue States, despite the fact that everyone knows no such total homogeneity exists anywhere. Prayer breakfasts tied to PACs. Calling Trump an ordained savior sent by God. Pledging an undying commitment to deciphering the thought of the founding fathers while conveniently ignoring the most critical precepts of the Constitution. And let’s not even start at their efforts to deny people the most basic dignity in America: the right to vote.
All one needs to do is watch the Jim Jordan’s, Matt Gaetz’s, Kevin McCarthy’s, and Mitch McConnell’s as they seethe with fake indignation and repeatedly impugn their colleagues over and over. But don’t blame them. They are just puppets to the right wing media machine and sweet foreign influence cash who are mining this immoral and unprincipled malignancy all the way to the bank.
20
A day late and a dollar short with this column, Mr Egan.
4
I totally agree! That having been said has Trump fine nothing? To the contrary: ISIS has been neutralized, France, Germany and England are enforcing the nuclear agreement with Iran, NAFTA was revised, China has agreed to the first part of addressing our trade issues, North Korea actually came to the negotiating table, unemployment is the lowest it’s been in decades, ICE has stepped up its efforts to address the crisis with criminal illegal aliens, etc...,, What did the prior administration due? ZIPO!!!!
3
Tim, I keep waiting for you to tell me something I DON'T already know.
When good people do nothing, you get 1933 Germany or 2020 America teetering on the precipice of nightmare Trump. That's just a manner of speaking, of course. You've also got more than an iota of people in there who are immoral, racist, white supremacist even, resentful, corrupt, unethical, undemocratic, or just want to inflict pain on somebody unlike themselves.
8
If, as one Navy Seal said, Ed Gallagher is “freaking evil,” then Trump, who interfered on his behalf, is at least as bad. On a weekend when we should be celebrating everything from passage of the ERA in Virginia to Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday,
white supremacists and militia groups are descending on Richmond, VA, advocating race war, a white ethnostate and violence. As with all such “normalization” of evil, the devil is in the details; however, if Trump isn’t the devil incarnate, one might do well to heed the words of Keyser Söze, at the end of “The Usual Suspects”: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”
14
Having studied evil and psychpathic behavior over many years from Scott Peck to Rollo May & from Jung to Carlos Castenada and even Penn Lewis & Derek Prince, I have to say with such people the common ground of human decency and kindness that most of us share is missing. The best pose these lost souls can profer is mask of deceitful benevolence.
I wrote comment after comment in these pages concerned with the rise of an evil tyrant looming on the American horizon slouching towards Bethlehem in a Second Coming of an evil monstrousity. Some comments were considered not "civil" or perhaps too evangelical for these pages and did not see the light of day.
Kaliyuga has arrived; principal herald: one POTUS unleased on the world. "Freaking evil" is become the new way of power. Playing by the rules of war or politics is for the naive and foolish. "Graphic lies, cheap defamation, dirty little tricks" are all over the place and most of us won't stand up against them. Many of "we the people" no longer know how; we are so oppressed.
But for those of us who do know how to fight and want to ; the opposition to truth and justice stalks us online or in public. Our First Amendment rights erode before our very eyes. Journalists jailed, murdered, or missing.
The contagion of evil will overcome us unless every single one of us who sees the end in sight fights to save the USA from it's great downfall now in process.
All aboard the Freedom Train! Last Call!
3
Slow close to getting this evil out of our lives. Everyone wants trump gone save the racists (35% of us). The senate can easily just make him go away. The stage is set. Will the heros step forward?
6
"We all grew up hearing an ageless warning about public morality: that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.
The presumed outcome is reassuring, a story we tell ourselves. But in the last three years, that homily has been proved right, in t""he country where it was not supposed to happen."
I remember my mom and dad -when we were discussing the Nazi Holocaust -always saying that it couldn't happen here -That there was something evil in a country whose people would look away -become SS -work in concentration camps etc.
AND now i know my parents were wrong!
In a country blessed with peace and no existential threats - AND a free press and individual liberty and protection under the law:
An entire major political party has emerged with the same obeiscance to this vulgar tyrannical evil sociopath as the German Social Democrats had for Hitler.
(without the total government oppression the germans suffered under)
12
Whoever still supports Trump is no better than him: no moral compass, greedy and ignorant/too lazy to learn anything.
Vote, vote Democrat wherever you are.
Register to vote, help people register to vote, activate young people to vote- get the GOP rich old men out of the Senate, enough is enough
12
Yes, he is Evil. He has always been Evil.
9
How might good people do something to combat this evil? Well, we've objectively established that Trump is a pathological liar. That is as certain as Pelosi is a Democrat from CA.
Perhaps all TV screen banners that include "Trump" would be updated to, "Trump (known liar)". This would be as objective as "Pelosi (D-CA)"
3
It is fascinating to me that the NYTimes top picks for comments are all against the columnist, because I too read this column and could not understand what possible purpose it served or what novel approach or thought it delivered. In a week when the President was impeached and we’re going back to Hillary? Seems odd.
2
While Trump is bad in many respects the Republican Party is far worse they knew Trump was incompetent fool and many said so prior to his winning the nomination but their actions since are utterly revolting and Have nothing to do with patriotism.
11
The smolder that sparked the flame of President Trump has been burning for decades. Our Nation has fallen into self righteousness- the misguided Invasion of Iraq, the American born and bred 2008 Financial Crisis, the dystopian American rise and global reach of Alphabet, Facebook, Amazon, the Rabid RW Media Tail wagging the GOP Dog...
Carl Jung’s warning rings true-
“No, the demons are not banished; that is a difficult task that still lies ahead. Now that the angel of history has abandoned the Germans, the demons will seek a new victim. And that won’t be difficult. Every man who loses his shadow, every nation that falls into self-righteousness, is their prey…. We should not forget that exactly the same fatal tendency to collectivization is present in the victorious nations as in the Germans, that they can just as suddenly become a victim of the demonic powers.”
-“The Postwar Psychic Problems of the Germans” (1945)
A pivotal crossroad lies ahead.
10
“As for the contagion of evil, you need not look far. In Texas this month, Gov. Greg Abbott said his state would become the first to refuse to take in even a small number of legal, fully vetted refugees.“
The Houston and Beaumont areas have the largest Vietnamese community after LA / Orange County in the US. The entire community owes its existence to the United States accepting refugees who arrived with nothing after the war in Vietnam. Today, this is one of the most vibrant, entrepreneurial, successful communities anywhere. Elsewhere in the state you will find in even the most hard luck small town, a bakery, restaurant, or other small businesses started by immigrants from Southeast Asia.
The governor ought to take the long drive from Austin to the panhandle, and get a donut in some little town where he can see for himself the contributions refugees make. Unfortunately no amount of evidence can convince an idiot.
10
Just waking up to the danger of what evil is right in front of us?
Consider this. There is a "supposed" gun rights rally in Richmond VA, scheduled for Monday, Martin Luther King Day holiday, but organizers openly hope for a race-war, calling it a "boogaloo," an event that will accelerate the race war they have anticipated for decades.
That's a significant point --- on a national holiday --- with great potential for serious violence that day.
What will Trump say and DO, this time, like at Charlottesville, VA?
What can people of good conscience do?
Protesters might be best to stay away and ignore the hate.
My friends are local protesters who lost family members in the 1979 Greensboro Massacre who showed up to protest the KKK rally of November 3rd, 1979. --- That's 40 years ago.
Are you awake yet?
4
His "evil" seems to have infected the entire Republican party.
6
Well spoken, Mr. Egan. Trump is a crook through and through and his apologists are standing by as this ignorant foul-mouth turns the law upside down. These cowardly Republicans close their eyes and ears pretending there is not evil because they cannot see nor hear. These folks are as guilty as Trump himself. They know it and hope to survive by non-stop lies and deception.
In any functioning democracy with a functioning Congress and a functioning Department of Justice, Trump would already be relieved of his duties and face the rule of law and time prison.
5
We're constantly told that the divisions in our current America are ripping at the soul of our country and it's critical that we work to repair the rift.
I ask, how? Do we compromise with neo-nazis and white supremacists? Do we accept that our president lies with nearly every breath as he runs a criminal enterprise from our White House?
I mean really? Where do we find enough common ground to agree?
6
The problem is not that good people did nothing.
The problem is that Republicans have done nothing to stop this. In fact they've encouraged it. They love it.
Trump is their dream come true, and they've embraced him.
The more his actions hurt liberals, the better.
The more he hurts brown people, poor people, weak people. The better.
Good people are doing something.
But right now, the bad people have all the power.
The Senate, the Supreme Court, The Electoral College, The Attorney General, the entire Executive Branch.
These are bad people. Doing something.
Once again the NYT chooses to frame Republican malignancy as a both-sides do it, we're all to blame moment.
Are there any good people at the NYT? Do something.
6
Qualifies for evil if he purposefully lies and misrepresents his actions to degrade our environment, our health care in order to get reelected in order to finish his evil tasks to say nothing of using a foreign government to conspire against a competitor in the upcoming election. Like he said at the G-7, "there is money underneath my feet;" We just have to give him time to cash in! The, Tongass, old-growth rainforest is on the cutting room floor, rolling-back of the water protections, yet he says he is the greatest environmentalist and a great protector of the air and water! It's"double speak," lies to promote his hidden agenda! If that's not evil I don't know what is. He is relentless in his application of the technique where it is nearly impossible to winnow the wheat from the chaff and people just give up and give into the falsehoods! This is pure unadulterated evil , no weighing the if and and buts and giving him a polite pass as being misunderstood, is only fatigue in the face of pure evil! This is war on truth and trying to keep up with the lies is a full time occupation. No wonder he is on a crusade against the press who have kept up with his antics and evil actions!
4
This article is spot on. Just watch a clip of Trump at one of his rallies. I won't restate all the examples and descriptions of this man's depravity, and by extension, that of his enablers, sycophants, and supporters. If the word evil is distasteful, how about amoral? Ignorant? Vicious? Corrupt? We've never seen anything like this and our country faces an existential threat. The "good people" you mention have demonstrated that none of his atrocious words or acts are disqualifying. It's up to the decent, rational majority that still exists (albeit slim) to remove this malignancy at the polls in 2020, or everyone, including the "good people" will be sorry.
4
We might first look at Webster"s prime definition of evil:
"Sinful, wicked. Arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct."
Then I often have asked just one question. Why would you give the highest office to a man who publicly mocks a crippled person?
5
"Trump has so desensitized us" — says it all, sadly.
2
Former Vice President Joe Biden included the following in his eulogy for Senator John McCain: “John understood that America [is] first and foremost, an idea. Audacious and risky, organized around not tribe but ideals.”
If America is “organized around . . . ideals,” then, with Donald Trump as President, it is indeed time to reintroduce the term “evil” into our nation’s political discourse.
What are we referring to when we employ the term “evil”? I assume most humans experience the tension between the lure of their ideals, and the insistent pressures and temptations inherent to the material conditions in which they find themselves. Our “finer elements”—our abilities to understand, to love, to sympathize, to empathize, to creatively imagine, to promote the interests of other persons, etc.—are open to the attractive power of ideals. When we habitually subordinate our ideals to the insistent demands of material conditions, the gap between what we as individuals or as members of society have become, and what we or our society ideally could have been is referred to as “evil.” “Evil” is a relational term.
Trump evidences no “finer elements”—no abilities to understand, to love, to sympathize, to empathize, to creatively imagine, or to serve any person other than himself. Trump and his many supporters, enablers, and minions seem wholly immune to the attractive power of ideals.
5
The second I saw those children in cages and parents deported without the children they came with, I knew he and his minions were evil. Who but an evil person could ever support torturing children? Who, but an evil person could ever separate a parent from their child and not care if they were ever reunited? How his supporters stood by and supported that policy just tells me they are just as depraved and evil.
5
If you loan a friend a few dollars that doesn’t make you a loan officer but break one law and you are a criminal.
GAO says Trump broke a law. No perception. Fact. Morality is just an opinion.
1
To me trump is just a poster boy for the real america that has been seething since they lost round 1 of the civil war. They are now in round 2. What's on TV tonught?
2
Trump is the supreme leader of the conservative white Christian party, who exist to preserve white conservative control of the country both economically and socially. They don’t like anybody except Christian white people. This is the basis of their platform and is not acknowledged enough by the media.
4
You make it sound like there was a barrel of "good apples" occupying the Right then Trump came along and spoiled them all. The Republican Party is exactly what it seems. The representatives of the worst of America. The leftover 50's racism and misogyny. The rich should run everything crowd. The stuck in the mid 20th century white men who want us to return to a time when women and blacks knew their places. This GOP needs to be ousted and buried. We'll keep descending into 2nd tier status as long as they are in power. They need to go.
8
Rather than wait for the election, we should demand from our representatives that this man be removed NOW. He's shown enough and we've seen enough and it will only get worse with each passing hour. He should be removed within days and weeks, not months. If he isn't, it indicates cowardice and moral rot in our representatives and our nation. It indicates that the country is diseased. We are going to have answer what took us so long and what was wrong with us.
2
Evil. Too easy to dismiss. Human, yes. with all the attributes that many come to despise. Narcissism. Disinterest. Misinformation. No ethics, morals, empathy. He is the quintessential zero human. He ranks with humans who adopt/get/steal dogs, chain them in the yard and manage to forget about them. He ranks with humans who cannot accept people of color. He ranks with humans who show that hating is easy, easier than thinking, reasoning, considering. He ranks with humans who find that destroying is better than building; no bridges, no loss. He ranks with bullies, with their groups of like-minded, diseased thugs. It is easy to prey on one when you have a group; one on one gets tricky. Stand up to the bully, call out the bully, and the voices grow against the bully. No. 45 is not evil. He is the human who has no sense of humanness. Morally reprehensible. No grasp of truth. Venal. Boorish. A bore. Classless. He is a tiny, insecure person in a job that is too big for him. He thrashes around in the job, he brays and points fingers, he uses nicknames to denigrate people. He is the third grader you want to drown.
5
Give the "good people do nothing" quote attribution: Edmond Bourke?
That Stephen Miller is a confirmed racist, whose reprehensible emails were leaked and he is still employed at the White House making immigration policy, proves that Americans have lost their way.
I never thought I would ever see entire families put in Camps on US soil. Especially after the Japanese internment of our own citizens. You would have thought that was a lesson learned, and yet, here we are.
Evil certainly does seem to beget evil. Christians who support the cages with "Obama did it" or "They're safer there" even though at least 10 have died and thousands have been sexually assaulted and abused. Christians! Those who have reverted back to the worst stories of the Bible to support their racism and hate.
My country is broken, Christianity is lost, and my soul weeps.
5
When good people do nothing, they cease to be good people.
3
In short
From the series Breaking bad , an infamous phrase " I am the danger"
Apply the Trump Presidency
I am the Corruption
I am the Lie
I am the Evil
3
Read this essay, John Roberts!
2
Trump cut back SNAP, food stamps, EPA safeguards,...all causing health issues for children. Trump's sanctions touch the children of Iran. All of these eventually kill
1
TRump's evil became clearly evident when he made fun of a disabled journalist. If it is not evident, then imagine the journalist was your child.
2
Surprisingly I find the need to refer to youth literature. Intelligent youth literature but youth literature all the same.
“I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.”
“Maybe sometimes we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don't want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it's dangerous. We're more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right.”
However...
“We have to build the Republic of Heaven where we are, because for us, there is no elsewhere.”
— Phillip Pullman, Amber Spyglass
3
Wow. Spot on, and a good reminder that inaction on anyone’s part is equal to complicity. Evil is the right word - Voldemort’s got nothing on Trump. Everything to him - and I mean everything - is viewed through a financial lens, through dollar sign glasses. We are reminded here if e importance of nurture, and of the old saying, money is the root of all evil.
2
Right on target. He's evil - I've been wondering why this isn't pointed out. Thank you!
2
Good people will do what they can. Republican legislators are not among them.
4
I agree Mr. Egan. Mr. Trump is a force for evil whose sole competency seems to be his ability to foster hate and division at home and abroad. I would argue, however, that Republicans in Congress who know this and do nothing to save the country they are sworn to protect are not the "smaller evil." With a clear path to his removal at hand, their collective failure to hold Trump accountable will loudly proclaim to one and all that our system of government is completely and irrevocably broken. I predict that history will revile their cowardice more than the madness of Mr. Trump. Ultimately it's on us, the people, who have put such petty, self-serving people into office.
3
Mr. Egan, thank you for bringing up his narcissism and persistent, blatant pathological lying.
Psychopathy is NOT all about serial killers, because there are several shades to such personalities.
However, we as a nation (at this point) are very much like an abused, battered girlfriend who sees no way out. You get slapped and then he pats you on the back. He loses his temper just because the water doesn't taste right but wants his intimate rights every night.
Smiles to your entire family but terrorizes you with an undercurrent of violence when alone. It is psychological, emotional and entrenched abuse.
He has been doing it to the entire country and I consider the 40% like the parents or friends in denial, people who tell you, you're so mistaken.
We are a psychologically, emotionally and socially abused nation. Welcome to the "United State of the ABUSED."
4
I am ready to fight. I don't know if I can say this in a public comment, but this whole business of Trump and his supporters and his enablers taking over our government has gotten me angry. Angry enough to take part in a violent revolution, if it ever comes to that.
2
Hate speech in all of its glory! We should all be so eloquent.
2
Beautifully written, Mr. Egan.
2
That’s Mr Egan’s recommendation? Fight harder? Can he be more vague? How about “get to the polls and vote!” If we can get rid of this virus, this sad excuse for a human being, then, maybe then, we can make America great again. How unintendedly prophetic these words actually are.
1
Trump is the pinnacle, the shining city on the hill for the cohort of republicans, conservatives and billionaires whose goal is to enrich themselves and shred it for the rest of us.
But their real genius is that they got millions of Americans to do their dirty work via a carefully orchestrated campaign of hate against education, liberals, and the environment.
It is terrifying easy to subordinate reason. There are no words to describe that venal hyena or his party but the true 'evil' as it were is what we have happily done to ourselves. The beacon has gone out. Forever.
4
The true evil that exists in the world revealed itself after Trump was elected. I was truly naive about the amount of evilness in the world. Sadly I now view Evangelical Christians as agents of evil because they help keep Trump in power.
4
This is the appropriate op-ed for the weekend when we honor the legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King.
2
“Apathy will be the downfall of America, but who cares.” - Voters, probably.
1
Let me say, I'm so DISGUSTED by the comments the NYT has "picked" to display that I'm considering giving up my subscription. Contrary to the Trumpist attacks on this excellent and very important piece of writing, I wholeheartedly agree with every word, and will recommend that more people read it.
Trump is in the very true sense, evil. And the Party that has enabled him is participating in that evil. Anyone who rejects the analysis Egan sets forth is themselves succumbing to the numbing effects of evil that he describes.
In a word, I am shocked, saddened, and indeed terrified by the pro-Trump comments I am reading here. But even more by the fact the New York Times has chosen to highlight those very comments.
2
Trump's evil was around a long time before Trump was. It is an evil that is part of the Republican psychic. Trump is merely the poster child of the Republicans' institutionalized hatred of the "the other."
3
Reading through the hundreds of comments, the bottom line for me is that Trump is, to put it in his own simple vocabulary, a disgrace. He may not be "evil," but he is an awful man who has no place as a leader of our country and should be shown the door via an impeachment conviction or a vote in 2020. An absolute stain on our country's history.
2
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for correctly labeling the president as evil. To your list of evil acts by Trump, you can add the sexual assault of multiple women and the destruction of the environment. Nothing is more evil than denying climate change as we near the tipping point of irreversible climate catastrophe. Trump is destroying the future for humanity. Can't get more evil than that.
3
"The smaller evils are the Republican senators who know the president violated his oath and should be removed, but don’t have the guts to say so." Sorry but his Republican enablers are worst of all evils. The nakedness of their evil was apparent when Nunes, knee deep in Trump's Ukraine extortion scheme did everything to distract and when Jordan screamed from the top of his lungs demanding the identity of the whistlesblower. Trump's 3 years is puny compared to McConnell's 35 years. He can be removed from the Oval office tomorrow if not for his Republican sycophants. All that remains to be seen is that are we the people willing to get rid of this evil in November 2020? With archaic electoral college, Trump and Russians working hard to rig 2020, ignorant and evil cultists i.e. Trump base, defeating Trump in 2020 seems like a far-fetched dream. God bless America.
1
"Econ101," for example, writes:
"This article goes too far. I dislike Trump ..."
Comments that begin with an assertion like this ("I dislike Trump") usually fail to makes a compelling case that the commenter is telling the truth. It's been said many times here but a reminder will not do any harm. I suppose such routine little dishonesties are simply additional instances of the Trump plague.
2
Few liberals give ANY conservative credit for being intelligent or able to think for themselves.
They are just imbeciles who believe everything either Fox or President Trump tells them.
Conservatives are just as intelligent and well educated as liberals, they just have different values and morals.
What a person believes is the result of a logical progression, not just rote learning (memorizing).
Logical progressions have to have starting points (axioms or postulates, and undefined terms).
The starting points for these two groups are not the same, so it follows that their beliefs (founded on logic) might not be the same.
The fact that they're different is not the result of one group being more intelligent or better educated.
1
This article goes too far. I dislike Trump. He is crude, narcissistic, disloyal, often dishonest, and unpresidential. All around, not a great guy.
But EVIL?! Leaders who murder, imprison, torture, and repress are evil. The murderous Iranian and North Korean regimes are evil. The only killing Trump has authorized as president was of the leader of Iran's terrorism arm who was responsible for the killing of countless Americans and others.
He's evil because he threatened to destroy some Iranian cultural sites? Or because he detained people who illegally entered the US (something his predecessors did)? Or because he pardoned an accused Navy Seal?
This is not to excuse any of those things, but they're not evil. Evil is imprisoning or killing innocent people, not pardoning someone who is possibly guilty.
And what evidence is there that good people have done nothing? Trump's worst offenses have been mere words: threats he hasn't followed through on, inpolitic statements, retweets of inaccurate things. These often get rebuked.
Trump's actual actions, on the other hand, are almost entirely within the political norm for US presidents. He's lowered taxes, cut regulations, brokered tax deals, enforce immigration laws, and avoided wars.
Good people can hold their heads higher today than they will if Bernie Sanders becomes president and kills our economy takes away our freedoms in the name of social justice or whatever he calls his radical plans to destroy our country.
62
@Econ101 You're wrong about evil. I would recommend Scott Peck's book People of the Lie for a psychological analysis of evil. Evil is subtle and creeping. It spreads like a disease and damages whatever it touches. It doesn't have to kill directly. It can kill indirectly and invisibly, and in fact prefers to do so. It avoids truth and light at all costs. Evil is a pattern of behavior, not a list of deeds like murder or torture. Evil won't resort to those acts if more inconspicuous options are available. Only as a last resort -- for example, if a tyrant realizes that he will be killed or sent to prison if deposed -- will evil resort to such extreme actions. Then the evil person will do such things without the slightest hesitation.
493
@Econ101
"This article goes too far. I dislike Trump ... But ..."
Why do comments that begin like this almost always sound like they are coming from a member of the Trump base? I suppose such routine dishonesties are simple another part of the Trump plague.
177
@econ101, I agree evil might not be the correct classification. Evil, implies immortality with a conscious choice of knowing what is right and doing the opposite. Trump is clearly amoral, with no concept or concern with what is right or wrong.
93
Every Democrat and constitution-supporting, patriotic Republican and Independent who live in one of their states should be calling the Senate offices of Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Lamar Alexander, Cory Gardner, Lisa Murkowski every day. Tell them we want a fair trial, witnesses, evidence presented not suppressed. If these offices were getting 10,000 or 100,000 phone calls each and every day, they would sit up and take notice. My senators, Feinstein and Harris, don't need a wake up call that our very democracy is at stake.
33
"Our country will remain the home of the free as long as it remains the home of the brave."
Time for Senators to man/woman up and do their duty. Have an open and fair hearing of the facts, witness and documents.
Failure to do so will negate the sacrifices of every American who served, bled or died for our freedom. The "greatest generation" will have fought for nothing. The members of the active military will be serving for nothing. The colonials who fought to wrest our nation from an oppressive monarchy will have failed.
The future of this country rests on the ability of Senators to adhere to their sworn oath.
I am not holding my breath, because I need to be alive to vote in November, when the people will eliminate Trump.
31
The Republican senators and congressmen have become the land of the craven.
3
There's a fascinating passage in J.D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy where he's talking to a guy who calls himself "hard working", and when Vance asks him what he does, he says he's been unemployed for years.
I keep this story in mind when I see Trump supporters reply to articles like this and talk about themselves being "good people".
One important thing to understand about this mindset is that for people like this, their belief in their own goodness is self-fulfilling; for them, their status as good people has absolutely nothing to do with their actual actions in this world.
Thus, you get formulations like, Trump isn't evil because those of us supporting him don't regard him to be evil.
No justification beyond that is required; no facts about Trump's evil actions require refutation.
At least it's good to see some people still care about Trump being called evil, even if they are indifferent to the fact that he is evil. It's when they drop their concern about even that, that we'll realize what the Trump base is really all about.
19
When I was in high school I had a German language teacher that grew up in WWII Germany. She refused to ever attend even a high school pep rally. She explained that she had seen first hand what group think and excitement can do to even good people. I have taken that to heart for decades and now see that, as I thought, she is right. It is why he does not give speeches, he puts on rallies. It doesn't matter how deranged he is when he speaks, he knows how to have his folks work up a crowd and basks in the result. We are there.
62
@PA :"She explained that she had seen first hand what group think and excitement can do to even good people."
Oh please. That was just her minimizing the evil in her own country.
Are we repeating history? My wife just saw the Man In the High Castle and felt shook because she saw the resemblance in our own reality. Is America and especially Trumpland any different then it was in the late 20’s Germany where seeds of hate were being planted.
1
No, but not as distant as anybody sane would prefer.
1
"Under Trump, the United States is a confederacy of corruption, driven by a thousand points of evil. And that evil is contagious.
We all grew up hearing an ageless warning about public morality: that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."
These two lines define the times we live in.
That anyone, @smacc1 for example, would defend Donald Trump, and there are many who do, points to where we as a nation are headed.
33
"Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are."
36
@KMW If you think for one second what will happen when this "great president's"(your term) actions come to fruition you would have a much different opinion than you seem to have now. How quickly can a new president and administration undo all the wrecking Trump has done to date.
I hope that someone is keeping an inventory of all the things that Americans used to be able to rely on before Trump and his administration lackies started their destruction of our air, water, education, international relations (Iran nuclear agreement), college debt, medical access and costs, and all those decisions that aren't tweeted about every day about secret changes made to this country and make is wholly owned subsidiary of American business.
Hopefully, before too long economists will quantify the added costs imposed on America by what, hopefully, only four years of this band of criminals (what else can they be called after stealing or corrupting so much of what they found in America since January 2017) is thrown out with the rest of our refuse.
25
Many of those who support Trump - and they are vocal here - seem to look through the lens of materialism, and either fail or choose not to see how the country is coming apart at the seams spiritually and philosophically. There is real hate growing among us, but I guess that's ok because hey, the stock market is up!
43
@WK
Exactly.
And as you say (sarcastically of course), as long as the stock market is up.
11
@WK :"seem to look through the lens of materialism,"
Be sure to raise this topic next time any candidate for public office asks whether you are better of now than you were 4 years ago. And yes, they're asking about material well being.
2
The Republicans have a unique chance to get rid of Trump right now. And I am sure the majority of them would love to see him gone. What keeps them from making that step is their fear of being the first one to step out and vote for his removal from office and then have the rest of the pack eat that first one alive.
If John McCain were still alive, he would take that first step and then Trump would be finished.
Right now, there is nobody who has the guts to stand up to Voldemort and Palpatine combined.
25
@Captain Nemo Actually, the first one to get smart, jump ship and show leadership and vote to send trump packing' will land a colossal book deal and setup a meteoric ascent just around the corner. Unfortunately, bravery is a rare commodity evidently.
12
Let's get practical here. Barring a miracle Trump will survive the impeachment and be acquitted. He'll tweet for two weeks about being exonerated and how anyone who opposes him is either stupid, vindictive, or unpatriotic. He'll use this as a campaign tool, especially at his so-called rallies. The hate will continue long after he leaves office, as he'll be arousing his base on Fox News or his own cable TV station. In fact, come to think of it, removing him from office will be a feat in itself. I fully expect this sorry egomaniac to try and stay in the White House by any means possible. Expect to send a Marine Corps detail to accompany the Bekins moving truck when that time comes. The hatred will continue because this man knows nothing about humanity and empathy. All bluster and his minions love this. That's why the feel it's okay to hate.
30
Please note Mr. Egan, the enablers (republicans) of this treasonous, criminal occupant of the White House are NOT good people. We are finding out almost daily that more and more of them are part of the criminality. My friends and people I know are organizing to get out the vote to remove these awful people. It's only a start, but we're on it.
31
These “good people” confuse self-interest with “good.”
I read NYT Op-Eds regularly, including the comments. Typically there is a great deal of overlap between the NYT Picks and Reader Picks. If you click Reader Picks, about half are also NYT Picks, and vice versa. Here the disconnect is almost total. With over 1000 comments it's difficult to make a quick analysis, but my guess is that there is rampant fear and hypocirisy on all sides, and an absurd, misplaced notion that all opinions can be valid. Hence pro-Trump opinions can be valid and should be taken seriously. Not to say that the Democrats don't occasionaly said stupid things, too. But there is no common measure systemic GOP lying. Anyone who has not figured out by now that Trump is and always has been a pure criminal on vast scale is completely ignorant.
22
Republican Senators it is definitely time to bail.
Trump has zero chance of winning in the election.
Lame duck Donald is not funny but darn scary.
We can't have a mad dog holding the nuclear codes. The Criminal Con Man in Chief will drag the R party right off the cliff and D's will take the Senate.
The R's best chance in to dump him now before he does more damage to the party and they certainly don't want a lame duck lunatic in charge between Nov and Jan.
Can you imagine the damage and corruption he will cause after his "landslide defeat" while awaiting criminal proceedings?
Senators must worry about horrible vengeance Trump will expend on our nation from Nov landslide defeat) thru Jan 2021 swearing in of Biden.
67 votes Poof Trump(insanity) is gone.
15
@libel
I wish I had your optimism that potus "has zero chance of winning in the election."
Things could get a whole lot worse, and no Republicans are standing up for the country.
11
Cheer up--the trial to evict Donald Trump from the White House starts on Tuesday.
5
Mr. Egan is a product of one evil: Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Mr. Egan's approach is laced with the kind of foggy moralism that gets us into quagmires through inaction and indecisiveness. It gets us red lines that are ignominiously forgotten. It gets us lunatic representatives who refer to our border agents as Nazi Concentration Camp guards.
Mr. Egan speaks of our collective desensitization thanks to Trump, but I would suggest Trump's provided some moral clarity. We have real borders that our own congress and past presidents seemed loathe to defend. We have Intel agencies staffed by high moralists acting badly. We have a FISA court only mildly concerned the FBI was feeding it bad or missing data. We have a Democratic party that sees a roaring economy as a bad thing.
Mr. Egan laments that the US elected a non-government insider, someone, for example, who has the audacity to stand in the middle of a gaggle of NATO nation leaders and accuse them of ripping off the American tax payer. And, he laments that we have a military that trains people to do one thing primarily - to kill - but holds that trait against them when the dust has cleared.
Trump is real, more real than past presidents loaded with double-speak, more straightforward than anyone in congress, including Nancy Pelosi, who is still appealing to the lunatic fringe of her base with the nonsensical, such as that Russia owns Trump, to justify her impeachment fantasies.
Get real, Mr. Egan.
64
@smacc1
And what is it we can say of those who choose to avert their eyes from the vileness that is Trump and all he represents? The old proverb, perhaps, says it best: "There are none so blind as those who will not see".
434
@smacc1 The point Mr Egan is making is not about his policies, it is the things that happened to carry them out. (Just one example is threatening to bomb cultural sites.) This results in the US being seen as an amoral country, which will have negative long-term consequences. Without strong moral leadership the next 100 years will see the decline of the US, alongside the UK and perhaps other English-speaking countries who also chose poor moral leadership.
262
@smacc1: Mr. Egan’s comments are about as real as they can get. This is a real situation about an evil person as our president.
362
One of the problems we have now, is the failure to see gradients in the world. Like yes, if we call Trump evil we create this dichotomy between him and 'good', and the good people must be against Trump, right?
Except there are very good people who follow him. Not because they think he is good, but because they think his detractors are evil. Like the people who oppose abortion; They see a million babies a year killed in America and a population of people who celebrate that as women's health. Obviously they think we are evil.
The reality of things is that evil and good do not exist as a dichotomy and instead they are optical illusions that change based on our perspective and context. I don't like Trump, but I don't think he's evil. Maybe selfish, greedy and corrupt... but evil is not only ill-defined, it is useless when trying to do actual politics.
28
@David - When someone goes out of their way to be cruel, to hurt others, who thrives on vengeance and derives pleasure from doing so, if that's not evil, I don't know what is.
110
@David That is a fair criticism of abortion opponents, but many (I would argue most) other policies of the left have nothing to do with abortion and are actively Christ-like in their intent, such as universal health care, welfare and not separating the children of asylum-seekers fleeing violence. It is no excuse to say, "Because I am opposed to the evil of abortion, I will support any manner of evils visited upon the least of us by a president such as this."
78
@David Trump doesn't have the morals to have a discussion on abortion.
22
This reads like a religious sermon to the converted rather than a political analysis. It might feel good in the moment to vent in out a "me good, them bad" homily, but it does absolutely nothing to rectify the divergent, reasonable political viewpoints of this country. If you want to live in a bubble where you narcisstitically think half the country is primarily driven by evil, racism and sexism, then go ahead. Have fun losing elections with this kind of disconnected condescension.
52
@AJ
The Republican party has won majority voter support in only one of the last seven presidential elections. The Democrats swept out the Republican majority in the House last time around, a majority that came into the office under the fake "tea party" banner (because there was no party, just an extension of the Republican party). Mr. Egan DID NOT say that half the country is driven "by evil, racism and sexism", so what throw back a counter argument to one that wasn't made? His commentary focused mainly on Trump, not his supporters.
Because I love our country and many friends and relatives voted for Trump, I would like to believe that there are "reasonable political viewpoints" that diverge from my own. It is clear that Trump is not a viewpoint but a cause people have signed on for and there is nothing he can do, no insult to America and its values, that would cause most to jump ship.
105
@AJ
Amen. very well said, and my sentiments exactly. President Trump represents political viewpoints many of us believe are more in tune with reality than the Democrats' cornucopia of freebies. And we are not evil, racist, sexist, or homophobic.
3
@AJ If you believe that Donald Trump's supporters represent one half of "divergent, reasonable political viewpoints", then you are being willfully naive or malicious.
We are far beyond a debate between the appropriate role of government in our lives. This is about whether we will have a government that answers to the people or a cruel plutocracy.
101
Many of us do not see President Trump as evil but as a man who places Americans first. He is beloved by millions who have seen their fortunes and lives improved. The stock market is booming and the economy is soaring. He has tackled the illegal immigration problem that was ignored for years. He has placed judges and Supreme Court justices who follow our constitution in the way it was intended. He has made promises that he actually kept. He wants to keep America great. There are lots of Americans who approve of what he has done. We want him to be re-elected and will get out and vote again for President Trump.
60
@KMW If that were true, why do the poorest states have the highest share of Trump voters? Why do the states with the least illegal immigrants have the highest share of Trump voters. What of the promise to publish his tax returns?
318
@KMW Forgive me, but you write as a "what's in it for me?". Less than half of Americans have a stock portfolio and, I am quite sure, the number in rural Trump land, is far lower. You're surely male or you would not appreciate the Supreme Court appointees now primed to deny women the rights that all in the free world receive. His solution for immigration problems was to rip children from the parents and cage them. I believe close to a thousand are still not reunited. America, under Trump, is no longer viewed as great. Europeans are watching aghast at the abandonment of the principles on which this great country was founded. Make America Great Again? As many have said, it became Make America Hate again.
413
@KMW Where in the Constitution does it say that corporations are people?
231
"And now it all comes to a boil in the impeachment trial."
actually, the GOP is doing its best to make sure it does not "come to a boil." their success will determine our future.
@Molloy This trial is the chance for the GOP senators to send the message that any presidential behavior is acceptable from one of their own. Some of them, no doubt, have certain qualms about openly declaring this, but I think they will fall in line, when needed.
1
don't forget to include Mitch McConnell as a main source of the problem.
11
@Anne Mitch might have a serious bile buildup condition in his thyroid. I can't stand him anyway.
This is an archetype, there are replicas everywhere, Trump is one of them, with EXACTLY the same modus operandi
2
Yes, it helps evil when good people do nothing, but that is not all that is going on here.
The Republican Party itself is diseased, and has been for some time. This is an anti-democracy authoritarian party that has embraced racism, widespread voter suppression, extreme gerrymandering and the theft of a Supreme Court seat to maintain its minority power. Trump is certainly the worst our country has to offer and has dragged the GOP to new lows, but he didn’t start this process, and others leading that party - like Mitch McConnell - are not “good people.”
There is no convincing this brand of Republican to change course by appealing to their morality or patriotism. The only course is to evict them en masse from office this November. Organize, volunteer, donate and vote for Democrats.
14
@David :" This is an anti-democracy authoritarian party that has embraced racism"
I grew up on the near east side of Detroit. The Detroit Public Schools (DPS) had a destructive court-ordered busing plan forced on it in 1972. Judge Roth wrote in part: “Transportation of kindergarten children for upwards of 45 minutes, one way, does not appear unreasonable, harmful, or unsafe in any way. ...kindergarten children should be included in the final plan of desegregation.”
This was a weaponized judiciary aimed at working class folks by liberal Feds who for the most part had no skin in the game. Fortunately the cross-district scheme was reversed by the SCOTUS. Unfortunately Detroit Public Schools were still forced to implement busing with a white student population of 26%. Each school was forced to have a student body that reflected this demographic. Working class folks with little of financial cushion saw their homes become essentially worthless due to the destruction of the DPS. These were working class folks who were hurt by Judge Roth while he trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath were stored.
The only Democrat in the 1972 Michigan Primary to speak out against this plan was George Wallace who won the primary that year.
More interestingly, soon there were no more white liberals living in my neighborhood. Just folks learning to be Republicans. And there's no dog whistle to it. You're familiar with the expression: " Never again" ?
2
Interesting, when Trump behaves with depravity, in giving 'good' people permission to do bad things; an awful example is his clueless and biased 'base', that take Trump's cruelty as an order to proceed. But how to explain an entire political party (the G.O.P.), that chose to become complicit with Trump's criminality? The concern is that we, the people, have become, by force of repetition, immune to Trump's malevolence. From here to 'anomie' is just a short step. But if he is re-elected, 'we' may deserve him (Ugh!).
6
Nearly half the country is Trump-like and they were this way before Trump. Trump just summoned them with his sirens of greed, hate, ignorance, deceitfulness, selfishness, fraudulence, and self-righteousness in hopes of smothering democracy, liberty, equality and the rule of law.
13
How is it that in a country with as many guns as people, this evil pox on our freedom is still at liberty, let along protected?
5
The sole reason why Trump will likely win again is because the Democrats are inherently self-destructive. They just can't stop shooting themselves in so many body parts, all at the same time. Obama saw that propensity for the Democrats habitual self-assembly into a circular firing squad clearly.
If the Democrats would not waste their energy destroying each other but instead would get behind one rational leader who represents the middle of the country, they would win in a landslide in the fall.
Just look at Trump: He is everything Americans have despised forever. A sniveling draft-dodging weasel, a lie-in-your-face-and-boast-of-it snake-oil salesman, a cheat, who stiffs the very same people who vote for him. Morally depraved, only serving his own interests and free-loading off the country.
It would be easy to win against Trump, just point out how he robs us and our children of their future. Those who marvel at the economy keep forgetting that the economy is living off hot air right now, literally. Only borrowed money. The next crash will come as surely as the sun will set tonight and it will make 2008 look like a picnic in the park. And it will be mostly the Trump voters who will be footing that bill.
12
When "good people do nothing" in the face of evil, then they are no longer 'good people".
11
Mushrooms and fungi grow on rotting wood in the quiet forest. That's how it looks with this commander-in-chief.
8
Interesting that Trump supporters don't refute anything in the article and so indicate their approval. God help us all.
6
Depravity. That is THE word I’ve been searching for to capture the unique evil we are witnessing and experiencing.
9
The obvious point is being missed. The "good people" really aren't good.
4
There is something wrong with the title of this piece.
Instead of "Trump's Evil Is Contagious" it should say "Trump Is Evil and It Is Contagious".
4
Republican senators are not really “For” Donald Trump, they are simply spineless and terrified of him.
10
@Rob Keller here's a metaphor from the book "the overstory" wich describes republican senators in a literary fashion:" decaying meat wrapped around a rotting sewage pipe". Too strong?
What once made this nation of immigrants great were its ideals. We often failed to live up to them. But we aspired to be better, and incrementally, we were. Far too slowly, but we kept trying. The Civil War, the Civil War amendments, Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, the Environmental Protection Act, numerous Supreme Court decisions recognizing free speech, privacy rights, voting fairness, etc.
The Abomination in the White House and his supporters are either plutocrats, crooks, or dupes. That there are so many is disheartening. His election effectively lanced a huge hidden boil in the body politic, which has erupted with full noxiousness. Whether anything other than demographic change will address that is doubtful, and those in power will use every weapon they have to avoid losing that power--even if it puts them in thrall to a foreign dictator.
Why? Because they do no share America's values, they do not treasure the Constitution or the rule of law, they care not a whit for civility, dignity, fairness, equal opportunity, justice. Compassion and kindness are absent from their vocabularies.
We can make a start by ejecting the Orange Excrescence from office next year. But we need to get rid of as many toxic GOP politicians as we can as well. Perhaps then we can begin to heal, or at least drive the cockroaches back into the darkness where they belong, and try to restore some national pride and presence in the world. Perhaps.
11
I agree. Trump's evil as contagious as his ignorance, racism, hatred, selfishness, self-dealing, corruption, lawlessness, sexual harassment, bigotry, small-mindedness, cruelty, mean-spiritedness, promotion of conspiracy theories, lying, hypocrisy, duplicity, financial malfeasance, fraud, election rigging, protection of war criminals, extortion, unjustified political assassinations, etc, etc, etc.
6
If by some stroke of luck, Democrats hold the house and win the senate and presidency, if they do not admit Washington DC and Puerto Rico as states within the first 15 minutes of their opening sessions, they will deserve whatever befalls them after that. By adding 4 almost guaranteed Democratic Senators and bringing some equity to the electoral college, they would end Republican control of the government forever.
18
We should focus on opposing what is illegal, divisive, and mindless and fighting (really fighting with every legal tool in our Constitutional tool kit) for what is legal, uniting, and thoughtful. There is no us versus them. There is only us: what happens is the result of Mr. Trump's supporters but also those of us who do not support his policies and behavior and rhetoric. I suggest we stop talking about Trump and start talking about a war forward. We cannot go back to the first half of the 20th century or even, God forbid, the second half. We can only go forward and going forward means identifying and discussing the real issues that face this country and its people. We can hope and we can pray that our current political maelstrom is resolved for the benefit of this country. But we also need to act (speak up, vote, get involved) in ways that leave no one behind nor put anyone down.
7
The U.S. Constitution has resulted in a failed democracy. Corporate money and the wealthy buy both our elections and our politicians - and all the power. Less than half of Americans vote because they know their vote doesn't matter. Gerrymandering and voter suppression still pervert election outcomes. Right-wing Supreme Court justices are nothing more than partisan hacks but with lifetime appointments - thanks to the Constitution. I wonder if the founders really wanted a country where the rich control the poor. Capitalism thrives on cheap labor so it was a natural extension from slavery. So here we are.
11
@BigBlue
Good afternoon. Look at http://auditor.co.polk.ia.us/pdf/election/voting_history.pdf
at the time of the founding, control of the poor by the rich was assumed. Constitutional law evolved with the 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 26th amendments. The arc of history does indeed bend toward justice.
There have been steps forward and sadly, steps backward. We must continue the fight. Do not lose hope. Vote! Support state laws that redistrict with independent methods. Vote! Support legislators at all levels that have true democratic aspirations (small d). Vote!
8
It’s becoming more and more obvious to me that america is not worth all the angst and chagrin that I feel every day . I was conned into believing , like my former religion , many facts and concepts that have been shown to be ridiculously untrue . Glad I’m old .
10
Something bad happened in Germany in the 1930s when good people did nothing: Hitler.
20
Whenever I read about Trump's latest calumny, I keep coming back to the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's notion of "defining deviancy down." That's what has happened with Trump, and to many of us: The vile and outrageous is overlooked, discounted and then accepted. I agree with recent suggestions by Charles Blow and Rick Wilson: We don't need to dwell on the policy fine-print in this election. We need to focus on the immoral, ignorant and -- yes -- evil occupant of the White House.
15
@JM You are right. Dem candidates need to focus Democratic Values and on Trump's criminality, corruption, evil, incompetence, laziness, cruelty to the marginalized, know-nothingness, and anti-science attitudes that will waltz us back to the dark ages.
If the Dem Candidates argue among themselves over the fine points of policy we will have 4 more years of Trump taking us over the cliff.
Candidates must focus on the criminality and immorality of this administration that is sticking it to the working and middle class.
Dem Citizens must unite -- and support the DEMS -- up and down the ballot, state-wide and nationally.
7
The title of this editorial is a misnomer. This is not a matter of Trump's evil having been "contagious". His Presidency has simply allowed evil people (aka, the Republican Party) to show their true colors.
14
You cannot ignore the insidious evil of the person just because the stock market rose. While murdering millions, Hitler built the autobahn. Does this equate?
22
@S. Mitchell Thank you! The perfect response to that tired talking point about stocks. "Hitler built the autobahn". Consider it plagiarized for good purpose.
1
Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Over the past several decades, working class Americans have grown more angry as their standard of living has declined. Politicians used this to choose up sides and become shills for special interests. These are the roots of fascism. Germany was among the world's greatest societies on earth for centuries. Then came the aftermath of WWI. Hitler did not create the Third Reich. He invented what the population wanted. Read 'Hitler's Willing Executioners."
Wilson is spot on. If you do nothing as this unfolds, you will be the victim of the immortality that consumes us. It is just not clear when the knock will come on your door.
9
If we liberals are just getting around to calling Trump “evil”, his minions have long been promulgating us as evil also: abortions, accepting homosexuality, “Godless”, and so on.
Recall that Stalin and Hitler clearly labeled their victims as evil too. And we reciprocated, as their enemies.
The problem here is that evil, like beauty, is, for each person, in the eye of the beholder and subject easily to propaganda. It is an epistemological nightmare to sort this out.
Might it be better to label Trump et al as “mob”? That label can be proven with fairly easy research. Personally, I am surprised that the MSM has not shouted such a label from the rooftops.
8
As an American, I am outraged by the real-time destruction of our culture and the uprising of evil that is fanned by ignorance, partisanship, and political self-dealing by so many. Who said that another Nazi Germany could not be created? Were it not for those that seek to protect our basic principles of democratic government, were it not for the courageous efforts of Democratic leaders in Congress, were it not for news organizations and reporters (such as Timothy Egan) who continually call out the reprehensible crimes and misdemeanors of a tyrant, then this debacle could easily go unchecked. We can only continue to fight for what we know is clear and evidentiary, so that so many others will not continue to be manipulated by an evil bordering on insanity.
6
I only hope that Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio will read this column and come to his senses about Trump. You simply can't dance with the devil, Senator, or hide under your desk.
Portman, to me, personifies what has happened to good people in the reign of a megalomaniac. The courageous, those with principles and a moral compass, protest and fight back. History is the teacher; the evil of Nazism is well-known and beyond doubt. Less well known or appreciated are those who recognized its evil and chose not to submit or succumb without a fight. From little Anne Frank to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others, principle and protest were more important in the face of depravity than life itself.
No, Rob, you don't need fall on your sword. But you might find a figurative sword and use it to rage against the putrid corruption of the Trump regime. Same for you, Susan, Linda, Mitt, Lamar, Cory. Form a line of stalwart faith in basic conservative, patriotic beliefs and defy the White House.
9
Ironically, the current predicament rests on two elements of the political system that we take for granted: the right to a private ballot for citizens and the responsibility of a public ballot for lawmakers. As a thought experiment, suppose we switched these for the next election: lawmakers get to cast their votes in secret, and citizens have their votes recorded in the public record. How many "upstanding citizens" might think twice about casting a vote for an unsavory candidate? Likewise, if lawmakers voted secretly, would the tribalism afflicting the current impeachment trial persist?
6
Mister Trump is akin to a schoolyard bully, who bullishly screams "foul" while leading the foul himself. Senators who empower Trump by not voting for his removal from office are, themselves, not doing their constitutional duty.
9
For the following reason alone, I take umbrage at Egan's "too-late-in the day" designation of Trump as "evil." Egan rehearses the old adage, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing," adding that "in the last three years, that homily has been proven right, in the country where it was not supposed to happen." I am SO sick of white people (and I'm white) declaring "evil" to be something foreign to this country, something only nations with dictators and czars can be accused of being. Hello? Slavery and its legacy anyone? Did Egan read any of the "1619 Project" printed in the paper for which he writes? It boggles the mind that someone who writes a column for the NYT in this day and age could so naively state that our country's not participated in and promoted evil before. Shame on you, Mr. Egan! Get your facts straight. And shame on you, NYT, for printing such sentimental nonsense!
1
@ Al Drago: WOW, what a photograph! By golly this says it all. Thank you!
I love the outstanding photographers at the NYT, (which is one main reason why I read the NYTimes online). You capture a whole story in one picture.
4
Trump's evil is not "contagious" he has made it mandatory, that way he will never have to feel culpable.
When senators vow to act with only partisan paid for interests they are destroying our democracy. Thank you Citizen's United.
When "good" evangelicals do nothing, they are destroying the very god they purport to worship.
When Trump undermines our allies and pumps up dictators, we should not be surprised at what can happen.
3
I agree that silence in the face of obvious abuse of power is like an implied endorsement. Will there be 20 Republican Senators to imitate Thomas Becket and stay true to their oath over personal loyalty or partisanship? We will soon find out.
3
"The smaller evils are the Republican senators who know the president violated his oath and deserves to be impeached, but don’t have the guts to say so."
Those Republican Senators, who willfully look away as Trump's criminal acts pile up and who threaten to ignore their sworn duty as jurors in the impeachment trial, are not 'smaller evils.' They are monstrous evils who see themselves as accountable to no one. Their refusal to respond to facts is an extraordinary betrayal of the ideal of human conscience.
11
Amen.
My only grimace, Timothy Egan, in your otherwise up front assessment, is insinuating 'handmaidens' to be spineless people who possess neither power nor authority. Let's drop these sexist phrases from our discourse. Please!
3
@Megan Godfrey
Yeah! and that awful word "henchmen' too.
As this article states very clearly, trump is a despcible, petty, criminal.
But he has done nothing more than tapped into a vein in this country, which is about 35% of our population who not only support that but have CRAVED it, for years.
They couldn't be prouder, couldn't love more the hateful actions trump and his republican minions take.
Impeachment won't save us but hopefully the 2020 ballot will.
while you're at it America wash away that stain that is mitch mcconnell....an evil snake if ever there was one.
11
Our democracy is in jeopardcy when one party complies with a criminal simply to protect their careers. All the Republican senators have to do is follow their oath and rule in this trial according to the evidence. This will remove Trump and free a whole party to return to honesty and liberty. Or will it?
7
Love conquers hate. Santa Claus is gonna punish the bad boys and girls. It can't happen here. When they go low, we go high. Turn the other cheek. Everybody has a good point. Here we are. The haters, liars and cheaters win. They wanted it more. They went to war with the rest of us while we were living our day-to-day lives. The winners are the most lazy, incompetent and corrupt. So they had to be loyal. Never admit the truth. NEVER! Evidence doesn't matter as long as the bad guys don't confess. Trump didn't invent hatred. lies and cheating. He just trumped it.
4
Tragically, the incentives built into our political system tend to discourage politicians from behaving courageously. If a Republican senator facing reelection were to defy his party and let the evidence, favorable or incriminating, determine his vote in the impeachment trial, would such a display of integrity encourage Democratic voters to support him? We know that a rebellion of this kind would alienate the Republican base.
James Madison argued that the system created by the Constitution could not work in the absence of what he called political virtue, but the checks and balances the framers built into that system relied on competing ambitions of officeholders to thwart tyranny. The president and members of congress would protect their own institutional powers by deflecting attempts of the other to enhance the authority of the competing branch.
This mechanism has generally worked well, but a system which encourages self-interested behavior seems poorly designed to serve as a nursery for profiles in courage. A political system which requires officeholders to defy the incentives inherent in it, in order to act with integrity, must rely on a country's cultural values to instill virtue in its leaders. Trump and his apparent immunity to prosecution expose the failure of those values to restrain self interest in the halls of congress.
184
@James Lee Well said.
5
@LisaJayne and @JamesLee: What is as clear as the outcome of the US Senate 'trial' of Mr. Trump, is the following: Our wise Founding Fathers got it wrong by giving the US Senate sole power to decide fate of accused after an impeachment. They should have set some other body as jurors for such a trial. Who? I'm not so sure, but what is certain is that our country has changed since 1780. And today's politics and instant communications and instant misinformation make short shrift of the Constitution's archaic prescription on impeachment. The Founding Fathers missed the ball on this one.
4
"Under Trump, the United States is a confederacy of corruption, driven by a thousand points of evil. And that evil is contagious."
Trump's Orwellian Administration even embellishes the vocabulary of lies. "All is well" is the aftermath of Iran slamming missiles into Al-Asad U.S. Airbase . A lie. No one was injured--no casualties. A lie. Double speak.
Eleven American soldiers were injured from bomb concussion and taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany.
Drafted in 1969 and sent to Vietnam (1971), I can tell you rockets and bombs slamming into a base camp (Long Binh and Da Nang) inevitably leads to our soldiers suffering brain concussion, busted ear drums and fear. Do not tell me that All is Well and there were no injuries on January 8, 2020 at Al Asad. Enough of the lies. War is a scourge on human life and on Mother Earth.
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for your Op-Ed.
17
Dear @AHM California: Even though I was the right age for being drafted in 1969, I didn't serve because I was a woman. But, I remember reading closely in the newspapers and saw in the nightly news about what "our boys" in Vietnam were going through--and saw first-hand the tragic results of war in the faces and bodies and minds and souls of those who lived to come home. I'm so glad you made it, and I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for all you did while wearing the uniform of this country's military.
4
So far, every single thing I feared would happened with Trump at the helm has happened, except one. So far, he has not used nuclear weapons against a perceived or actual enemy. However, he is supposed to have asked, at the beginning of his reign, “If we have them, why can’t we use them?”
Since his mental illness has worsened, his actions have become more and more outrageous, his cabinet members are bottom-feeders at this point - why would he NOT use nuclear weapons? Who on earth would stop him? I don’t trust anyone around him at this point. The impeachment trial is going to stress him out, making his mental issues worse. I am fully prepared now to watch as we head into nuclear war.
Don’t think he wouldn’t do it.
7
Mr. Egan isn't the first to point out the evil that lives in Donald J. Trump. There have been no shortage of comments to that effect. But the bigger question is: How evil are we that we welcome and endorse such evil?
No, we all don't welcome such evil, but a very large percentage of us either welcome evil or don't recognize evil.
7
@Marie Recognizing that Trump is evil is just the first step. The second is taking action, and not sitting back. Organize your neighbors and go to City Hall and the Federal Buildings with signs that say THROW OUT THE GOP Politicians that SUPPORT TRUMP.
Go to a neighboring red state and do the same.
Help defeat McConnell by supporting his opponent with donations, and Collins.
We have power. J
oin a protest in DC.
Run for office.
6
much is known about POTUS
much will be learned about OUR (not the Dem or the GOP) Senators...or are they actually OUR US SENATORS?
1
Excellent article!
4
If you were to think of this country right now as a giant ship similar to the Titanic, afloat on the icy Atlantic, steered by a lunatic captain, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
And the music you’d be hearing in the background would be “Nearer My God To Thee.”
5
On the word EVIL:
It is exactly a Trumpian sin to view the world in black and white. Yet it is classically demonic to fan the flames of everyone's inner demons while inspiring good in no one. The word fits.
4
The old saying that all that is required for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing is not applicable here.
"Good" people do not do nothing in the face of obvious evil. Good people act to prevent evil from doing its dirt. There is, of course, a difference between Trump's active enablers and supporters, on the one hand, and those who sit passively by while he pursues his evil ways. But not much of a difference.
Put differently, Trump's stock in trade is evil. He is malignant from beginning to end, a psychopathic megalomaniac. He purveys bigotry, corruption and intolerance. His supporters support him largely because he legitimizes their own bigotry, abusiveness and evil. He dehumanizes, abuses and, yes, kills people. His supporters don't support him because they believe in some principle or agenda. They support him because they want to hate, torment and hurt others.
To abet or support him actively, as almost the entire GOP does, is to be accomplices in his evil and criminality.
To those who say that "good" friends support Trump, I'll say that for someone to support Trump they must be one or more of the following: evil, stupid, corrupt and/or bigoted.
That is, "good" people do not look the other way while others are abused, kidnapped and killed by Trump and his thugs.
12
The evil and the depravity of which you speak does not just inhabit the White House, it has deep roots in both House and Senate as well. The die hard trump supporters in Congress support lies and manufacture hatred constantly. So let's be clear...these are not good people doing nothing. They are hateful monsters without spine, intelligence or soul.
7
We have to stand up to the Trump supporters and those who make excuses for him. Let them know they are evil. Let them know they are seriously wrong. Abuse them verbally, fight them, drop all civility. They are perpetrating the damage anytime they argue for him.
5
Trump's inability to discern right from wrong is openly apparent with every interview he gives. Yet almost half the country supports him. By trying to reach out and reason with the Trump supporters, we have normalized THEIR behavior, as well as Trump's. It's time to call the Trump supporters what they are: suckers who support racism, hatred, misogyny, white nationalism and immaturity (which is what name calling is).
4
Micheal Obama once said something like " the presidency doesn't make a person but it reveals the true character of a person" There is no doubt that Trump is a racist bigot, he has been all his life and those who give him a pass are racist bigots themselves. Trump is a cult figure for bigotry, misogyny, christian fascism, of which unfortunately represents about 30-40% of our populs. If you wonder how could a treasonous, corrupt, buffoon can garner so much support, just look at any cult leader, remember how many people committed suicide for Jim Jones. The deplorable GOP voter will commit political suicide for the better of America. We need to help them in their political suicide with a massive turn out of the young, the educated and informed, people of color and women.
4
In my opinion there are three types of Americans rallying behind this evil man; the immoral greedy, the racist hateful and the fake Christians. The rest of us, the majority, are shell shocked that these people have been living in the same country raised with (we thought ) the same values and teachings. This squatter in our White House has made it open season on those who stand up to this evil movement which makes it even more unreal. This is what I predict: beginning this summer we will see a huge, never seen before ground swell of mega-rich donors (think Bloomberg and Steyer) pour millions into Democrat races and dozens of celebrities from all walks of life along with average Americans by the tens of thousands campaigning for their dem candidates all over the country. And it won't be just to fight back the evil, it will be to save our planet. Climate change will be our number one issue and the republicans can not touch this this with a ten foot pole. It will be like nothing we've ever seen before BUT the media has got to get on board and stop pushing out their hateful tweets, lies and agenda just for the sensation of it all. I blame the NYT , WAPO, CNN of helping get this mad man elected. The media must stop this both sides stuff and only print and air the politicians speaking the truth. Period, other wise you are as guilty as they are and are just cashing in on the demise of our country, same as Facebook.
7
Yup.
Nothing more to say, except
VOTE!
Thank you. Harriet
2
No one was held accounted for the Iraq War, CIA Black sites, CIA Torture, the destruction of the Torture tapes, the financial collapse so why should it be surprising that people aren't caring anymore?
4
Mr. Egan's premise is flawed. He presumes that GOP "good people" have done nothing to stop the Trump syndicate. In fact, what we are witnessing is that when it comes to the GOP and their leadership ranks, there are no "good people" anymore -- there haven't been good people in years. There are small, cowardly, self-serving, evil, delusional, lying minions who willingly allowed Trump to bully this country and our allies for his own -- and their own -- twisted purposes. Make America Great Again? Ha....talk about irony!
327
@MRose
You are agreeing with Mr. Evans.
@MRose
Here here
3
Egan expertly recites what we already know. Trump is a train wreck for America and the world. What he doesn’t do is offer practical actions we can take. Let me try. Be a recruiter of anti-trump votes. ID friends, neighbors, co-workers (of either party) who don’t care for Trump but who aren’t motivated to vote. Try to get them to cast their ballot come Nov. Even if it’s just one person—it’s one more vote against Trump.
4
Trump is not the evil -- he only embodies aspects of it. He holds the office he does because enough people in this country think the way he does.
3
While everything Mr. Egan says is true, we know all of this already. Once a problem has been diagnosed, a treatment plan needs to be developed.
If Mr. Egan, or anyone else, has ideas about how we bridge the insidious divide in our country, I'd love to hear them. How do we go about encouraging people to seek unbiased truth and to feel compelled to act on it?
2
This needed to be said. Every day a new outrage. While people who swore an oath to protect American democracy do nothing!
We have a separation of powers, checks and balances among the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Next week we will lose this!
Unless good people stand up. So, it's over to you, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Mitt, Senators Lee and Alexander. We need for you to defend our democracy and rule of law.
5
Glad to see someone spell it out: Trump supporters don't share our values.
Like Germany in the 50s and 60s, for the indefinite future our government will include fascists and their enablers.
Once they've claimed whatever victories their cruelty has won, be sure that they will have a Come-to-Jesus moment, as if a mass delusion just broke and hey, they're really good people at heart, right?
No. They know what they're doing and what they're supporting. They count on us accepting them back into our lives. They think they're too big to fail. Our sympathy and open arms are their bailout. A moral reconciliation that requires no contrition.
Don't reward them.
We just have to tolerate them and teach our children that evil does exist in the world, in our communities, and definitely in our extended families.
5
What happens next is that the GOP completely outs itself in the process of the senate trial. Outs itself by not doing its sworn duty and by continuing their ongoing cover up operation for the Trump and Co. administration.
His conduct has been so revolting and sub human that the fact of their falling in behind him shall go down in history as one our countries greatest failures. That one whole party and about 40%of the population are so partisan, so intent on holding power at all costs that they will destroy all former norms and basic decency, not to mention the rule of law and the status of the constitution in our public life-this is nothing less than a wholesale betrayal of each and every one of us.
It is very much a disease and a very contagious one. Fortunately the GOP senators are going to have to go on the record and either do their jobs and impeach him or be shown for what they are, shills for an administration that is more of a criminal enterprise that anything else. In so doing I believe a significant number of senators are going to lose their seats in the coming election and the occupier in the white house as well.
Now the real problem becomes the basic integrity of the election itself. We know that the GOP have made very effort to block real reform of the voting process, indeed continue to advance schemes to disenfranchise voters across the country.
If the country survives we have a lot of work to do to rebuild our integrity. Starting with election reform.
3
"We all grew up hearing an ageless warning about public morality: that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing."
Well, it's pretty clear that GOP senators are not good people.
4
Our national ethics and values count just as much, if not more, as the stock market or jobs report. Despite that, Republicans (now Trumpsters) willingly cashed in their ethics chips for a phony $3 bill. Their big concern isn’t failing moral leadership, they just want to be in power while it does. Their fate is like The Picture of Dorian Gray. Will enough Americans of integrity and decency do the big reveal in 2020?...or will the hideous, and dangerous, scars keep accumulating.
Can we talk about going beyond doing nothing, and talk about enabling?
Specifically, I am referring to the way the media reports on Trump. Coverage of his rallies sanitizes his behavior, the vile threats he makes, the unhinged rants he spews. Toilets? Light bulbs? Dishwashers?
There are signs he is not well; they get glossed over. His speech, his movements, his obvious signs of having difficulty handling simple tasks - we still don’t know why he was rushed to the hospital.
Any other president behaving just once the way Trump does every day would have been a major scandal with front page coverage.
If the media won’t talk about this, how are people to realize what is happening?
3
I have not read a more categorically distinct, devastating expose on the evil that resides in and emanates from Donald Trump.
Since Trump was elected, I have maintained that the evil that Trump manifests takes us to the existential, age old battle of good against evil. The evil that Trumps expends every day of his existence has spread, become 'contagious' as Timothy Egan documents.
I am not sure if we have the impetus to vehemently rise up against Trump. I don't believe that the public and the news media have stepped up to join the fight against the evil we are confronted with. This commentary by Timothy Egan is a contribution toward exposing Trump, but likely only reaches a limited audience, we need so much more, loud in your face journalists, who can reach a wider audience. We all need to rise up or be swallowed and destroyed by the plague of Trump.
4
Recently I heard a discussion in my company lunchroom about the pros and cons of impeachment. One of the people loudly proclaimed "well my 401K has increased double digits with Trump and it barely grew under Obama ". A lie but all too common I am afraid.
4
I don;t know if it is fair to say Trump's evil is contagious. A contagion is something that infects healthy people and makes the ill. Trump has not infected anyone. What he has done is let truly evil people come forward without the risk of recrimination. He has given people the opportunity to express their worst desires and execute their darkest fantasies and beliefs.
He has empowered people on the fringes come forward with the belief that they can join the mainstream.
He is not a vector but an enabler.
3
"And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes." Genesis 18:26 Abraham then whittles it down to ten righteous within the city.
In the Senate, we need four righteous Republicans. If we cannot find them, then it is possible that this country as we know it will no longer exist. It will have succumbed to evil.
As we have seen, religion can be misused to spread hatred. But it also contains wisdom. As in this story in Genesis. However, God doesn't need to destroy the unrighteous, they do it themselves.
Desensitization is a part of the process of evil. Some have become desensitized. Some have become fatigued.
3
Thank you, Mr. Egan. A stirring call to arms for those of us especially who feel powerless and paralyzed in the face of this top-down climate of callous disregard for the other. Where to begin, how to join the battle? In the words of Arthur Ashe, “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” Godspeed to us all.
2
It's about time we focused on the Americans who do nothing. Trump is not a cause, he is a symptom. There was a time in my life when Americans didn't abet pardoning corrupt criminals and getting in bed with Russian dictators.
When Americans did nothing to assist the nation in World War 2, they were derided and labeled traitors, given no social space to hide in. It's about time we recognize that there are people in this country who will ally with anyone, so long as the actors in power do something to abuse and persecute those they hate.
The GOP used to know the difference between the Russian and American governments. It doesn't anymore. Those of you who fly Trump bumper stickers may find it very uncomfortable if the people whose nation is being defiled should wake up. Until then, enjoy that shadow of Mr. Trump that you're hiding in.
3
More ridiculousness from the ‘Fauxsistance’.
Both Bush and Obama committed WAR CRIMES and weren't impeached.
One of the torturers for example, Gina Haspel, now runs the CIA, the Democrats' favorite new pals.
Is it a legitimate position to say "ignore our previous hypocrisy, this is serious, because it is so OBVIOUS!" ?
I don’t think so.
Obama should have been removed from office for his bombing seven countries in the Middle East and Africa for the most specious of reasons, mostly against international law (UN mandate) and US law (authorization by Congress), but especially after he murdered American citizens, including a 16yo boy, without due process via his favorite toy, drones.
Our country is a lie.
It is a war mongering, terrorist organization for the purpose of dominating the control of resources and keep the trans-national, global oligarchs in power and ever richer.
We the people matter only as the tax base to fund the death machine.
As the empire declines, it begins to lose the facade of nobility and we the people become targets of the global bully.
Democrats or Republicans: it's bit like a slow train versus a fast train to economic tyranny, imperialism, and environmental ruin.
The so-called opposition might resemble what prevails as the ersatz leftism of the liberal establishment of capital known as the Democratic Party, which in the present Impeachment Theater is busy running another one of its recruitment campaigns to 'hope' and 'change'.
3
@Chris
Your premise, that someone else got away with it therefore so should I (or he), nullifies any law that isn't prosecuted 100% of the time. Try using that if you should get stopped for a traffic violation and see if it works.
Trump is basically giving 300+ million people defense for not following the law whether it is paying taxes, obeying court orders or subpoenas, or really any law. If I don't like it I won't comply or suffer consequences.
P.S. You'll also note once again how the conservative mind ridicules hope and change because either are simply beyond comprehension other than hoping to see someone else suffer or changing me status to a wealthier one.
1
@Marie
"Your premise, that someone else got away with it therefore so should I (or he), nullifies any law that isn't prosecuted 100% of the time."
Not at all what I was saying.
Let's say, for example, that the previous mayor of Boston raped and murdered a 12yo girl, in plain sight.
The City Council didn’t start an investigation or eve issue a reprimand.
Now, the new, current president allegedly didn't pay enough child support for years (certainly a crime).
The same City Council, hearing of those allegations, is all up in arms, claiming that this is the worst crime committed ever by any Boston mayor.
Doesn’t that make the City Council look like the worst hypocrites ever?
'A Warning' is a must read for anyone who hasn't already drunk the Trump Kool-Aid. It doesn't really add much about Trump that already hasn't been said, but there's an interesting chapter that compares Trump to Cleon, another bombastic, anti-intellectual, bullying demagogue who appealed to the worst instincts of the people of ancient Athens which led to their downfall. History really does seem to repeat itself.
you'd think that Governor Abbott would have some sympathy and compassion for people in dire straits, him being disabled and confined to a wheelchair. But it seems like his physical impairment has made him only hate.
Yep, just as the GOP & Evangelicals want it -- Trumpism/ evil is the new normal. But, it doesn't need to stay this way.
We, the voters, have everything we need to change the trajectory from Egan's evil, to whatever we choose... but, and most importantly, it actually takes voting.
November will YELL OUT for all to hear what the USA is truly about -- let's hope it a self-correction to democracy, integrity, and respect for the truth. We'll see.
1
I am reading William L. Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" right now. Sometimes reading history is important for perspective. One thing that strikes and reassures me as I read that book is how far our country is today from that truly evil regime.
Trump's populism is about the only thing about him that bears any comparison. What evil schemes does he have? To enforce immigration laws? The Left calls him racist for that, that he hates Hispanics. Yet Trump says he loves Hispanics, and his policies are directed to keeping people from entering the country illegally, not denying rights to Hispanics or anyone else who is here legally.
What else? He's a violent racist intent on white supremacy, right, because of a few supposed "dog whistles" here and there? And yet he says he's not racist, he makes unabashed outreaches to black leaders, and he touts that he policies have resulted in the lowest black and Hispanic unemployment rates -- EVER.
Trump does intentionally provoke the ire of his political opponents. I'm not sure that rises to the level of evil. And frankly, you guys shouldn't make it so easy!
Lev Parnas said Trump is like a cult leader. This is important because the psychological difficulty of leaving a cult is different from resisting or taking a stand against corruption.
7
Not voting is not the answer. Women and young people can defeat this monster in November. Let’s do it!
8
Sorry, but the US crossed over after 9/11 making torture acceptable under folksy G.W. Bush. Good people did nothing then. It's a slippery slope and all down hill from here. Go listen to Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire".
3
"In Texas this month, Gov. Greg Abbott said his state would become the first to refuse to take in even a small number of legal, fully vetted refugees."
"A handful of citizens, the Catholic Church, some members of Congress, objected."
You mean the same Catholic Church who razed heaven & earth to get Trump elected?! Because they thought that he was their ticket to "win"?!
They bear out Mr. Egan's argument: Trump & the Catholic Abbott are what happens when evil permeates professedly "moral" institutions like the Church.
3
Bravo, Mr. Egan. This is exactly what Americans need to take stock of. We can't continue this ever increasing slide into the abyss. Some days I don't see how as a nation we will ever recover. It seems so many Americans either support this horrendous moral decay or they are completely oblivious to it and pay little if any attention to it. Leaders of all stripes have ignored Trump's evil I (we) assume because they see him as being able to bring about something they want. How could a nation of the best and the brightest become a bunch of apathetic enablers? Keep writing Mr. Egan your voice and others with a similar viewpoint must be heard and must penitrate and counter the scourge of EVIL proliferated by Trump and his cruel and amoral minions .
2
That pretty much sums it up. The only reason more of that evil has not permeated into the world is because people have been working to prevent Trump from doing the worst. It's crazy how Trump's base, evangelical Christians, who are so obsessed with a Manichean good versus evil worldview, have not been able to identify the devil they know so intimately. It is almost a perfect storm: after decades of growing conservative corruption, the party and its infrastructure have become so weak as to support Trump. The constant drip of evil has inured us to its horrible flood.
1
I don't know if I would call Trump evil, just amoral and narcissistic. The evil is done by those in the Republican party that should know better, or do know better but let it happen. For Republicans to cede all control to a man that has zero integrity or morality is insanity, and shows their failure to grasp how dangerous this man is. He could care less about Republicans or their values, as the only thing that matters to Trump is Trump. The entire reason we exist as a nation, in the form that we have, was to remove ourselves from rulers like Trump. The sooner he is removed the better for America and the world.
4
So spot on it hurts....and frightens.
2
Many of us, progressives and never-Trumpers alike, have spoken out and actively resisted 45 from the beginning. Lately, even the mainstream media has begun to admit how corrupt this administration is. Being his accomplice has lost its lustre. It's become inescapable that Donald Trump was impeached for cause.
It's a lot like catching a case of athlete's foot. Don't laugh - the similarities between Donald Trump and athlete's foot are glaringly obvious if you look! Neither Trump nor athlete's foot represent who we truly are, and you won't be rid of either one if you just quietly tolerate them and wait it out.
Get involved! Contact your Senator(s) and tell them you're following the impeachment trial and that you expect them follow their oaths as jurors in good faith. Hold them accountable. Let them know that this November, you will be registered and ready to VOTE!!
1
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. And women. Now.
3
I have long believed that good has to be done one act at a time every hour of everyday but that evil just spreads its tentacles effortlessly throughout the populace. Trump walked into the White House with evil oozing from his very skin and it has spread to all who come in close contact. Evil attracts evil like a super charged magnet, hence Barr, Pompeo, McConnell, Mulvaney, Bannon, Kushner, and the rest of the sludge.
Good has to be done one act at a time, followed by another and another. I am afraid that is just the way it is.
3
Ok article I guess but Trump didn't accidentaly stumble into the presidency knowing the names of all the unqualified appointees and judges he tapped to destroy our institutions. Those were provided to him gift wrapped weeks before he even took office. Remember the shock at the beginning, that nauseating feeling of "where did all this filth come from so suddenly"? Isn't it time we focused on who did the wrapping?
Let this phony trial be a referendum on the 53 Senators who have propped him up. Let's see 53 pieces of investigating journalism, two each week, on what kind of money feathers their pockets, the dirt they have on their hands, specifically. Let's put real faces on this evil. Then let's get to voting.
1
It is sad and disheartening to realize that around 40% of our country's population are the kind of people who see nothing wrong with the behavior of Trump, and indeed, support and imitate that behavior with fervor.
We are not quite yet a country with a majority of ignorant, hate-filled bigots, laughing at crude obscenities, lies, and character slurs at Trump rallies. But it looks like we're getting there...
2
Trump asks: What is the Geneva Convention? What is Pearl Harbor? Who is Frederick Douglas?
He doesn't know. He is ignorance incarnate. The Republican "leaders" and so-called Christian leaders who enable this evil court jester to reign are far more culpable than he if this brief, barely 200-year chapter of American democracy comes to an end.
7
Good people do good things;
And bad people do bad things;
However all that’s necessary to get good people to do bad things —
Is religion.
Trump has managed to successfully demagogue the GOP Christian community.
No longer are GOP Christians required to follow the “Golden Rule.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves” is now the de Jure GOP Christian slogan.
1
Trump Derangement Syndrome at its worst....
On policy, Trump is well within the political norm for presidents, and not even on the very far right side of the spectrum. He lowered taxes, cut regulations, enforced immigration laws, and appointed conservative judges, while taking a very pro-labor tack on trade, avoiding foreign wars, and making no cuts to social welfare benefits.
Trump is a self-centered blowhard who loves to provoke hysteria from the political left. So he goads his political enemies, but ... and this is important ... he does not repress, silence, or seek to intimidate them. He doesn't spy on his political opponents or use the taxing power to deny exempt status to political groups unaligned with him. This is not a corrupt administration by any standards.
And Trump certainly falls short of every leader I would actually call evil. Where are are the murders, the crackdowns, the repressions?
This column is a joke.
1
Trump is no anomaly but rather the epitome of the Republican rot that has been ongoing since Saint Reagan, who started this mess, and who is a strong contender for the worst president of the 20th century, his genial affability masking a personal viciousness that can only really be seen in his last movie, The Killers. (That, my friends, is the REAL Reagan!); and the appalling Newt Gingrich, a truly evil fiend and consummate hypocrite whose debasement of our political rhetoric we have yet to recover from. Republicans, a criminal organization masquerading as a political party, have been poisoning and corroding our political institutions for forty years, since they launched a systematic attack on the middle class, the Democratic Party and our republic's basic institutions in the 1980's. They have adopted the ends justifies the means ethos of the Bolsheviks they once so vehemently opposed: any lie, any slander, any action however amoral is fine as long as it furthers the cause. And the cause is to establish a conservative autocracy where plutocrats run the world while the "people" are manipulated, pacified by drugs and media, and exploited by corporations while maintaining the illusion of democratic agency. Seeing Trump as the problem only obscures the real problem: the Republican Criminal Organization. Trump is but the symptom: Republicans are the DISEASE.
1
Every time I see a photo of Trump like the one accompanying this opinion piece I can't help but be reminded of Mussolini. I keep wondering why the resemblance is so similar. Is there something about the Trumps and Mussolinis of the world that makes them appear so similar?
"the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing.".....Or put another way, for Senators to ignore their oath to defend the Constitution and determine there vote should be based on what they perceive is most likely to get them reelectd.
1
Weimar, Germany v2.0
'Nuff said.
Amorality personified, aided by willing sycophants and disciples willing to sell their souls.
6
Just look at todays announcement of who will be arguing in favor of Trump at his impeachment hearing. Alan Dershowitz (pal of Jeffrey Epstein), Ken Starr who spend's years trying to conjure up reasons to impeach Clinton and the former AG of Florida, Pam Bondi, of hanging chads fame and who took a large donation from Trump when he had potential fraud accusations pending in Florida!
3
It was well known what kind of man Donald Trump is, there was nothing in his character, his education his business experience, nothing that qualified him for the job to be the president of an advanced wealthy and powerful nation. How did it happen, he did not even win the majority of the popular vote?
7
Timothy Egan is right about one thing. Donald Trump provides us with a new low in the behavior of politicians. As the excellent book "Fear" by Bob Woodward points out, even Trump's old cabinet regarded him as incompetent. That cabinet has been replaced by sycophants who at least pretend to believe in what their master says.
But liberals seem unaware of their own contribution to the rise of Trump.
What liberals did, particularly in the universities, was destroy freedom of speech. The paradigm arose that even talking about population growth was tantamount to racism. Forget for now how this prevents any effective fight against global warming.
The trope that all political problems are at their foundation racism in one or another form has prevented Americans from having a rational discussion regarding illegal immigration.
We need such a discussion, which avoids the extreme in which immigrants suffer unnecessary hardship, while at the same time we prevent immigration from destroying the safety net for our own poor.
Why can liberals not countenance a discussion of numbers? The fact that Guatemala's population has quadrupled since 1960? That population growth makes the solution of poverty in the third world through immigration into the US untenable? That resources are limited?
Without such a debate any successes of liberalism will be short-lived. An opening of the borders will ultimately lead to a resurgence in Trumpism, and the destruction of democracy.
1
@Blaise Descartes The problem is that everything you said about "what liberals did" is a lie spread by right wing media. Period. End of story.
4
The key here is the vital role played in American political culture by democracy. When we have a despot, we have no democracy; when this nation is subjected to the awful whims of Mr. Trump's mental and emotional instability--we have no democracy; when the Congress of the United States does not come to its collective sensibility and stop serious and damaging divisiveness, we have no democracy.
And why do we not have democracy anymore? Because we've allowed money, power and greed to corrupt our system of electoral politics. We've had forced upon us a political force we, as "the people," can't compete with in the determination of who runs for office in the first place: the huge amounts of campaign finance dollars that legally has become a primary factor in who we can vote for.
That's how we end up with the Donald Trumps of the world residing in places of power where they are incapable of governing in any moral way.
With this new election, let's keep front and center in our choice those candidates who have refused to be bought and sold. With freedom from corrupted campaigns we won't have to bear the tragic horrors of a presidency as described by Mr. Egan.
1
@Cate
Trump spent less than almost every other candidate in 2016. To the great chagrin of many people, myself included, his support was very organic, not driven by money from big business or any special interest groups. Like him or not, his election was about as democratic as it gets.
What is literally undemocratic is the effort by the Left to force him from office through the impeachment process rather than take their case to the people again in November.
One thing that is stated daily is the 42% who bow down to Trump. What about the 58% who abhor him? Also, I don't understand how all of us voting democrat will elect a new president. Besides the message to vote, is always the complaint that Trump did not win the popular vote. I don't get it.
1
Evil is as evil does. Therefore, there are no good people who facilitate in the smallest way the monstrosity that is trump's evil against the United States of America. Furthermore, I think the good people in politics and in the public have been trying mightily for three years to not "do nothing" to mitigate trump's corrosive effects on the government and its institutions. The culmination of that effort is the impeachment that has been delivered to the Senate. I hear Chief Justice Roberts is a smart, dignified man who cares deeply about our democratic institutions. Come Tuesday, he will be in a position to show if he is that man. When a Democratic Senator requests a subpoena for a key witness, Roberts can voice his assent to that request before Senator Mitch McConnell orders a floor vote. Showing where the Chief Justice stands on each and every requested subpoena will be an important stimulant for the morally-dormant Republican Senators before they vote on whether or not the witness should appear. If Chief Justice merely punts it to McConnell without comment, he will be guilty of "doing nothing" when he could have done something to make a real trial of it. It will be interesting to see how he presides. I hope he knows the moment because it feels like the last chance for the good guys.
7
This is genuine question because I do not understand the statistics.
40% is Trump's base support.
How is the 60% broken down?
If 60% or close went out and voted for one Democrat for President would this overturn the swing states re electoral college margins?
How would splitting the ticket affect the ratios?
If a Democracy cannot end tyranny by the Vote, what else is there?
Please reply.
2
@Florence Neoliberalism policies allowed the rise of corporate oligarchy and now 40% of the U.S. are struggling to survive, including some of Trump's base. Trump's base are the racists, the Christian evangelicals, and the greedy, which I think is around 30% of the voting population. If Democrats can convince enough of the poor and forgotten who are not part of Trump's base that they will genuinely work to make thing better, we can beat Trump. Promising more of the same, ala the Clintons, Obama, Biden etc. will give Trump the 2020 victory.
1
There is a new "Axis of Evil".
Trump violates national and international laws.
Netanyahu violates national and international laws.
Trump and Netanyahu violate the UN Charter.
The Saudi MBS is widely condemned for murder.
The new "Axis of Evil" is Trump-Netanyahu-MBS.
What a sad state of affairs!
14
This ruse has been taking place a long time, highlighted by the Hollywood Republican puppet, Ronald Reagan, then dim Bush the younger, and now the greatest con of all time, Donald Trump. The Republican Party brought in these frontal male characters to achieve power, money, and control. In the process they have indirectly become agents and assets of Putin, the mafia and Russia...a new political party built on lies, control, and unending wars.
Yes! We are no better than Germany. This is the final test for the Republicans. Will the Senate support impeachment or give up their souls for their position, money and power? Or, will they support the Constitution and make the changes necessary to make this nation great once again with universal healthcare, education, and a prosperous Middle Class?
11
Those who are Forever Trumpers like to refer to anyone who might even breathe criticism of their revered leader as "Trump haters". They throw out this name as if those critics hate Mr. Trump just out of vindictiveness for losing the election three years ago. How so very petty of them. I hate this president for more reasons I can count -- each reason is based on observed behavior, unfiltered by media influence. He is indeed evil because his motivation for any action he has taken is based on creating fear, hatred and vindictiveness. He governs from us versus them rather than finding consensus. He reduces critical thinking analysis of an opponent's actions or policy to juvenile name calling. It infuriates me that those Trump supporters are so deaf and blind to the destructiveness of his actions. Why they choose to be so blind to Trump's evil wiil ultimately be the moral legacy they will pass on to their children, their grandchildren. Evangelicals Christians like to pardon Trump's behavior by saying he will have to stand before his God and account for his actions. I would guess then that those oh so pious men and women will also have to stand before their God and explain why they supported such a depraved man. I wonder what they will say.
15
The Vietnam war draft dodger and the castrated Republican Party promote racial and ethnic divisiveness, encourage xenophobic anti immigrant fearmongering, applaud LGBTQ vilification, attack different religious faiths, and stoke racial internecine. These are the permanent hallmarks of the party of Lincoln. Characteristics of decency, fairness, compassion, and tolerance are replaced with suspicion, paranoia, scapegoating, racism, and condemning egalitarianism. Taking cues from the 1968 Southern Strategy of Richard M. Nixon to defuse the otherwise volatile rise of George C. Wallace's race baiting, law and order, anti big government campaign, the draft dodger is right at home spewing hatred and violence, relishing the enthusiastic ardor of the MAWA minions at the circus rallies. The Republicans in both the House and the Senate (yes, even Susan Collins and Cory Gardner) effuse to step out of line for fear of suffering a primary challenge and being cut off from the Citizens united ever ceasing flow of campaign financing, the 'dark money.' No GOP senator comes close to the courage and the bravery shown by Senators Wayne Morse and Ernest Greuning when they alone defied Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by voting no. They knew the political backlash would be unleashed, and for the sake of America, they spoke power to truth. And they were proved right. Republicans must step up and show guts. Call witnesses.
9
Republican Senators are in the pay of the 10%. They believe that wealth is their crown - that they deserve it. That wealth should be sequestered and "preserved".
That's part of the evil.
“Do not, as my party did, underestimate the evil, desperate nature of evil, desperate people,” writes Rick Wilson, the Republican operative and witty Never-Trumper, in “Running Against the Devil,” his new book.
“There is no bottom. There is no shame. There are no limits.”
5
if ANYONE has suggestion on how to REMOVE the orange stain I'm all ears. I don't have extra money to donate. I live in a city that hates him already so much so he moved.
He will say look stocks are higher than ever, look at the unemployment rate look at all the terrorists I've had killed for me. Look I've got a big fence someplace. I mean he breaks the law, he steals from charities, he cheats on his taxes, at golf and on his wives in order of importance.
What more can I do but say NO? I pray God returns decency and morals to this country soon.
6
As a member of the hanicapped community, Mr. Trump should have been disqualified from the presidency after mocking the reporter (who was disabled) at one of his "energize the base" rallies!
13
Trump is only a symptom, the disease is the rot within the U.S. political system, special interest groups, citizens united, money the NRA. I hereby announce that I have given up. I will no longer vote. Unless you are a super PAC or a billionaire to finance your campaign, your votes is useless. See the rules of the electoral college.
4
@Mark F You are correct, but please still vote. Even in the face of certain doom, the mere act of resistance is an expression of freedom.
4
@ Mark F: So in your world you just lie down and let the tanks roll over you? Please vote, Mark. Every vote counts regardless of your current pessimism. Hoping you’ll be feeling stronger soon.
2
@Mark F: I can well understand your feelings and the reasons for your announcement of having given up. BUT--because of all of the reasons you want to give up, those are very reasons that you must not. You, and the obvious fact of your caring so deeply about this country is exactly why we all need to vote. Please, Mark F--rethink your position; don't give up your precious vote!
2
Timothy, I agree completely but how exactly does the ordinary citizen fight this evil? It’s fairly useless to write to our representatives. One is either preaching to the choir or it absolutely falls on deaf ears - Republicans CLEARLY are not serving the people. Try reaching McConnell’s office - no way will anyone be able to speak directly with his aides. Voting is the only way but with gerrymandering and voter suppression, coupled with the useless Electoral College, the cheating republicans win anyway. I an not at all apathetic, I am FATIGUED. And sickened and disgusted at this administration. I just don’t know what to do to make any difference. Trump is beyond disgusting. IMO, he should be charged with TREASON.
7
@Kan How do we fight this evil? We never stop fighting back!
@Kan How do we fight this evil? We never stop fighting back! We are at a critical juncture in modern history. We are in a worse position than the liberal democrats in 1930s Germany. They had the Communists fighting the National Socialists in the streets. Thanks to the corporate oligarchy brainwashing the American public we do not have that. So, the burden falls upon us. Now is the time for deep reflection. We must be stronger than we ever thought we could be. WE MUST! There is no other option.
1
All the conversation brings to memory the narrative of "lord of the flies"
We are at a cross roads, which road will we take, as a country?
“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.”.........Yoda.
We need to be marching in the streets!
9
If "good" people do nothing in the face of evil, can they be considered to be "good" people? An what happens when supposedly "good" [old] people (GOP) decide to protect evil?
3
What happens when good people substitute knitting pink hats for doing something?
1
@Blair: With respect, I believe people who knit pink hats are also quite capable of doing a number of other things in addition to knitting--maybe even WHILE knitting!
4
The Republican senators who enable the con man in the Whitehouse are not smaller evils. In fact, they're worse.
5
How do we fight?
2
Dear @Greg Stewart:
1) We run for office;
2) we involve ourselves with people and causes that we believe in;
3) we get out in the streets to demonstrate for what we care about when it's sunny, and when it snows or rains;
4) we busily support in every way we can what we value;
5) we vote in every election there is to vote in.
6) we smile at other people a lot.
2
Great question! 1) V-O-T-E. 2) Volunteer for and donate to candidates who understand how dire this situation is. 3) Write and call 6our elected representatives and tell them we, the People, won’t stand for this corruption.
4
Maybe Martin Luther King Day is the day we should all stand up against this Evil. Out in the street together.
5
@Kathryn: Yes! I grew up during the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. I remember the marches, the sit-ins, the numbers in the streets, etc. How I wish for those days now .... when we would en masse march against Trump! In other countries people spill into streets for causes of justice. This is what we need to do!
1
No offense to Americans but Trump has really made Canadians proud to be Canadian.
9
@richard addleman No offense taken. You should be proud.
1
Sure, there are many unintelligent and uneducated voters, but virtually ALL of us knew perfectly clearly, on election day 2016, that Trump was an inveterate liar, fraud, con man, cheater, narcissist, and ignoramus. And worse. We knew it then.
And, yet, the country voted him in (albeit as a product of our Electoral College system). 63 million people voted for someone they then KNEW had the total absence of any honor, character, integrity, principles, or the most basic fitness for the office.
I think Trump should be convicted and removed. However, there is something rather unfair about it: America knowingly, intentionally elected a two-bit crook and then, when he acted in a crooked manner, we impeached him.
The Republicans intentionally voted in a criminal regime. They still actively and nearly-universally support this crime family administration, and they do so knowingly. This is the government they want, since by protecting it they can so easily keep power, divide the middle and lower classes against each other, and obtain riches (and share those riches with their benefactors).
Are we an oligarchy? No, we're beyond that. We're the lowest form of bread-and circuses kleptocracy, and a state-sponsored criminal network. If you're a Republican, you are part of this criminal organization. You're a soldier in this fetid swamp of an administration, and you participate in full awareness of the evil. And, you put it in power essentially without concealment or misrepresentation.
9
Timothy Egan’s vitriolic rant is but another sad example of hyperbole if not hatred, which can only be mitigated by medication as the ideology is entrenched. No Persian shrines or relics were targeted or destroyed nor considered aside from the purposeful bombast for which it served. Navy Seal Edward Gallagher, now exonerated, Timothy Egan knows nothing about? Caged illegal border crossers is also a farse as are the other urban legends that riddle this column.
Evil is in the eye of the beholder and to toss that around with intent to destroy is one and the same.
2
@Grant Fox News?
1
So much righteous indignation every day about what Trump has said lately, or any Republican said today (like Senator McSally), but crickets when Nancy Pelosi says Mitch McConnell is a Putin stooge, or omnipresent Adam Schiff connects every Republican to war crimes. The hypocrisy is breathtaking, and it is why when Trump swipes back- because no one, and in particular, the MSM will- conservatives feel as if he is fighting for us as well. . And that he has effectively and truthfully labeled the press as ‘fake’ obviously drives you all crazy, because you show us so. Every single day.
1
America is the abused wife under this president and his supporters. Though I despise the man and have no respect for those who continue to support him I'm tired. Tired of being beaten up with lies and watching him break so many laws that it almost appears he's the victim. Is it possible that he is that evil or are we just imagining it? Did he really break all those laws or is it all fabricated by the 'do nothing Democrats?' Fortunately I know the truth because I stay informed but so so many abused Americans are confused and I fear many will vote for an illusion like they did in 2016. He's a really really good liar just like the abusive husband.
4
it's fascinating how the Republican defense offers no legitimate alternative interpretation for Trump's behavior. It boils down to "We'll bring out your potentially dirty laundry if you don't let us obfuscate our obviously dirty laundry". It is devoid of moral fabric. And it is now 2020 and its time for these immoral jokers to go!
It's alarming how the stench and taint of Trump has affected the GOP and his cult followers. This year America will decide if it has a glimmer of a future or not.
If this guy gets elected again, America gets everything it deserves. And, I'll become an expat myself. I'm done with this hateful nation and its warmongers.
3
Thank you Mr. Eagan for using blunt language to describe Trump and his actions.
That honesty is desperately needed by the country if the this venal, vile man is to be stopped from destroying our republic.
3
We live in a nation now in which the thin veneer of promised equality, liberty and justice for all has been snatched away, not only by trump, (He is a symptom -an opportunist). The man is truly evil.We have seen his ignorant rants at endless MAGA rallies, his dumb tweets, his 15,000 lies, and his hate. The issue is that a sizable portion of our nation does not perceive this president as evil - because he has money, a tacky gold plated everything and he speaks in crude language about people they dislike.They do not care that this president is evil. He pumps up his base and makes them feel justified in their numerous dissatisfactions and resentments. He gives them “others” to blame and some hope that the future will look something like the past, a nation in which everyone knew their place. Add to this the obvious fact that the politicians in trump’s camp have dispensed with any idea of commitment to basic decency, fairness, honesty or “the good of the country.” Their gods are the acquisition of money and retention of power by wealthy White men - in perpetuity. (Look at the overall complexions of the GOP and the Democrats). Trump’s political allies, have learned to win votes from people who live in fear who harbor resentment, disillusion, and blame. Such folks, especially if they have learned to resent education, are easily gaslit, fed propaganda on Fox tv. Trump (though ignorant himself) has bragged,”I love the poorly educated!” So here we are.
3
Yes Trump is evil. Truly. That in itself is not a surprise. With shocking to me is just see how Much latent evil There is inside Americans (and people in general I guess). I always believed that people are inherently good and evil was rare. But if nearly half this country back’s Trump even with all of his behaviors, and lies, and I hate that is blatantly spoken, It’s clear to me that I was far too positive.
The real Legacy of Donald Trump is the exposure how much evil there is even in the United States. Despite all of our lofty goals and so many wonderful things we have achieved, here we are in 20 20 1/2 the country still feels they can support lying, hatred, racism, misogyny, bullying, warmongering, and general incompetence… And this from a supposed leader!
5
Trump never had a real, well-rounded education. It makes his expensive private education look really bad. Nothing about the humanities, art, and literature, there is only a black hole.
3
I understood that trump is evil when he publicly mocked a reporter with a physical disability. I understood how contagious his evil is when my relatives whose son has cerebral palsy voted for this vile man and continue to staunchly support him.
9
It is the smile that gives it away
3
Could we first try to get to trump as he grossly insulted and injured women in that debate in 2016 when he said of Megan Kelly "there was blood coming out her eyes, and her wherever..."
The time has come for 'good people' to stand up and demand trump stop the multiple terrible verbal ejaculations he proclaims daily: the fake news, the witch hunt, the hoax. The impotency of it all is truly disgusting.
3
Aren't good and evil vestiges of religion? Isn't morality relative? I've been taught these things my entire life. I guess that falls apart when you have our own morality system now that you wish to impose on others.
Evil now is defined by 'you disagree with me politically.' We know how that has worked out in other nations in the past. Just check the lobby for your Pulitzer Prizes to see how this works.
A tiny point of light: Preet Bharara's open letter to Rep. Doug Collins of Georgia on CNN after Collins said Democrats supported terrorists and were mourning the death of Soleimani. Although it was weak, Collins apologized.
Trump is Elmer Gantry on steroids and those "thousand points of evil" Egan speaks of have consumed every drop of his snake oil.
3
It’s a cosseted man’s luxury to blithely toss around such loaded words as good and evil. Will you be there to man the pitchforks? Because that’s what this kind of moralizing rhetoric leads to. Be careful what you wish for.
@Thomas We are nearly there. Yes, I will be manning a pitchfork.
2
Evil is exhausting for those practicing and consuming. But this one self-sustains. Why? Because jet fuel is pumped into the "good" peoples' minds prime-time, nightly by the ad-dollar propaganda machine.
1
The Governor of Texas should rethink his position. History teaches us, that the disabled, whether citizens or not, were the first to be gassed.
7
Excellent. Before George Conway publishes another op-ed piece here, I need an acknowledgement that he read this column.
2
Dwight Gardner, reviewing “A Stable Genius” in today’s NYT: “It’s as if the president, as patient zero, had bitten an aide and slowly, bite by bite, an entire nation had lost its wits and its compass.”
Of course the contagion analogy has to include the Republican Party, racism and the conservative ideologies as the breeding ground for germs and carriers.
1
When "good" people do nothing.
Fixed.
Tough talking indeed. With all due respect this is (one) American perspective. From where I sit in the UK, the USA has lost all credibility with this president (small p). He has done immense damage to you.
6
My wife has become so distressed by the current situation in politics, governance, environment, and the general disintegration of civil discourse that she is nauseated to the point of vomiting. Trump is counting on this phenomenon, I suspect, in hope that millions will stop paying attention simply in order to avoid the physical response to his, and his allies, grotesque behavior. How long, Oh Lord, how long?
7
“Good people”? As in, “good people on both sides”? Fake assumption!
1
Evil is a bad word. Trump is an evil person.
Aspirational must be the word we treasure, speak, and dream of in 2020.
We must aspire to do the good that must be done.
Climate change must be faced up to by this nation.
Women must be free to choose whether they want to have a baby, or not.
Communities must reclaim safety as a norm, and reign in gun violence.
Teachers must teach, and not have to be truant officers, psychologists, and social workers as well.
All workers must be given opportunities to share in the wealth they generate.
Religious leaders and followers must speak and live the words of Christ "What so-ever you do to the least amongst you, you do to me."
Every individual must be free to love whom they want.
We must understand the the planet has an over population problem, not an immigration problem.
The citizens of these United States of America must understand, and act on, that the dangers to our Republic, and to our world, under the evil and corruption that is Donald Trump, are fierce.
Supporting Trump is ignorant. His countless times of behaving in an illegal manner, in a bullying manner, in a style which craves attention while belittling everything and everyone, are known to everyone.
Too few have shown the decency (it doesn't take courage to be decent) too tell him to shut up, pack up, and go away.
His words and actions of evil serve hatred and fear. We are a nation in flux. You, and you alone, must decide:
Do I support a man that is evil?
3
Thank you, Mr. Egan, for helping to keep the last vestiges of decency alive in this country. My heart has been heavy for too long now and I needed someone who could eloquently make the case to call out evil and resist it. The shame I feel about our country right now is unbearable. Perhaps your article will help us turn the corner so that we can feel proud to be Americans once again.
8
As a secular liberal I don’t believe in evil. I think that human behavior can be better explained and understood in the context of psychology and neurobiology. History is filled with examples of so called decent people doing terrible things. When Trump said he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote (which frankly stunned me that he understood that so early in his campaign) he was correct. But it had little to do with his politics, personality or lack of morality. America never had much to fear from communism. It’s fascism we should fear. Trump has become an avatar who speaks for the oppressed, those who have no voice, at least in their minds. Yes, it had much to do with much of the country left behind by de-industrialization but even more so a profound sense of resentment and visceral hatred for elite, woke, entitled liberals with their political correctness. I’m not suggesting that the enmity is well deserved, certainly not in its intensity, but the problem becomes much harder to solve when understood simply as evil especially when I’m afraid that things are going to get far, far worse.
3
Well put Timothy. As always. Fewer words that say more.
Amy McGrath has said problems in Congress concerning this President will remain (paraphrase) until Mc Connell is out. She's right. He will continue to enable Drumpf, convincing the other Republicans to follow his lead, and this nightmare won't end. Imagine four more years of those two? Is this the new normal?
11
Everything in this column is true. However, it is a rehashing of things that have been said over and over and over, ad nauseam. There are millions of us who see Trump's evil and act against it every day. It is a fiction to claim that we are sleeping, or in denial. We are NOT in denial. Until the focus shifts from Trump's malevolence—so bright and shiny, so like a black hole sucking in all it can, to leaders dynamically and loudly, and in UNISON proclaiming ways to reaffirm all that is good, all that works and can work better in America, this nightmare will continue. Pelosi and her team are working to shift the narrative, right now. Support for them is critical. A shift in focus will energize a movement against Trump and all he stands for. Democrats and the Left generally are unwilling to take responsibility for how their own squabbling and disorganization compound the destruction that is so thrilling to Trump and his (other) enablers. Focusing on his malevolence is another strategy for avoiding the risk inherent in true leadership.
223
Joanne-Thanks for saying we (who don’t like Trump) are not sleeping or in denial. People/voters in our USA are waiting for the election to hopefully get rid of Trump as impeachment probably won’t. If Impeachment should make Pence president, conditions would not be much better, so I hope we’re spared his leadership. If Trump is re-elected, despair will really become apparent. We should be grateful to Pelosi and others working for a change. We need to VOTE and encourage all to vote. We certainly don’t need a leftist, progressive leader; we need a stable, pragmatic, wise leader such as Klobuchar, Stacy Abrams, John Kasich or such in my opinion.
8
@Joanne I think who he is talking about are the Republicans in particular, not the majority of us who have opposed Trump from the start. But he's saying, even Republicans should start turning away from him by now.
7
Notice the references by Donald Trump to the stock market and jobs, as a form of defense in his impeachment. The question we must ask ourselves us...are we willing to give up our liberties and freedoms for the promise of prosperity and security? Because that is exactly what us being sold to us.
10
@Steve Our Nation is in thrall to wealth - that is what Con Man Don is selling.
2
"On any given day, Trump is vindictive, ignorant, narcissistic, a fraud"
And all at once! America's many built in prejudices, some centuries old now, have manifested themselves with a demagogue president and his complete defense team of the GOP party, many of which said they did not want him to begin with. Now they care only about their offices, power, and political/religious agenda and we will all pay the price.
America is not so great after all it seems.
348
It would be threapuetic in any discussion of evil in America to at least mention the nation's long, cruel and shameful history of slavery and Jim Crow laws.
My third grade teacher, Mrs. Hunter, was black. It was 1958 and, of course, at that time my teacher would have been barred from restaurants in the South. Almost all of the students at Pacoima Elementary, my school, were black or Latino.
Mrs. Hunter and several other black teachers were assigned to Pacoima.
Many years later I encountered Mrs. Hunter and we talked about our school.
She revealed that she was assigned to Pacoima to teach black children and teaching at a white school was out of the question. The same was true for Pacoima's other black teachers.
Mrs. Hunter was not bitter but rather pragmatic, noting that her choices were to teach black kids or teach no one.
Imagine the collective evil required to keep millions of people enslaved for 200 years and then subject them to crushing Jim Crow laws for decade after decade.
White America for the most part accepted this evil as just the way things were.
5
Trump is going to be acquitted by the Senate and has a very good chance of being re-elected president, which makes me wonder precisely which “good people” you’re counting on.
3
When truth doesn't matter at the highest levels of government, our societies are in deep trouble.
11
I would add George W. Bush to the list of supposedly “good” people saying nothing. I understand former presidents are reluctant to criticize a current president but any time Trump does something truly egregious, it’s always left to the Obamas to do counter programming on Twitter. From George Bush, crickets.
The only action I’ve read about on Bush’s part was to lobby Trump’s people on behalf of Brett Kavanaugh after Blasey Ford’s allegations came to light. THAT’s what he chose to take a stand on???
2
Evil begets fear. To challenge an evil person requires courage and daring and commitment. It is nearly an impossible task taken on by only a few - those often willing to lose their own souls and lives to defeat the daunting evil doer. An organized democratic government provides the necessary weapons to bring down a person who is evil. Can those in government who are charged with that task overcome their personal fears and bias and conquer the aggressor? In these times it no longer seems possible to do nothing.
4
there is a sad reality that 'good people' must confront as they stand frightened and perplexed by the evil that trump and his minions have done, are doing today, and will do tomorrow. it is this: there is going to be a fight and you have to be in it to win it. no holds are barred. no rules. if you stand on the side and worry about fairness or allow fear of becoming just like the 'enemy', you will lose.
trump has to go. it doesn't matter how.
7
Thanks for stating the state of the Trump presidency as it is - evil. People have been too afraid to say that.
6
Totally agree with this opinion. I wish he had not started the article with "handmaid" somehow doesn't seem to describe all those males in the Republican Congress.
1
More to the point, Trump's mental illness is infectious. As explained by the psychiatrists in "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," the personality disorder of paranoia, narcissism, and pathological lying are the con artist whose gift is grandiosity selling deception to his followers. As my chaplain experience at a forensic mental health prison taught me, prison guards hated to see Trump's type arrive, because they create schemes that induce fellow inmates. At least, there, it was held in check. The tragedy is that political rivalry and blindness from his skills to con people have prevented too many from seeing a major mental health crisis in the oval office and the havoc it has led to in America. The Senate impeachment trial and the blind loyalty of GOP Senators to Trump is a case and point of hollowed out men infected with schemes and lies.
6
Every word from Mr. Egan is true.
Yet most US Senators are backing the evil.
Do the American people not see a problem that is an imminent threat to their country?
7
Hear hear! We are facing evil in the world. The question is: how do everyday people fight it?
4
If Republicans were to stand up to Trump and if he threatened to take Pence down with him the Republicans would be serving under President Nancy Pelosi. It’s hard to imagine any Republican senators being that strong/good.
5
There have been three inflection points of Evil in the Republican party prior to Trump. First Nixon: which included the "Southern Strategy" and Watergate (willingness to cheat to win an election) Second Reagan: Declaring that the government is the problem which set the stage for "Starving the beast" except for military and Third: McConnell: Declaring on day one that his #1 goal was to make Obama a one term president and blocking the Garland nomination. These inflection points leading to the Trump cesspool of evil has three principles and strategies: Power by any means, starve all investment in people, the world and the future, and last create fear & divide us through hate, racism and xenophobia.
6
I don't want to argue with any of this, but I want to point out that it's not as if Trump came along and introduced evil to a noble and dignified political party... The GOP was the party of Nixon and Reagan and Cheney and Bush, Rush Limbaugh and Alec Jones, paranoid armed militias... the reality is, they ended up picking Trump because he fit right in.
9
Agreed and a very salient point here. Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Sure, he is in a position to exacerbate the evil, but it already existed long before he showed up. As a 67 year old child of the 60s, I’ve been watching politics for a long time and the slide of the Republican party into the abyss began with Nixon and it’s been sliding ever since. My family were Eisenhower Republicans for a long time and every one of them abandoned the party after Watergate. I recall my great uncle saying at the time that it was just the beginning. He was very presciently aware that once you go over to the dark side, you rarely come back and so it’s been with the Republicans ever since. They remind me of little kids who are always pushing at the boundaries to see how far they can go before somebody reels them in. Well, nobody has reeled them in and here we are.
6
“Do not come to this fight believing that the Trump team views any action, including outright criminality, as off limits ...” Unfortunately over 40% of the electorate and close to 60% of the white electorate endorse the evil of their chosen leader. That makes them at least as evil as Trump. Many are even worse. This is not new. The percentage of white people with such priorities has probably not changed much in 50 years and may be less bad now than then. The difference is that the willfully ignorant are now in charge. The evil masses of (mostly white) people have put their populist hero at the helm. The filter that once protected us from populists has sprung a leak that will be nearly impossible to repair. The only hope is a massive effort to crash the barriers that Republicans have erected to prevent likely Democrats from voting.
2
This is exactly what has been troubling me for some time. How do otherwise good people not only accept such evil behavior, but then proceed to emulate it? I think Mr. Egan has identified the disease, "Trump Contagion".
If you spend too long near the source (Trump) or the propaganda horn (Fox), you can be infected. Once infected, your morality is quickly destroyed.
4
And Mr. Egan, how DO we fight it? Are you suggesting blood in the streets? Why don’t we start by getting people to care enough to VOTE!
2
Whenever I hear someone say "I don't like the guy, but the stock market is great," I think of Harry Bellafonte's song "Darlin' Cora", where he sings,"I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollowed out log than hang around in this old town and be treated like a dirty dog."
7
Unfortunately, Trump has allowed the true face of the Republican party to be revealed and thus millions of Americans who vote GOP either for their greed, xenophobia, racist bias, or just hatred of the educated and different. The mask is off and people like McConnell and Graham will be re-elected because so many Americans are in this same sick and twisted mindset. Many Republicans would welcome and love an autocratic/theocratic US government as long as it's run by Republicans. The Republican party in the US is only slightly different from Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and North Korean counterparts and rulers, but they are kindred spirits.
4
"The smaller evils are the Republican senators who know the president violated his oath and deserves to be impeached, but don’t have the guts to say so."
No, those are actually the greater evils.
Trump would be powerless if not for all his fawning minions carrying out his vulgarities.
5
On this particular weekend, remembering King: "Evil only succeeds when good people do nothing" - M. L. King, Jr.
4
Another excellent op-ed, Mr. Egan. And you didn’t even talk about the dozens of truly terrible people Trump has recruited to his administration. But, it’s seems even worse than you suggest because the New York Times and Washington Post—among other outlets—have been printing similar op-eds for three years. And it all seems to have little or no effect on the “when good people do nothing” issue.
It’s incomprehensible that Trump’s approval rating does not budge, or than so many people for whom I used to have a measure of respect have sold out for their pocketbooks and/or re-election. What is clear is that America is not what I thought it was and, more importantly—and sadly—it is not what out forebearers cracked it up to be.
Nevertheless, I try to cheer myself with memories of the testimony of people like Marie Yovanovitch, William Taylor, Fiona Hill, Alexander Vindman, George Kent—to name a few—who showed us what “honor, duty, country” means. In the next few weeks we are going to find out if there are four or more Republican Senators who have the same or similar stuff. If so, America will struggle in the post-Trump period but it will survive and move on. If not, America will be a vastly different place for the foreseeable future—and a place where I will no longer want to be.
494
@Huge Grizzly On Trump's approval rating - see interesting article on 538 website. The standard question "Do you approve of Trump" is heard as "are you Republican or Democrat". But by comparing Trump to other Republican figures (the scale goes from Reagan to Palin) they found that Trump compares with Palin.
9
As a 70 year old Scotsman involved in local politics late in life in my new home in Spain I was surprised to see the USA elect Trump.
I was so surprised, and eager to try and understand better, that, despite the cost, I contributed to NY Times and Wapo and almost daily I review all (including right wing media) I can on the progress of US politics. I have to say I am more depressed than I have ever been in my life that the beacon of democratic principles which I had previously thought were safe in America is so under threat.
I hope, with all my heart, that the American people restore my faith in democracy. In the principles of serving for the benefit of all the people and eject him at the ballot box. It is apparent that the depths of corruption have so consumed all Republicans that the impeachment trial will be a sham! Please please America dispense with this charlatan for the good of the world. One way or another - but of course democratically.
790
@Jim Simpson Well stated! This country is in far more serious trouble than we realize...we let evil personified into the top governmental position.
41
@Jim Simpson I guess I never had that experience. By the time I was 10 years old I learned my country was napalming Vietnamese children and dropping atomic bombs on civilians. I never had any illusions about what America really stands for. Trump is no surprise to me.
29
Great piece. Yet the media (including great reporters at the NYT, WA Post, NPR, etc) continues to report on Trump and the GOP as if they were a normal president & political party. They are not.
Mainstream journalism's "both sidesism"--a norm that these journalists would wrongly call "objectivity"--means that they give equal coverage and legitimacy to "both sides", even when one "side" is knowingly communicating falsehoods. The media generally gives credibility to the GOP by failing to clearly describe its leaders' assertions as false, or by conflating insignifcant & significant matters.
Trump was, and is, a professional TV actor, a former "celebrity" who knew exactly how to manipulate the media into making him a celebrity. It's his actual genius.
One part of that genius, and now the GOP's strategy, is to use the media's "both sidesism" to create "false equivalencies" between Trump and his opponents, and the GOP and the Democratic Party. It was a successful way to demoralize potential Democratic voters in 2016, causing millions to stay home instead of voting--a sophisticated form of voter suppression. With the media's continued help, it's likely to work again in 2020.
He defined Hillary as "corrupt" by repeated lies about "her emails" & the Clinton Foundation. The media reported them, legitimizing the lies, & inflating their significance. He'll successfully do the same with his next opponent with the help of the media's "both sidesism". Can the media stop?
565
@Peck Excellent description of the problem which has plagued the US media and increasingly worsened since 2000. Report the facts. But make certain to refute the lies in a manner which does not involve repeating them to give them credence to the true believers and the gullible.
49
@Peck Trump is not the first to use "both sideism" to his advantage - he is no genius about it. The right wing has been using it for decades, particularly around climate science.
27
@Peck
As a long time reporter in Washington, DC, it is my view that there are several factors motivating excessive coverage of Trump: 1. Fear of his supporters and being labeled biased, 2. The profit motive because Trump has generated bigger audiences for television news. 3. The fact that he always generates controversy which is like catnip for television producers, reporters and newspaper editors.
By ending the daily briefings at White House, Trump is assured that he will get multiple sound bites on the evening news reports. No charge against Trump is allowed to stand, even for seconds, without Trump jumping in and calling it fake, phony, witch hunt, scam, circus or whatever adjective he picks today.
I was a television reporter for many years (I still report in different forums) but I defy anyone to fully comprehend what is being thrown out in the daily wrap-up of Trump news presented by the television networks, especially NBC and ABC. It all goes by so fast. Unless you already know the context, it is just a blur of charges and counter-charges followed by more Trump sound bites. It is well packaged garbage because it does not serve to truly inform anyone.
The television networks cannot escape this trap because they are profit driven more than morally conscious.
41
It isn’t as if the Republican leadership or media were “doing nothing.” They are actively promoting dishonesty & corruption, as they have been doing since the Reagan administration. The time for good people to draw the line is long past. Yes, Trump is worse, but the next Trump will be worse still. Even now, the “MSM” & the Democratic leadership are falling over themselves to pretend that the GOP is an honest political party instead of a criminal syndicate, and that Fox & the right wing media just have different perspectives. Get real. The Republican Supreme Court has declared bribery a constitutionally protect right. Our information systems are now designed to deliver everyone the “facts” that most efficiently manipulate them. Democracy was a fragile construct of public-interest journalism, culture & laws, and it has been systematically dismantled by people who saw it as just another way to make money.
318
@Martin You must be kidding! How can you say that when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been chosen to be the umpire of this "trial?" I'm sure most of us thought it would be a set-up with Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Tom Cotton makin' sure Republicans don't cheat this time. But, no! We've got the brilliant and level-headed Senator Mitch McConnell makin' sure things are gonna be fair.
Meanwhile, the rich folks who won big time with Trump's tax cuts are, sure enough, gonna have their Senators vote against him this time, outta a sense of fairness and just plain Christian charity.
5
Good and bad people alike should demand that McConnell’s
efforts to drastically limit the public’s ability to follow the impeachment trial. Only one TV camera will be used to televise the trial. McConnell is also not allowing any electronics in the room where the impeachment trial is being conducted.
Moscow Mitch has no interest in a fair trial and he efforts to corrupt the impeachment trial should be clearly explained to the American people.
11
Once upon a time, the United States stood for something – the notion that all are created equal and have inalienable rights that are protected through the democratic process and the rule of law – however inadequately we implemented these principles. For centuries America’s soft power in significant part derived from the attractiveness of these first principles to those who lived under systems that at best gave lip service to these beliefs.
America was the land of becoming, in fits and starts bending the arc, however slowly, towards justice. Now, Trump has taken Adam Smith’s invisible hand and applied it as a doctrine of how nations should behave towards each other: if each nation pursues its own narrow self-interest above all else, somehow magically we will all benefit.
How far the current Republican President has fallen form the ideals of the first one who appealed to the better angels of our nature. Donald Trump’s appeals are to our basest instincts. Ask yourself, how often have you ended up better off by surrendering to your demons? Why should we expect our nation to be better off surrendering to our darkest sides?
540
@IMS
Even predating Trump, the fact that we no longer stand for anything is one reason we have a volunteer military. It is now essentially an hereditary, mercenary caste that remains, by design, largely invisible to most of the country. Does anybody have a clear idea of how many places we are in the world and what we're doing there? Now, under Trump, where today's friend is tomorrow's foe, and vice-versa, a force that fights for a paycheck and nothing else, is even more essential.
26
I agree with Mr. Egan but even he fails to mention Trump’s grave violation of both international law and the most basic moral code when he ordered the assassination of a foreign official, General Soleimani. Shockingly, most politicians and journalists who criticized the decision only saw it only as tactically unwise, not as an act of murder comparable to a mafia assassination. Were an American general or cabinet secretary deliberately killed by foreign agents, none of us would simply say it was not a smart political move. Unfortunately, Presidents Obama and Bush had already set a precedent by publicly talking about killing and actually ordering the killing of individuals identified by them, not tried by a court, as deserving of execution.
145
@Jim Ryan
The major difference between what Mr Trump ordered and what Mr Obama and Mr Bush ordered is vital. Mr Obama ordered the death of someone who had directly attacked and immediately killed over 2,500 civilians in New York and many in the Pentagon not to mention the passengers on the planes. It would have been worse if the passengers on the fourth plane had not revolted and crashed the plane into a field killing all on board. Mr Bush listened to hardliners in the Government who were clambering for war. Advising that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was planning an attack on the U.S. with them. That was disproved after Saddam Hussein was deposed and killed.
There is the major difference Mr Trump ordered a drone strike killing government employees of two governments without having what appears to be current evidence of an impending attack on the U.S. and or U.S. assets. In this order he violated the Sovereignty of another nation and killed high ranking officials of two nations. Yes those nations appear to hate us but a direct threat? I think not but I have been wrong in the past and could be wrong now.
Just an old white man's opinion
30
Saddam Hussein was captured alive, while both bin Laden and al Baghdadi were killed during attempts at capturing them alive. Suleimani was just rubbed out. Whatever he may have been up to (and that was a lot), the extra-judicial killing was a war crime. It cannot be defended, and the fallout will most likely be serious.
13
@Teo
It has been reported that Iranians are training resistance in the region, more like the US was training contras and may train Saudis, possible Sunni terrorists. There are unsubstantiated allegations. The general was accused to be responsible for some 600 American soldiers KIA, normal combat casualties.
Pompeo is SoS because Trump wants war with Iran.
1
At this point, I honestly believe that if he loses his re-election bid, he won't step down. He'll cite unspecified voting irregularities, claim victory, and his Republican enablers in the House and Senate will willingly go along with it. And I have no idea what happens then.
10
@Andy -- I believe that in the event of what you are describing, the Joint Chiefs of Staff will do what is necessary to effect the transfer of power, and also to maintain the peace (there will be tiki torches and handguns loose for a time, I think).
I also believe that the majority of US citizens are pretty fed up with the lies, the antics, the back channel deals, and the destruction of the norms and institutions that it took us 250 years to build.
7
@Andy It will be a very scary situation. I fear that all these right-wing hate groups who've armed themselves to the teeth will create havoc like we've only seen in the mid east.
2
I worry about that, too. One thing is certain, though. Trump has no respect for the US government, it’s institutions or it’s founding documents; in fact, he regularly ignores and mocks them all. He only cares about money and self-aggrandizement so respect for democracy isn’t going to suddenly kick in on election day. He loathes losing more than anything, and if the US electorate sends him packing in November, he and his cult of slavish minions won’t take it lying down. There will be a fight and it will be a dirty one. The only real question is what form it will take.
1
Its a cult mentality writ large and writ political. The well know methods of corrupted organized religion (Evangelicalism) have joined forces and combined with corrupt political organizations (NRA, GOP) and corporate greed (Banks, Big Oil) to create a new tech oriented (Facebook) version of the fascist state (State of Nationalists) to oppose and destroy their mortal enemy (Progressives, Secularists, and Scientists). People, the Second American Civil War has begun. Its a Cold War, but it is a war nonetheless - a war of ideas and of will.
13
Have you noticed since the Christian Today editorial quoted as Trump being immoral many of the photos have him in pray mode with the laying of hands on him? The Chosen One---scary
6
We have all been infected with the dire contagion of t-Rump and his toadies. The only cure is to totally dissect the whole malignancy. Cut out t-Rump, all of his tight followers and maybe his voters. Time to totally clean house and get our morality and ethics back again.
7
“the kind of barbarism practiced by the Taliban and rogue-state thugs.”
Like George W. Bush in 2003? Remember the museums in Baghdad he bombed?
5
@Horatio Which museums? This is a genuine question as I cannot find corroborating evidence of this.
The problem is there aren't enough "good" people to counter the overwhelming evil that emanates from this White House.
5
Whenever I read about "evil" or someone being "evil" I recall M. Scott Peck's book "People of the Lie" which is a psychiatric look at evil; at bottom of evil is the practice of lying that is turbocharged with extreme narcissism, sociopathy / psychopathy.
Peck does not reveal "evil" as a problem of homocidal maniacs running loose in society; instead, his book looks at how it shows up in his patients, who do not commit murderous acts, but do neglect those around them.
The antidote to evil is cognitive awareness / truth telling of the problem, and then a concerted effort to combat it through therapy or even jail time, if necessary.
In the case of our nation, the House Democratic Majority and its oversight authority is the fulcrum point at which our country will either defeat forces of evil, or succumb and be subsumed. Constant, unrelenting investigations of every point of evil is our country's only hope since the Justice Department won't investigate.
We are a nation awaiting a life preserver, and I am not 100% confident that the House Dems are doing their damnest to get us out of our predicament, and that makes me sad and depressed on a good day. We need more aggressive oversight.
10
So correct Timothy. It's 1930's Germany all over again, brainwashed, locksteppin' Americans.
Scary. Who knew what a genius Trump is, evidently.
7
I’ve seen people like Trump before. They aren’t especially intelligent, they just have an innate gift for manipulating people and situations to get what they want. They have that one overwhelming, gigantic talent but everything else about them is lacking. Add narcissism and borderline personality disorder to the mix, and you’ve got Trump to a capital T.
1
What's worse than good people doing nothing is bad people doing something, namely Republican senators supporting, defending and abetting a president who is "vindictive, ignorant, narcissistic, a fraud." Being well aware of Trump's pathologies, they have nevertheless helped him turn the United States into "a confederacy of corruption."
7
In America's gospel of selfishness, Reagan was John the Baptist. Trump is Jesus.
7
Amen, Mr. Egan!
5
Trump supporters don't hate government, as long as it's Russian.
8
When good people do nothing in the face of evil, they are no longer good.
When people continue to identify as Republicans, they are no longer good.
The party of the Civil War and Eisenhower was killed by Nixon and buried by Fox News. It is a party of corruption, obsessed with power, wealth and white supremacy, and a traitor to democracy. There is no horror Republicans will not commit: tearing children from their parents; poisoning our air, food and water; denying voters’ rights.
America is at a cross roads. It is time to stop normalizing the evil of the Republican Party, and call a spade a spade.
11
If you were to think of this country right now as a giant ship similar to the Titanic afloat on the icy Atlantic under the control of a lunatic captain, you wouldn’t be far wrong.
And the music you’d be hearing in the background would be “Nearer My G-d To Thee.”
6
Trump’s impulsive, incoherent and immoral deeds — aided and abetted by the likes of bone-saw loving Kushner, ghoulishly salivating and plotting Giuliani, white nationalist Miller, treacherous Barr and the WH cohort of miscreants — underline the complete moral decay of what was once an admired republic. The American experiment has gone awry while its citizens squabble among themselves and fall into apathy. I am Canadian, and since the 2016 election of the pathological liar to the presidency refuse to travel to or through the USA. Rampant gun violence, racism, climate change denial, obsessions with accumulating personal wealth at all costs, an unhinged and dangerous president ... there is nothing to lure me to the land of hypocrisy, hubris and venality. Good luck to the USA.
11
@KennethWmM -- Thank you for the wishes, but we're going to need a whole lot more than luck to get through this. Much of the damage that's been done is going to affect US citizens' lives for generations.
This pack of clowns really IS like a bull in a china shop, and we're covered in toxic dust, knee deep in shards.
If we don't remove this evil, we might witness in the second presidential term what the famous poem warned us about:
" First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
9
"But it means you do have to fight, or be counted among the do-nothings who allowed evil to flourish."
Who is doing the counting? We judge the German people who slid into Hitler's sphere as somehow abdicating their humanity. But at the time, luminaries such as Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh and many other non-Germans thought national socialism was a pretty good idea. Step by step they found themselves running Buchenwald. If Hitler had succeeded in getting the A-bomb first, we'd all be learning a different history. So yes, the "deplorables" now are ascendant and the rest of us need to do something besides shake our heads in disapproval.
8
Lev Parnas was right on point when saying that Trump is a cult leader. Our Republic will not survive another 4 years of this cult leader in chief.
7
US democracy won't survive another four years of Trump. The Republican party will survive, no doubt.
2
I wish that insightful people like Egan would realize that Trumpism didn't start with Trump. Rather, the election of Trump is merely the apotheosis of the constant stream of divisiveness, lies, and hatred that has been purposefully fomented and promulgated by the Right over the past few decades (starting with Newt Gingrich, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh).
Since then, contagion of silence spread insidiously throughout the Republican party. During all those years, did ANY Republicans speak out against them? No! Rather, the Republican party gladly adopted the strategy of refusing to work with Dems in any manner whatsoever. They refused to refute the lies of Birtherism. They accepted the hatred of the Rightwing White Nationalists, because their hatred brought them more votes.
More importantly: Egan's putatively "reasonable Conservative" colleagues like David Brooks, Ross Douthat, and Bret Stephens sat in silence at the outrageous behaviors of their party. Then suddenly they started wringing their hands when Trumpism exposed what they had allowed to happen.
People like Brooks, Douthat, and Stephens are complicit in the evils of Trumpism. People like Susan Collins, Mitt Romney, Charles Grassley, Lisa Murkowsky, and all the rest of the Republicans are complicit in the evils of Trumpism. They could have spoken out when there was a chance to prevent it; but they didn't.
They're all as guilty as the "everyday" Germans who allowed and abetted the rise of Hitler.
6
@Paul-A Agree with most of what you said, however, the evil of Republicans started, IMHO, with Reagan. Evil 'trickled down" in his economic policies, and in his spin of depicting people who were poverty-stricken by birth or chance or race as lazy and worthless and "undeserving." He embraced the philosophy that many evangelicals are openly preaching today, that only the rich are "good" and the poverty and inequality of the other 98% of civilization, in whatever country they try to survive in, is punishment by some Supreme Being for being "bad." Yet they insist they believe in the principles of the New Testament. The edition re-edited by white Republicans.
2
You need help, you really do. Mr. Trump, with all his faults, has been a terrific president, he will win re-election easily. You are blinded by hatred, please get some help for yourself.
2
If that is your idea of a ‘great president’ I think you’d better give back your voter registration card.
We are not allowing evil to flourish. Trump is actually on trial for impeachment right now. Susan Collins is calling for witnesses. The House flipped to the Democratic side at midterms. The G.A.O. found Trump broke the law with his Ukraine investigation attempt. Suspected Neo-Nazis were arrested in Virginia. Army Special Forces spoke out against accused Major Golsteyn. Army Special Operations Command refuses to reinstate his tab. Whistle blowers speak out. The US Ukranian ambassador speaks out. And on and on. Resistance continues!
6
I’ve been reading a book about the era of appeasement leading up to WWII and have been struck by the number of times a firm stance against Hitler by the British might have shut him down. Basically good people and politicians stood by and hoped the spread of his evil would be self-corrected or run out of momentum, or that he would never do the very things he said he would do in his book.
If you had a rat in your home you wouldn’t leave it alone because you only saw one rat.
The evil the republicans are allowing to go unabated to preserve their own power and to protect their corporate minders will not go away on its own. It is trickling down to “good people” worried about their own places in the world. (See the article in today’s Times about small business owners worried Bernie or Elizabeth will take things “too far” as if things haven’t gone too far already in the other direction.)
We are on a precipice.
4
Yep, it's well worth bearing Pastor Martin Niemöller's poem in mind: 'First they came for the communists, but I didn't say anything, because I'm not a communist. Then they came for ... Finally, they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up.'
2
The republicans are not the small evil. They are the evil. The Trump clown is just their prop.
6
This is what we “liberal snowflakes” are consumed by: We recognize evil, and see it growing. Further, evil seems to attract evil. Mitchell McConnell is evil incarnate. Under their suits and neckties, there is no concern for humanity or our country. Just their own need for power.
9
The rest of the world are hoping, praying that the good people will stand up in America and get rid of this evil man. He is now threatening the EU and the UK if they do not agree with him on a number of policies. This is America using its might to threaten and bully the rest of the world. It is hard to find another word for 'praying' but that is what the rest of world are doing that the good people of America recognise the evil in the White House and get rid of Trump
5
I wished that this paper as well as all other media outlets totally stop posting pictures of this man over and over and over. I think such would b a good start to let him tumble from his pedestal. Frankly, I can barely read an article that contains the image.
5
Do those who follow Christ really believe that there will be no consequences for following a man whose actions are so un - Christ like? The spiral of hate they have promoted will eventually consume them! Christian leaders who seek fame,fortune and power are not apostles. Don't listen to them. Open your heart and read the bible.
5
We told the Times not to normalize him, but you did. Now look where we are. Even just a couple of weeks ago as the Times was covering the assassination, you still give him and his cabinet the benefit of the doubt. They are inveterate liars. You can always choose to stop the normalization.
9
Looks like you hate Trump like most everyone else here at the NYT. Clever. Funny how you cherry pick a few instances and ignore so many appalling things that occurred from the previous administration, Congress, Hillary and of course Schiff. But hey, it’s fits your agenda. I’m glad Trump is President and doing a ton of good for our country. And hey, America IS great.
1
The representation of your political opponents as evil, depraved, etc. is tactic that the Jacobins, the Red Guard, the Khmer Rouge, etc. would understand perfectly. The next step? Re-education camps? Off with their heads?
By B Wilson
3
What’s driving this contagion of evil? Look at the polls, 43% of American support Trump. And look where Trump’s most contagious support is raging like a wildfire: Christian Evangelicals. Trump has convinced perhaps the most devout and messianic political group in America, Christian Evangelicals, as the infamous televangelist Jim Bakker said the other day “Trump is a test whether you’re even saved.” To be truly saved, you must believe in Trump. Evangelicals evangelize. They convince others to vote their way. They’re not evil, but they’ve been sold evil, and they believe. And they are evangelizing for Trump.
Yes, Trump’s Evil is Contagious. And like any contagious outbreak, it will be very incredibly difficult to contain it, to stop it, to eradicate it. Trump has an amazingly thick skin, and unbelievable resiliency, and absolutely no shame. He believes in nothing but himself. And 4 out of every 10 Americans believe in Trump, enthusiastically and emphatically!
History tells the story of many Trumps, from Caligula to Mussolini to Hitler. They all ended up in the dust bin of history, but not before destroying their country and its people. Someone, some group, some leader, must take the mantel and stop the evil before it does the same to America. The unfortunate reality is that nobody, no true and respected leader in America, has shown the capability of rising up against the evil, of defeating Trump and saving this country. God help us.
6
@RC -- Your statistics are incorrect. What is your source for the statement that "43% of Americans" support 45*?
1
Welcome! Come On Into The Plutocratic/Oligarchic Fascist State!
You'll be kept.. kept very tightly by boots on your necks as you grow hungrier and poorer so that you haven't the energy to do your two or three gig "jobs."
And most children will not be able to read or write above the 5th-grade level.
However people will Eventually Rise up to go at the rich and powerful - they Always do, don't ya know? Take a free online history course to see if it ain't so.
Do you see the plutocrats and oligarchs now looking fearful on TV. You need them to keep living with fear.
Also, join the Women's March! March with teens against climate change. Persuade TV binge-watchers to get a life.
Get a strategy. Use your noggins for God's sake.
4
Dershowitz was just added to Trump’s legal team. I guess the aging Harvard professor wants to add getting an obviously guilty Trump exonerated to his legacy of getting an obviously guilty OJ Simpson set free to commit further crimes
4
...or be counted among the do-nothings who allowed evil to flourish. I find this a shallow essay with blame at its core. None of us knows how the other is fighting evil of all kinds in our daily life. Casting blame puts up a wall Mr. Egan , between you and the rest of us. Writing this article, by the way, does not put you among good people who are doing something. Rather, it puts you among those who need to come to an understand that there are every day citizens who live good lives; do what they are able. Life is not so simple as you present it in this article. Please inform yourself. Read something by Bonhoeffer or other resisters during the time of Hitler.
3
Good people doing nothing? I guess democrats and liberals are bad people.
The opposite pole of this evil on every point you mention is Bernie Sanders. Why can’t you get on board with him Mr Egan?
2
If Lucifer has an apprentice - I know where he lives.
@Tom --Religion and all its mythology is over-consumed in America to cartoonish delight. He may as well be the disciple of the Wicked Witch of the West as well as Lucifer.
1
No one wants to acknowledge the similarities between Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler and the Germans who adored him. Too long ago, impossible, different times, different circumstances, and so on.
Baloney!
Trump, his lieutenants and modern day propagandists, wrapped in the American flag and carrying bibles are as evil as it gets.
His cultists, Republicans, deny the legitimacy of the former president, the Supreme Court nomination process and the sanctity of the Constitution — just to name a few.
Members of co-equal branches of government are accused by Republican Senators of conducting a ‘coup’ at the same time the indisputable enemies of The United States are invited to create chaos in the country’s democratic processes.
As an aging individual I’m powerless to help defend the country from its home-bred enemy except to vote my electorally diminutive vote and make every effort I can to socially and commercially disengage from every relationship I have with any Republican, anywhere.
I want no part of their evil and I’m not going pretend differently.
12
Egan's embarassing rhetoric badly undercuts his case. And gets us nowhere.
If you don't like Trump, vote him out of office. If you lose the election, consider the possibility that you might just possibly -- just maybe -- have lost perspective.
The next step for Egan will be to tell us that Trump is committing mortal sins. And then he'll tell us that Trump is going to h-ll. Perhaps Egan should leave his theological analyses in church, where they belong.
2
This article overlooks Trump's appointment of anti-abortion judges, his many prayer meetings and his support of Israel.
1
@Keitr
I meant to add would an evil man do all this.
@Keitr
Well, okay, maybe he would.
"Evil is contagious" is simply another way of saying that when a leader, when the man who seizes the microphone and the spotlight says a certain group of people is vermin, who exhorts his followers to nasty thoughts and action, there is a ripple effect.
No Trump, no Hitler, no Mussolini, no grand dragon of the Ku Klux Klan can be important or relevant without a crowd of willing disciples. He can be an organizing principle; he can be the nidus around which the abscess forms, but by himself, he is only a pimple on the buttock of a nation.
4
The Criminal Trump is staking the countries key position with his inept uneducated goons. Look for him to toss out of th army nay who are not fascist supporters. WHEN he stages a coup, he will need the military. He has already corrupted the courts.
4
I’m finding it difficult to do business with a trump supporters. When you rationalize cheating and lying and support it at the highest level, how can I trust you to not continue that mentality in your business dealings with me?
When my neighbor voices support for Trump and echoes a paraphrase of Trump’s “good people on both sides” after Charlottesville, how can I trust my kid’s Jewish friend, whom I’ve never seen without her Star of David dangling from her neck, is safe when she comes to my home and roams our neighborhood?
My niece and nephew are in the Air Force. How do I trust they haven’t been injured when a base was attacked after our President bold-faced lied to our faces about troops being injured?
I’m going out on a limb here, but does anyone really believe the people who joined the Nazi party originally thought they were going to round up men, women and children and gas them to death? Or did a few very power-hungry, greedy and evil men steer the movement toward that? I have been constantly reminded of the pastor , Martin Niemoller. “Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Hearing one of our Ambassadors may have been stalked by a man who is described as a drunk and would do anything to get into the a trump sphere is horrifying. The fact Pompeo, the man responsible for her has said nothing is disgusting!
8
It is not a contagion, it is a cult. Everybody drink the koolaid please.....the rich are depending on you.
3
Good article
A month before the election make NYT free so that all Americans can read these op Ed's?
4
As a survivor of the death camps once told me, the camps did not run themselves. people watched the people get murdered,
ran the ovens, and then went home to their families for
dinner. They knew what the smell was but ignored it
The Repubs know that Trump is a liar, a racist,
and incompetent, but play along. if there was a secret ballot, he would be removed. but we are where we are.
2
Republican Congressmembers and Senators are now trumpspawn. They will forever carry the taint of aligning with the soulless, sociopathic narcissist who is pushing the country over the cliff.
2
@Mike Pod Even so, the GOP will still prevail in the hollers of Kentucky, the backwaters of Mississippi and Louisiana, and the vast wasteland of the Dakotas.
1
More overblown hysteria. If you’re going to label Trump as evil, you’re gong to have to do better than tweets and insults and threats. Trump is a jerk. He’s vulgar and crass and rude and he lies and exaggerates. But his actions are a long way from evil. That’s how most people view him from outside the liberal bubble. But the media keeps doubling down on the idea that the devil himself is among us and we shall never recover! Tiresome.
1
@Max Agreed he's more greedy childish and mentally ill than evil.
Good people who do nothing are instantly bad people.
I'm beginning to wonder that these Bible-believers who support Trump so much may be convinced that he is the prophesied "anti-christ" whose coming they anticipate with such glee. The AC, who is called "the Lawless One," according to 2 Thessalonians,
... opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship". And...
"The coming of the lawless one is apparent in the working of Satan, who uses all power, signs, lying wonders, and every kind of wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved."
The very definition of evil. If the shoe fits..
4
Several years ago, the Holocaust Museum in DC had an exhibit on complicity which has been a steady guide in my actions these past 3 years. When you don't speak up, when you don't advocate, when you don't reach out to your fellow humans, you are part of the problem. Good people don't stay silent because to be good is to know that your goodness is worthless when it's not shared with others.
2
I fear that Trump will cause a catastrophic fate for the US similar to what Hitler caused in Germany with war or Mao in China with the cultural revolution. I am reminded of the novel Darkness at Noon.
4
well said
And when good people try to do too much as well.
We go through phases. Share information. Attempt to shine light.
Get threatened by a relative. This was BEFORE the election in 2016.
Repeat.
Part of my soul has oozed out of the holes in the Crocs on my feet over the anger and frustratiion I can't help but feeling with regard to the 40 percent of my willingly obtuse fellow Americans, the 'Always Trumpers'.
2
Make America Hate and Then...?
1
How much longer must we endure this Dump?
Pray for America.
2
Well, Trump's evil is a shabby, weak one. Trump is too self-absorbed and too incompetent to really be an evil mastermind. Sure, his behavior and his actions sully American ideals. But let's not get carried away. I prefer to reserve the term "evil" for truly evil people: the Khmer Rouge, the Nazis, the NKVD and the Cheka, and so forth. By those standards, Trump is just an unpleasant buffoon.
1
Well, Trump's evil is a shabby, weak one. Trump is too self-absorbed and too incompetent to really be an evil mastermind. Sure, his behavior and his actions sully American ideals. But let's not get carried away. I prefer to reserve the term "evil" for truly evil people: the Khmer Rouge, the Nazis, the NKVD and the Cheka, and so forth. By those standards, Trump is just an unpleasant buffoon.
say what you will about Trump..but Hillary has been "exonerated"..? well, there goes your credibility..
The problem with calling Trump evil is his playlist is all that’s most backward about American culture and politics that’s long resided just below the surface—racism, authoritarianism, the ugliest sexism, xenophobia, jingoism, egocentrism, panic and fear. Trump berates and mocks Democrats, the media, immigrants, weaving a narrative where his personal enemies are the horde besieging white, Christian America, positioning himself as savior and leader. Hitler’s speeches were largely positive and inspirational, about German unity, sacrifice, and national character. Trump is all-American, a blend of P.T. Barnum, Elmer Gantry, and Don Corleone, a master at manipulating all that’s worst in the American soul to profit from it.
2
It’s time to start thinking about . . . secession. East and West Coasts and all other still sane states join Canada, and leave Trumplandia behind.
6
I just can't help feeling as though the USA has utterly lost its way and is doomed to become a fascist state.
3
Trump wants to be America's dictator and AG Barr agrees as his top toady. Trump has a vile nature and the temperment of a schoolyard bully. It seems he was always a big fat spoiled bully all his life and has taken his narcissistic toxic personality to the oval office. Insulting anyone with childish nick names reflects his ignorant and immature ability to control his impulses. The republicans will be tarnished when Trump is out of office and he and his family are investigated a dem AG they are sure to find vast corruption.
2
trump’s thesaurus
narration obliterates meaning
words require no explaining
lies are prizes for big winners
truth means you're a pathetic loser
all that really matters is me and I
evil means good if you're trump
Remember what President Obama taught us: you’re not a sucker to have integrity.
Trump is simply a bully and a liar, which reflects deep weakness. It takes strength to live honorably and responsibly.
3
trump’s thesaurus
narration obliterates meaning
words require no explaining
lies are prizes for big winners
truth means you're a pathetic loser
all that really matters is me and I
evil means good if you're trump
I knew he was evil when he took the babies and little children out of their mother and father's arms and put them in detention. Then, he lied about it and said he was simply doing what Obama had done. Now, because the government didn't use a system to identify the people they were separating, there are some children who will never find their mamas and papas again.
Yes. Evil.
5
The Great Corrupter
Oh yes I’m the great corrupter (hah, hah)
Corrupting and not doing good (hah, hah)
My need is such I corrupt so much
I’m a hustler that few can unhood.
Oh yes I’m the great corrupter (hah, hah)
A grafter with a mind of my own (hah, hah)
I con others but to my real shame
The crowds have left me to con alone.
Too real is this urge to fake and deceive
Too real which my crimes can’t conceal.
Oh yes I’m the great corrupter (hah, hah)
Just a barking, baying hell’s hound (hah, hah)
I seem to be what I’m not (that’s me)
I’m piling up cash in a mound
Corrupting all those around.
Too real is this urge to fake and deceive
Too real which my crimes can’t conceal.
Oh yes I’m the great corrupter (hah, hah)
Obstructing the truth from others (hah, hah)
I say I’m a stable genius. Why not? (that’s me)
I’m unmatched in wise guy blather
I’m the chosen one, you talkin’ to me?
[Corrupted from the song “The Great Pretender” sung by The Platters.]
3
I've often thought that men like trump are nothing without others to 'pull the trigger' for them (whatever form that dirty deed takes).
If Rudy didn't play along, trump's Ukraine bribery would not have gone very far. Without willing soldiers to go shoot others, Pompeo can't go to war. Hitler just needed fewer Germans willing to work quietly to support concentration camps, and more Germans willing to go there with cameras for the world to learn.
trump's supporters are like children who find out that the playground bully has been promoted to school principal. The kids who like shaking down weaker ones, who like to push and shove and insult others; they really like the new system. They might not have dared to do it themselves before, but now they have permission!
The kids who don't like being bullied, and don't like to see others humiliated; they work to make sure a new principal puts out the burning school buses.
Literally, trump's cult followers LOVE the photoshopped 'libs love Iran' type of thing. They, like he, are drunk on the freedom to be white nationalists openly, declaring only themselves to be pure enough for America.
For trump supporters, cruelty and humiliation are badges of honor. Not so much their constitution or pledge of allegiance.
2
Republicans have shown us who they are: evil, vindictive liars with an ideology of hate. They have brought shame to white men who did nothing to stop their violence and bigotry. They have given us an America built on lies and hopelessness. They are Con men who inspire disgust. Heckuva job, but they are proving they have the requisite ignorance and moral midgetry for the task.
1
The contagion of evil that Mr Egan speaks of will now be on full display in the Senate impeachment trial. Consider; according to the rules of this Senate trial, all members acting in defense of the charges committed by the President, are also, and at the same time, both Judge and jury of his actions. As the jury, they alone will declare his guilt or innocence. And as judges, they alone will either find for the rule of law, or deny its existence in defense of evil. And so it was found at the Nurenberg trial of the judges who were found guilty of perpetrating the evil of their leader, Adolph Hitler. All it takes for history to repeat itself is for good people to embrace the contagion.
You know Tim you're diatribes against Trump are obviously easy for you to write and don't take much thought as you regularly regurgitate the same old rhetoric. Playing to the masses is easy, low lying fruit, why don't you try and reach higher in the tree?
2
Every day I look out of my window in what is supposed to be a quiet community which has moved from rural to soon becoming just another shopping plaza community. There is a stop sign across my house. Ninety percent of the people who drive down this street, do not stop at the stop sigh. They speed by it without regard that there are children on this street. When I drive into town, countless drivers run the red light, break all sorts of traffic laws, and if you there say a word, they give you the finger. At stores people place fifty articles of groceries on a line thats says only 15. My new next door drives into the driveway with music so loud it can almost break glass. These are all seemingly little things. But in fact, society breaks down when people thing laws are to be followed only if you are being watched. So there is a malaise in this society. Donald Trump has lived his live betting that money or advantage can buy anything. When he called all Mexicans rapist, when he said he could grab a woman's crotch any time he wanted, when he assassinated his opponents, and he still has the support of people who say they believe in Jesus, the problem is greater than the evil that is Trump. He is merely taking advantage of the existing who cares attitude that many of the citizens in the streets, and in the Senate, already exist. Hitler did not kill 6 million Jews and others. The people who did nothing are complicit as they are now.
6
RepubliKlans . I just hope I get a chance to vote.
1
My take - if you present as a republican then you own the whole red agenda.
Simple and evil all at the same time
2
The worst of all is when this evil is done in the name of God.
3
It sounds like I wrote this column. Why has it taken so long for all of us to acknowledge what is happening? Trump is deranged and EVIL. If Obama could be condemned for failing to wear an American flag pin during a public briefing. If Clinton could be impeached for lying about a sexual affair.
More importantly, the stench of the Republican Party (pseudo-conservatives), fuels our idiot POTUS. Be afraid, because they will not do the right thing.
3
We already played this out once before in American history when white people spoke with "forked tongues" to native Americans to steal their lands away from them.
The smooth-talking Fox poison dispensary whispers into the ears of the psychologically weak among us in order to plunder everybody and anybody, fellow Americans included, for their trillionaire bosses, all in the name of the Lord God Donald Trump or "the brand."
The weaklings of the GOP stand up with good fascist chin thrusts to make way for their own smooth sailing to MoneyWorld, which is a lovely dream. Better not stand in their way! They're coming through! They are white after all. Our Father Trump says that matters. Let me through! Let me through!
All the money goes to the top, but they are too stupid to know that. Useful idiots.
They all think they are superheroes. Since their forefathers crushed the native Americans they must have a new manifest destiny, a new people to overcome, and their fellow Americans are those people. Low hanging fruit.
The good members of the Grand Old Party have become cannibals, blood dripping from their mouths, a hymn and a prayer on their lips. Praise Moloch! Er, I mean, Praise Trump! Forgive me.
But at least Trump is such a beautiful man. In the end, that's all we get out of this, the fact that Trump is the most beautiful human being to have ever walked the planet. When America is destroyed by his deceptive cult of thieves and the fearful we will have that to ponder.
2
Entirely correct, Mr. Egan.
I stand ready, as always, to defend the nation.
1
@Patrick Sigel I too stand ready.
Trump = CORRUPTION. Disgusting.
3
I doubt that any of them read these comments but...
If you are a Republican member of the U.S. Senate, you should be ashamed of yourself.
8
At what point does the dam break? We watch as our country loses it's soul, it's aura as the beakon of freedon and it's authority in the world as it is replaced with hate and we are now seen as dangerous and a risk to our once proud allies.
Meanwhile we have our leadership on the Republican side who is "all in" to protect their power. Dem's swing the bat way to carefully in our defense. We have millions of people who either outright support the racism and hate to shrugging their shoulders because their 401k is looking great.
There will be a price to pay. Let's hope that the worst suffering is limited to us in the US. We own this mess. The rest of the world should not suffer because of our entitlement and complicit stance to this insanity.
The damage done is incalculable. We need real leadership to dig us out of this hole. We need to send a message to those in office who have abandoned us and their Oath to the Constitution and make sure that they are not allowed to continue to be in positions of power. VOTE
7
@JDH Yes, we need a leader. Many of us are ready for one.
If this were Germany in the 30's the Trump supporters of today would be supporting Hitler. Pence, Barr and McConnell and many GOP Congressmen included. I believe that deep in my heart.
7
That's cool, Little Timmy's ignorance is thankfully not contagious, except among his fellow NYTimes opinion writers
1
"The Trump presidency has shown just how many ostensibly good people will do nothing, and how evil, when given a free rein at the top, trickles down": A stark repeat of what happened in Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s!
4
As Forrest Gump was always saying, "Stupid is as stupid does." Our president is stupid, and evil. He's proved both, over and over and over. How much is enough?
3
I am not buying this gradations of evil analysis--that Trump is a master of evil, while the Republican Party and Trump supporters are lesser evil.
Evil is as evil does, and Trump thinks, connives, and does evil every day (as Egan notes). But worse, Mitch McConnell, the GOP, and Trump fans reward Trump' evil by not only vowing to keep him in office (to do more evil), they cheer and defend Trump's corruption, cruel policies, and behavior--as they will show the world next week in Trump's impeachment trial.
No respect for political differences either, since Trump, the GOP and Fox continue to demonize Pelosi, Schiff, liberals, and all Democrats, to the point that the Republican base now hates Democratic moderates more than they dislike Putin.
My point: Trump is obviously a manipulator and a con artist, and like many con artists, he is not really intelligent, but has an emotional knack of sizing up people,sucking them in, and making them pawns in his game of thrones.
But, I don't think these Trump supporters are pawns either. How many times did we hear from red-hatted Trump fans, when asked why they liked Trump, say: "He says what we are thinking."
Long before Trump became president, the Republican Party relied on rigging and gaming the system to win elections, lying to voters without shame, and working against democratic principles to enrich the rich.
Evil isn't contagious, it is just unleashed--as has happened in our most shameless times in America's past.
12
Evil is in the eye of the beholder.
I have a wealthy, white, conservative evangelical friend who defines evil as the liberal, multicultural, multi-racial persons who don’t adhere to strict Biblical principles, want to restrict free enterprise and unbridled capitalism, embrace immigration, and wish to tax the wealthy to support, through a variety of social programs, the lives of others who, for whatever reason, cannot do so themselves.
This person blogs frequently under a pseudonym for a conservative media outlet. His theme is this: America is going to Hell as people move away from the Church and God; government puts too many regulations on free enterprise; and (implied but unstated) whites are losing majority control. To him, the Liberal Left represents an existential threat to his vision of what America stands for.
He will protect, by whatever means available, the values that he holds dear. In the person of Donald Trump he views his Supreme Advocate, and is willing to overlook and defend the egregious behavior, even criminality, in order to preserve those values by whatever means.
Forty percent of Americans concur with my friend. They don’t see themselves as evil when so much is at stake in their minds.
How does one even begin to penetrate the hypocrisy that underlies this sense of righteousness??
11
@Richard It cannot be penetrated. The lines are drawn.
1
USA under Trump is the world's slime ball. We're pathetic!
2
"First, realize the level of depravity that has taken over the White House"
Every Republican on Capitol Hill has fully endorsed this depravity. Their arguments in the impeachment will not be refutation of facts presented in evidence, but rather word salads of steaming nonsense. Judge Roberts risks his reptuation if he accepts what he's going to hear as "legal argument."
3
Donald Trump and his supporters are garbage, always have been garbage and always will be garbage.
5
Timothy Egan throws down one hell of a gauntlet.
Simply put, in the struggle against evil, there are no excuses left for "good Germans." No lazy compromises. No enabling.
It is our duty to fight this evil directly and indirectly.
Republicans who have given up on their constitutional duty and vote in favor of evil should have their names forever tarred. Their role in the destruction of this country and support of evil in their own self-interest will eventually be paid for in ignominy. Their children and grandchildren will be ashamed of them.
And the conservative "never Trump" pundits who proclaim they will vote third party over Warren or Sanders (I'm looking at you, Bret Stephens), have chosen evil and, what's more, provided other conservatives with the usual "lesser of two evils" excuse.
Let's be frank. We're choosing now between actual evil and merely imperfect candidates for president. Egan has made that crystal clear.
Given all that's at stake, the choices before us are painfully obvious.
6
Where are all these good people you're talking about? I have seen many I thought were good people gladly support Trump. I have seen people I always assumed to be awful, the power hungry odd balls that always loved the "game" of politics, confirm that they are indeed win-at-all-costs sycophants that would sell their own mother for a modicum of power over their fellow citizens. And I have seen many hurriedly stick their heads in the sand and deny the obvious. Being "good" is hard, maybe too hard for most of us. Being evil is convenient, and in these times, where convenience is valued above all else, we are doomed to lay in the bed we have made for ourselves.
3
I so wish I could move on and see it as water over the damn that two people, my wife's brother and her BFF both voted for the Sewer Rat. But I can't. I just can't. That hesitation has become a thorn in our marriage, even though my wife and I are in the same ballpark in our disgust with the Grifter-in-Chief. She defends them and I will never forgive them. I have removed all vestiges of the BFF from my life and limit the time I will spend with the sibling. What is so sad for me is to realize that the BFF does not care - as she told me and the brother has a son, 12-years old, I have a disability and he has three charming females in his life, wife and two daughters and he voted for a man who blames the Chinese for climate change and his son and my grandson will grow up in a ravaged, climate-changed world, is an ableist and a serial sexual predator. As I said, I don't get it.
3
I could not disagree more with Mr. Egan on one point. The senatorial enablers are NOT the smaller evil. They actively collude to advance the evil.
7
Many thanks for a fine article.
I served in the medical corps of both the US Army and Navy during the Vietnam era. I know in both cases I and all my peers took an oath to protect our Constitution from both internal and external enemies.
In that era, when we ran into internal threats, it was almost universally someone who was frightened. So frightened that their fear had made them cruel. Evil. Bullies. They tried to crush dissent, restrain free speech, ignore facts, and stifle debate. It needlessly cost lives, prolonged the war, and made a batch of evil folks very wealthy. They had to be defeated then (all of them, not just the obvious one), and they still do.
Again, thanks for a fine article and for continuing the fight. Best wishes.
18
Part of the Trump effect is to bolster cynicism about all politicians and the entire political process, not only within the USA, but around the world. It's a corrosive attitude, one with real-life consequences.
Vote. Volunteer. Donate. Make a difference.
19
Consider me "infected" with the "evil contagion". I have no problem hitting Iran where it hurts most, which among other things would include their cultural sites. I have no doubt they would hit ours if they had the opportunity - and soon they may. All is fair in love and war.
4
@bronx refugee Why do you think they "soon may?" Iran has never been a threat to us.
Attacking other countries actually makes us LESS safe. This is just common sense.
35
@bronx refugee Remember that Iran is an ancient civilization. Their cultural sites are our cultural sites. They have value to all of humanity. You are proposing that we become no better than the Taliban or ISIS. But that is the marker of Donald Trump and his supporters- that America should have no standards and behave no better than the worst of the worst.
60
Ha. Nice. Thank you for proving Mr Egan’s point so eloquently. It’s true - sides will be taken. And only God keeps the score.
14
Regarding the democratic leaders in islamic garb, it should be noted that it is incomprehensible to witness the silence of the democratic candidates, leadership, and party regarding the plight of Iranian people under the brutal and inhumane treatment of a criminal gang disguised in religious cloths as islamic republic government. There is a lot I dislike about President Trump, but his depiction of Democratic leadership was perfect way of showing how these so called enlightened leaders appease the Iranian government and ignore the iranian people.
2
@Shapoor Tehrani I disagree completely. No one is ignoring the Iranian people. The best hope for Iran and its people is to continue to engage with the rest of the world, The nuclear agreement with Iran (torn up by Trump) was a path forward. What would you have Democrats do? Engage in regime change? We have seen how that works in Iraq and Libya.
20
@Shapoor Tehrani During the Trump administration the Iranian people are suffering more due to the sanctions re-imposed after he tore up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (accomplished under a Democratic administration).
And the Iranian leadership is as strong as ever.
3
many Protestants and their churches also objected. the fact that egan is Roman Catholic doesn't givhim the right to ignore that
There are many of us, on this page and others, who have vociferated, oft-times daily, against the moral cancer eminating from the moral bankruptcy, the evil the speaks not its name, that is Donald Trump AND his adoring mob. That mob, that the Republican Party spent 40 yrs creating, has become a Frankenstein monster that cows its creators and terrifies the rest of us.
If the forces of honesty, right, and reason can't take back the country this November, the country is lost.
17
I agree with you, Mr. Egan.
10
The question one has to ask at this point in history is: “Why are we not marching in the streets… where is the charismatic leader, in the vein of MLK, who can galvanize us to action…?
18
@gsteve William Barber?
To paraphrase: And the LORD said, If I find in the republican party fifty righteous then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
No such luck.
10
Schumer does not have the oratorical skills to stand up for the people and against Trump. Watching him yesterday after Articles were sent to the Senate was an embarrassment. Diane Feinstein is head of minority senate Judiciary committee. She leads a team of over age Democrats living int he past and unable to rise to the occasion. I'm distraught. They are as corrupt and risk advisers a group as I've ever seen. Schumer's "anger" yesterday was a joke, and that was after the slanderous image Trump sent out. The most resounding finding was that Schumer needs a good therapist to help him evolve into a fully formed human being unafraid to stand up for what he believes in.
I share the irritation that the opposition has so far failed to unify and coalesce around the grave threat this crowd—and it is a crowd who merely found a showman leader—poses.
I am about as cisgender straight Caucasian as it gets, but too many of my peers who have benefitted from straight white privilege deeply resent recent steps toward inclusion. Now they have found an emotional cause in this depraved miscreant’s catering to all their resentments over threatened hegemony. He represents not so much class warfare as embodiment of the wish to crush those who dare voice opposition to a tax code for the already incredibly and ostentatiously wealthy, trashing the environment for profit, and in general backtracking on even moderate regulation to prevent another 2008 financial crisis.
We have to fight the good fight as if the SS is knocking on doors. Otherwise our worst nightmares will become our realty.
14
@FactionOfOne Same here. White, heterosexual male. I am aware of my privilege every day. When I ride my motorcycle through a neighborhood, most people take no notice, those that do, wave. I always wonder what the response would be if I were a black man. Calls to the police perhaps? What if I were a woman? Leers, vulgar gestures, harassing shouts, pursuit? Life in America is a lot less complicated for white men. Simply a fact.
How does this end without violence?
9
I remember just prior to the election 2016 watching the Ken Burns and Artemis Joukowsky's film "Defying the Nazis: The Sharps' War." My immediate thought was, "Oh, my God, it's happening here." I posted it on my Facebook page multitudinous times that people needed to see this film. Very few did. It is happening here. Good people are doing NOTHING. Even calling/writing a postcard to the White House and representatives is totally beyond people, and these are EASY actions to take. Making your voice heard is the duty of every citizen, not just those who voted for #45.
9
@Chrystin Pleasants
I will watch this on your recommendation.
Please watch this too:
https://www.pbs.org/video/the-story-of-fascism-in-europe-pthanf/
@J Thank you, I did not know about this program, and I did watch it. It is excellent and I hope others will watch it, too.
I often think about all of the people in the US - even Republicans - who are eagerly buying up home-DNA ancestry kits to trace the history of their bloodline. Just what in the world are these very same 1/4 Polish-1/4 Italian-1/4 Bulgarian-1/4 Brazilian family Genotypes imagining? "Hey, I'm Heinz 57 but those Syrians can go pound sand?"
Trump is merely the figure-head (some might say bobble-head) for a well financed and particularly grotesque world view. He is as nasty and mean hearted as the day is long. Seems to me he hasn't an actual thought of his own in his blank little brain and doesn't mind, in the least, doing whatever he's told to do by his handlers. When he manueuvers himself into 'president for life' will McConnell et al even be alarmed? I suspect the answer is: "Not a chance. He works for us."
9
This behavior is not new among our conservativve friends. Prior to Trump these messages were circulated privately. The only thing Trump did was make it public, put them on Twitter, utter them in front of God and everyone.
Trump showed everyone who these people are and have always been. Trump made being vicious acceptable.
14
Evil deeds and ghastly behaviour are obvious to most people. So why aren't at least some -- or ANY -- of the Republicans in the House and Senate pushing back against Trump???
10
@Demetroula , because they too care only about themselves - specifically, their own re-election and continued "power".
1
@Demetroula Because they approve of most of his actions, even if they (privately) decry his crudeness.
2
Sending this article to Senator Cory Gardner, unfortunately one of my senators.
7
All I can do is vote. I live in NJ, so it won't make any difference anyway. NJ is a VERY blue state. I am very active on social media, telling anyone who cares to read my opinion EXACTLY how outraged I am by nearly everything Trump does. I don't see the benefit in giving myself an ulcer, or otherwise allowing my absolute disgust for 45 and his entire clan to make me sick.
10
Trump in one word: POISON. For our Country, for our Planet, for everyone and everything he touches.
Period.
20
We are living a Faustian tragedy in which a large swath of America has sold their soul to the Devil; to what end? To see a Mephistophelian Trump appear and indulge his followers in all their ignorance and sins and... propose a contract: 4 more year I ask thee, Trump says, do sell thy soul to the Devil!
But know that thy souls will never return, will never know redemption!
8
Donald Trump personifies todays Republican party and Evangelical movement. Although his family legacy of racism, greed, and bending the law to breaking, as well as his own willful ignorance and flamboyant flimflammery, qualified him to be a member of the club, Trump rebranded himself in their populist image to attain high office. Trump is scion of the party of god, guns, and greed, the party of dirty tricks, the heir to Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush.
But the Clintons and their claque did their share to elect Trump by rebranding the Democratic party, suppressing the development of a deep bench of contenders (to insure 'Hillary's turn) and bringing forth a candidate deeply distrusted and widely disliked even in her party and so deluded as to her entitlement and 'inevitability' as to be incapable of campaign strategy.
And then, there was the self indulgent purity test political death wish self styled so called opposition. Who would not scruple to vote for Clinton and will not accept their complicity in the predictable disaster.
All these factors are still in play.
Vote Blue No Matter Who.
Or be complicit. Again.
12
In the Times book review a few weeks ago, a writer said that Trump thinks of military men the way that the Mafia thinks of its subordinates: thugs to do his dirty work. Which explains his embrace of a war criminal.
I am bewildered as to why Pelosi only brought two impeachment charges against Trump when he is guilty of much more. Has she gotten desensitized, too?
5
@Charlesbalpha Pelosi seemed to think it was best to keep it simple (KISS) to make the articles an easier sell to the American public. I don't agree, but that was her reasoning - not that she doesn't think he's done a whole lot more of impeachment worthy acts.
3
Powerful writing. I am child of holocaust survivors- when good people do nothing, never understood it until this Trump era of evil.
16
Amen. Trump has made our country a mockery on the world stage. I am ashamed to be an American.
16
Unfortunately a good 40% or more of the US love that Trump is evil, they relish each and every depravity. Another 40% just don't care, they have grown numb to the onslaught of cruelty. Maybe 20% care that the US is now its own axis of evil, but they are the minority.
6
White supremacist insurgents have lurked beneath the surface since the founding, commandeering a political party for the second time now.
Only hope that putting it down this time won't require comparable, doubtless this time incalculably more severe, measures.
4
It brought chills up my spine reading about the evil things Edward Gallagher did and the courage it took for the SEAL team members to come out and say that he was an evil psychopath that must be removed. In spite of this, Trump pardoned him, embraced him and paraded him as a great fighter. Trump is a horrible evil man and the year cannot go fast enough before he is out of office.
There is no telling, as we witnessed with his assassination of an Iranian general, of what he may do to try to stay in office, so these are scary times. Watching the democrats debates has not brought me much hope especially when Elizabeth Warren keeps derailing the debates with petty talk of "wine caves" and with what Bernie supposedly said. Focus, people!
12
I live in a deep red state surrounded by Trump supporters. A neighbor proudly flies a Trump flag. When I asked one of them about separating children from their families, she adamantly replied "Doesn't bother me!" I shocked one of my neighbors when I told him I couldn't vote for Trump. We are represented by Senators and Representatives (with one exception) who spout the party line and have joined the cult.
I have known Trump was amoral since I learned he walked into teenager's dressing rooms, cheated his contractors, and cheated on his wives. That he also cheated on his taxes and gouged his tenants just confirmed the conclusion.
After three years of his administration, I can see he is evil. My neighbors do not see the same thing. They see a righteous warrior under attack. They re-post his picture of Schumer and Pelosi with the Iranian flag on social media. They hate anyone who questions Trump and call his critics traitors and terrorist-sympathizers.
That they hated Obama is a clue to part of their psyche, but I don't understand why they can't see the facts in front of their faces. He's a con man who is funneling their tax dollars to his private properties. He's killing their primary source of living, agriculture, with tariffs and policies that accelerate climate change. He's beholden to the Russian mob and a puppet of Putin. Most confounding, my neighbors are church-going and they can't recognize true spawn of Satan.
27
@Mary Clearly they sleep through the church services.
2
Let's all please hope that a modicum of Republican Senators will ultimately lift the scales from their eyes and recognize the sheer malevolence of this president and all he stands for, and subsequently vote him guilty as charged. It will at last be a case of ships deserting a sinking rat.
8
@semari Not.Gonna.Happen.
This is a moment for courage to take the stage on the part of republican senators. Their wishes to keep their heads low and hope all of this will blow over have not been granted. Their inactivity - their surrender to the ugliness that has been a cancer in their party - has hit the point of no return. While they are accustomed to group behavior, it is time for the lone wolves to stand up and say "this is enough". Is the risk of losing a senate seat worth the price of destroying America? Are they so afraid this awful president will insult them on Twitter that they will say nothing? For what reason? So they can keep going to the golf club? We are way beyond all of that. This is the moment. Today is the moment. Where is your sense of decency?
8
@Michael Kennedy
I get that they'te selfish and worried about losing their power, but even from a selfish point of view, it would make sense to stand up for justice. Whoever does will be seen as a great American hero, a savoir of the Republic, by MOST Americans, and they will go down in history.
They will have book deals, high-paid speeches, etc.....
The White House is the new Kremlin. While Trump is putting his name on crass hotels around the world, Putin is putting his brand on regimes formerly known as democracies. And millions of Americans are saluting.
7
This article - while entirely true - misses the broader point, as does Pramila Jayapal. The sad but honest truth, which nobody wants to acknowledge, is: Our country is founded on hatred of "other", and has always followed that ethos.
From the start, our country has secretively or institutionally hated literally everyone of all type of other. All hues of skin tone, all religions, all sexuality preferences, all levels of intelligence.
Believe it. Ask the people of different eras of Jews, Pols, Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese (or anyone else who "looks Asian"), literally anyone with black skin and the entire continent of Africa, Indians, Inuits, Native Tribes of the Americas, etc.
Until such time that we acknowledge this ugly truth, we will never root out its evil.
7
For all the understanding for “opinion writers” who are entitled to their aversion towards Trump, this article does stretch it a bit too far, and again, by doing so, becomes largely irrelevant. Even Ali Khamenei would probably not rant against Trump in the ways the author of this article has done. The NYT would be well advised to moderate its language lest it lands on the same level as Trump.
1
@Paul Eckert
Whoa! A threat - from Switzerland, of all places.
We and our press have every right to criticize our leaders, especially when they have broken every moral code, including a few of the Ten Commandments. What then is your definition of evil?
2
@Paul Eckert Sigh. At the risk of being repetitive,
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Calling out evil as evil is not at the "same level" as putting children in cages, lying, assassinating people, cutting food stamps, stiffing your contractors, bowing to Putin, etc.
3
@Paul Eckert Trump does not tell the truth. This article does. That is the difference. The time for niceties is over. The USA is in an existential fight.
1
Even though I'm a life long Democrat, my repulsion at tRump is not related to his policies or that he's a Republican. It's because not a day goes by where I don't have to explain to my 17 year old son how it is that the President of the United States can lie every single day about things big and small, foment bigotry, smear his opponents in the most bullying fashion, be repeatedly accused of rape and inappropriate contact by credible women, break the law, and not only get away with it but be adored for it by his base and the members of Congress who dutifully do his bidding. Evil will always exist and guys like tRump will periodically rear their vile heads, but enablers like his supporters and members of Congress are the real devils since without them tRump would never been taken seriously as a candidate let alone win the 2016 election. If enough repulsed parents get out and vote, we could win this. Let's go America.
17
Sasha Baron Cohen addressed the ADL upon receiving its award. If you readers have not seen or read it. do so. Especially you who pick the ops.
2
trump's evil is contagious because it gives permission to our own fears and darker sides.
6
For all of these lies truth incurs a debt.Truth does not care about ideologies or the universe.It is always paid in its time and on its terms!All of us will bear this burden!
3
When the person charged controls the trial, he will always win. Is that the situation the USA is now in? Like Russia? Like North Korea? Sad.
11
Rick Wilson has certainly written a harsh prescription for Democrats. How can we follow it? How can we go lower as the Trump camp goes low? Those who will support Trump to the bitter end are the most convinced racists, but all of his supporters seem tinged with racism. Where is the Catholic Church in this? A church that concluded a concordat with Mussolini, that congratulated Franco on defeating the Semitic-Masons, and that turned a blind eye to the holocaust as it unfolded--such a church puts self-interest above its principles in a way that makes Trump look like a boy-scout.
5
This is a parable about inuring the soul to evil by introducing it one tiny increment at a time.
When Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, preparations were made. Consider that the President was willing to risk travelers' lives in order to force the government to ape vulture capitalists.
Later, Reagan broke laws by selling weapons to a sworn enemy, Iran, to build an off-the-books private slush fund from which he and his team could (again, illegally) arm lethal thugs in Central America. US media misidentified government murder in El Salvador and Guatemala as resulting from a struggle between "rightists and leftists," a convenient cop-out. Dead nuns and a bishop did not move the needle. America was increasingly OK with blatant evil.
When Bush and Powell and especially Cheney lied repeatedly to convince us to send kids to Iraq, we went along. Somehow, even given recent experience, we believed that people who dressed correctly would never mislead us. Or maybe it's just easier to do nothing and claim ignorance. Like frogs in fairly warm water now, we enjoyed the climate change, unaware of what was coming next.
Let's not pretend that Trump is a singularity. Doing so lets us off the hook for enabling a vulture party to shift America's priorities from addressing social needs to filling cronies' pockets with tax gold. Rather, let's look at Trump as a test: We failed to act when the evil was more subtle. How bad does it have to get before we admit that we have to do something?
15
There are plenty of people in this country who believe Trump and the others might be somewhat evil, but they also believe that this evil is better, more holy, than the leftwing evil. They see humanism and liberalism as demonic. These citizens are the true root cause of why Trump's vile actions go unchallenged. They even wear his aggression as a badge of honor. And, unfortunately, they might be why he is re-elected.
9
The evil has drawn and permeated the Republican party, to admit you are a supporter is to condone each atrocity Trump has committed by their acceptance and silence. Their oath to Dr. Faustus is their priority, their constituents mere pawns in a demented chess game that is suffocating our country. Who could possibly predict our government would be run by a shadow cabal working out of Trump's Washington Hotel bar that would include the AG?
5
This comments section is nothing more than Trump bashers gathering to vent their fury at the results of the 2016 presidential election.
1
@John Murray If I have read or heard a comment like yours once, I have read or heard it a thousand times. Enough with that line of thinking! (I surely can't and won't refer to your comment as a line of reasoning, because it lacks all reason.) Let's prove that we're better than such puerile and unbecoming pronouncements.
1
@John Murray
What an easy illogical dismissal. The results of the 2016 election were an electoral college victory, a 3,000,000 loss of the popular vote, delivered by Russian interference and cemented by Fox News.
1
We all own Trump's evil. His evil is our evil.
We all are the "Good Americans" who make possible Trump's evil, whether we are actively supporting him or are not doing enough to oppose him.
4
And evil attracts evil.
The conservative but sane officials, the ones with even a tiny sense of morality and decency, have been forced out or resigned.
To be replaced by power-hungry grifters and dead-enders who would not get a job working for anybody who had a shred of decency and sense.
I am most appalled by the Republican congress members--my senators especially. I know that they see what Trump is, and they are kneeling and kissing his feet.
5
Trump has proven that the goodness of America is really a myth. True, there are many good people in America but there just as many cruel and evil people. Trump has give cruelty, racism, sexism, evil in all forms, power and authority over the morality of this country, the Evangelicals think he is Christ and the good people who rise up against him are persecuted. When the biggest question facing the Democratic Party is; who can beat Donald Trump? You know your in the sewer. If the United States of American doesn’t have anyone better than Donald J Trump to lead the country, it’s over, goodness is dead.
4
Important words. Thank you, Tim.
6
There cannot be a better poster child for free education for all and the benefit of education in general than to watch and listen to our commander chief. Whether he misspells words or misunderstands issues and historical facts an ignorant person does not make good choices.
4
The evil of which you speak is named chaos.
Let’s assume for a second that Jeffrey Epstein was not murdered.
The story of his “suicide” is that in the tense machinations of our current political crisis, normal people commit insane acts in the chaotic atmosphere of panic, neglect, incompetence, and fear. Rogue agents and actors cause chaotic life-ending blunders.
The story of Iran shooting down a commercial airliner killing over 150 innocent people? Same thing - panic induced by a general environment of chaos induced by design.
11 US service members hurt by retaliation for a drone-strike assignation by Trump himself. Trump’s strike caused by his own bumbling adventure to foment corruption and cause chaos in the next election by wagging the dog.
And now we learn bumbling and likely-drunken Presidential lackeys nearly ended up assassinating a US Ambassador. One wrong tweet or text message and she would be dead today. Again the product of chaos induced by deliberate acts.
Mick Mulvany failing to tell the President “That’s illegal and if you do it I will destroy your Presidency” and instead dutifully complying with brazenly illegal acts was again a violation of even minimal ethical values. So much murderous chaos could have been prevented by ONE simple act of ethical defense of order over deliberate chaos.
And now 100 Senators can ACTUALLY END murderous chaos. And they are deaf and dumb.
5
We are the fight of our lives. Trump is evil, but his supporters are worse, because they turn a blind eye to his misdeeds and think his vulgarity and corruption are just fine, as long as they win. When this is over, and it will be, we need some kind of truth and reconciliation commission to let the Trump-era politicians--and more than a few of his more prominent cultists--apologize to the nation and atone. First, though, they must be frogmarched through the streets and shamed. I'm dead serious.
8
I do not know how an average citizen fights this other than to vote for the person that he or she assumes is a basically good person. The problem presently is that the Republican party has become a trump cult of evil. Not a single Republican Congressman voted yes to impeach trump. Just how do you fight that?
7
$174,000. That is the price of ethics, integrity, and democratic values. That is what Republican lawmakers so desperately and abjectly fear losing should they actually speak up to the evil in chief. It's not really much money, but now we know what democracy costs. Disgraceful.
3
My worst paranoid fear is that when the Trumpites re-elect him to a second term, those of us who saw "evil" where his avaricious supporters saw none, then, may have to attend re-education camps (on-line of course) to keep our employment in the new second term Trump/Barr/Gallagher-like bully nation. God help us!
3
For me, the most disappointing aspect of Trump's Presidency is what we've learned about ourselves as a country. Tens of millions of people are actively racist and deeply ignorant.
Tens of millions more are happy to sit on the sidelines while the Mad Man in the White House corrupts and undermines every American institution with his bottomless well of hatred, narcissism and corruption.
Perhaps most surprising is how readily Republicans in Congress would completely abandon any principles or patriotism for political advantage.
Yes, we must fight. And we must win.
12
Trump is a moral and ethical black hole which somehow draws in people one would not have imagined being co-opted.
He debases and degrades absolutely everything he comes in to contact with, and every person he pulls in to his twisted views and machinations.
I am not saying he should be compared to the worst despots and madmen in history, at this point.
But he clearly exhibits all the dangerous traits, which left unchecked lead to that megalomaniacal madness.
He is the architect of his own distorted and mad delusion of grandeur. And for reasons incomprehensible to me, there is a significant segment of society which supports his madness.
He is truly dangerous and frightening.
As I said, he is not comparable to the monsters of history yet, but his ravenous ego is surely the equal of those horrid men.
I still believe that he will be the architect of his own destruction, because he cannot stop himself, and ultimately there is enough decency left in our society to thwart him.
3
Isn't Trump just the Republican Party, without makeup? Isn't he just assembling the troops of the wealthy and greedy and doing what big money has always done, subvert the Constitution and the rule of law?
He is what Marine General Smedley Butler was describing in his book "War is a Racket". Butler refused to lead a coup against the Constitution, Trump delights in it.
An America that had Presidents who kept fellow human in chains and had them beaten was full of the Trumpian model...
The fight will never end, because human greed and stupidity are never ending.
Hugh
4
Baloney. The fatal flaw is in the words "good people doing..." There is no effective action to be taken. There are no effective people to take action even if there were. Speak out, vote, organize the neighbors...not even the boy scouts have succeeded without revealing their own sins.
There are no elected officials at any level, from any party, who deserve their paychecks over the years trump has been on the scene. The news media is a fraud and a co-conspirator, including the feeble fabled Times. trump will be forced to spend 2 billion. bloomberg will counter with 3. only the truly worthless and evil will make profit from it--say zuckerberg and company.
this isn't about politics or elections. it's about radical truths: a very large percentage of the American people are too uneducated, uninterested, and just plain stupid. No one supports trump because of the purity, brilliance and probity of his views and beliefs. they support him because of the toxicity of their own.
2
The senate is a joke, everyone must get off their buts and vote, not just in 2020 but every election, we must keep pumping new blood into our politics until the system and country works for everyone.
2
Growing up in a working class household from paycheck to paycheck, feeling the pressure of wanting more, seeing the cut corners and outright criminality, the bad guys, the heroin addicted, the thugs, the corruption, the impotent political class (yes, NYC in the 1970’s) I often doubted the goodness in people. That goodness was for suckers, I thought. I’ve worked hard to learn otherwise because I saw the desperation and destruction evil brings. There is a thin line between good and evil. Trump came off age during that time. He was well off and his daddy profited by working the system to some degree; Roy Cohen was his mentor too. Trump NEVER learned the lessons of good vs. evil. He believes goodness is for suckers.
5
The Trump era has forced us to reassess what we actually mean when we say “good people.” Past attributes that might have been used to sort people have been blown away. Religious people who actively go to church and obey the tenets of their faith used to be presumed more likely good than bad. No more. Forcefully religious people in the Trump era, especially Christians, are among the very worst offenders, dismissive of all the “Sermon on the Mount” values that are bedrock presumptions of their own faith. They have revealed themselves to be more about power and wealth than love and charity.
The day after the Inauguration, when Sean Spicer screamed at us that (despite what we could see with our own eyes)the crowd for Trump was the biggest ever, we were all gobsmacked. What an absurd lie! What outrageous behavior! What atrocious manners! What nonsense! Did he drink too many cocktails at the Inauguration ball the night before? If only we knew that three years later false images of Schumer and Pelosi dressed like Islamic terrorists would draw yawns, the President would devote most of his time and energy to bizarre rallies averaging dozens of falsehoods per event, the GOP wouldn’t blink an eye when he describes himself as perfect and repeats his requests that other nations interfere in our elections.
When a thuggy guy like “Lev” comes across as more believable than the entire executive branch, good and bad, right and wrong, legal and corrupt all seem to have blurred demarcations.
5
The Senate Impeachment trial will reveal all the GOP Senators willing to sell their soul for power.
4
When good people do nothing. For the past three years, we have seen skyrocketing hate crimes. We are not "imagining" that violence against minorities is getting worse.
The Tree of Life Synagogue murders happened with hardly a ripple in the news cycle. The Charlottesville white nationalist rally led our "president" to say that neo-Nazis and the KKK are some very fine people. This same "president" has shoved Hispanic children into internment camps on our soil - with no plans to ever reunite them with their families.
My mother-in-law is a Holocaust survivor. My own ancestors survived the Armenian Genocide. I'm in my sixties, a native-born American citizen. And I never thought I'd be seeing what I'm seeing now, at this time, in this country.
But what is playing out here is the same thing that played out in WWII Germany. The majority of people were not the targets of either the regime or their fellow citizens. They knew they would never be its victims. So they turned away.
Much of white Christian America is doing the same thing now - at least the part of white Christian America that doesn't support Trump. You will never be targets. You will never have slurs and threats screamed at you, as my family does now. You have the luxury of turning away. You can be "one of those good people" who does nothing.
But many of us don't. And we know we're no longer safe in this country, because of people like you. We know you'll do nothing to help us, when the time comes. And it will.
6
Not desensitized. Worn out. Exhausted. We are being battered. Who can fight and shout at each day’s new heinous affront? For the most part, msm is not. Except Rachel... and talk show hosts.
Impeachment. Fingers crossed.
4
To my Trump supporting friends
Let us for the moment put aside any issues of election meddling, collusion, cover-up and obstruction.
The most common reason you’ve cited for your support of Donald Trump has been the strength of our economy and his economic policies that, you believe, will increase the size of your pocketbook. Some of you have cited his ability to make appointments that will uphold or reverse what you see as assaults on the moral and economic fiber of America.
I ask you, AT WHAT COST?
Is making money and getting your way worth any amount? We have a self-serving, liar and cheat delivering your desires. Donald Trump is a documented deadbeat bully, a cheating, lying, self-promoter -as any reader of the NY tabloids back the in 80s can attest. That he is racist and misogynistic is, to me, self evident but your opinion on the matter says more about you than him.
Are you not troubled by the fact that the President has more associates convicted, indicted or under investigation than the Mafia bosses his lawyer, Mr. Giuliani prosecuted with great success?
He behaves worse and tweets more than my teenaged son. Does his lying not trouble you? His absolute lack of a moral compass as is evidenced by the ever-growing list of tell-all’s from his former associates who “are the best” - until they dare cross him.
Can you not see that his fixation with his personal problems is at the expense of the pressing needs of our country?
At what point is the price too high?
4
Oh, Bravo Timothy Egan for your truth telling. May your words shine out and light us all. Thank you.
4
Evil has seeped into your country for a long time. War crimes in Vietnam. The Highway of Death in Iraq 1991. Toffee raid on and invasion of Iraw under Bush. Torturing prisoners. Allowing the plundering of museums. The Syria policy. Murdering people with drone strikes. Spying on your allies. Devastating the planet.
The only people who think you are the good ones, are the Americans themselves.
3
I think you identified the true evil of the Trump presidency. I’ve lived through assassinations, race riots, Viet Nam, Watergate. The Trump era feels worse because we are just so divided and so many alleged good people have enabled and wallowed in his depravity.
4
And where are the generals who swore to protect this nation? Mattis, McMaster, Kelly all know Trump is unfit for office. They have a duty to speak out or they are complicit.
So also for Tillerson, Cohn (who left after getting his....tax cut/break) and the others who have factual knowledge that Trump is willing to break laws, subvert our gov. institutions and unfit morally, intellectually, temperamentally unfit to govern.
3
Many Republican senators are not merely doing nothing in the face of evil; they are actively abetting it. They are not good people.
4
When watching Trump spokespeople or apologists on television, I often wonder why they don't just burst into flames.
3
Several years ago at my work we had a small group of people who were malicious, power hungry people.
There was an even larger group that went along with it so they wouldn’t be picked on, left out of good assignments.
I don’t think the larger group were malicious, but malleable to the culture around them.
That’s the real danger when evil men control the government. They set the tone how the rest of us should act.
5
There has been a great deal written about the tribalism and specific characteristics of Trump and anti-Trump Americans. I think I have found a simple test that will have an extremely high correlation in this determination. And that is....... the number of literary fiction books the person has read since finishing their formal education. Anyone who has read a good deal of quality novels will have the right combination of discernment, ethics and human compassion to reject Trump and his cohorts. And what we are seeing in this impeachment saga is essentially a Dickens novel- the villains are beyond obvious.
9
@Richard Katz
Great insight. I suggest, though, that the greatest influence of reading fiction is the development of empathy, not just understanding what another feels but experiencing it vicariously to the point of taking action. A simple/convenient example is the impact of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" on 19th-century America.
3
Thanks so much for this article. When I became the target of bullying, I realized how important it is to stand up to bad behaviour and actions. All my colleagues simply did nothing, and thus enabled the bully. He felt free to continue, and did so. I've been guilty of the same behaviour as my colleagues at other times. Now I look to find ways to positively and kindly refute bad behaviour. And hugely admire those people who stand with courage and honour.
10
Egan is sadly mistaken if he thinks that dictators succeed just because most people do nothing. Typically dictators succeed because they supply something that most people want. Sometimes people feel grievances against other countries - or this grievance is somehow contrived - and they want war and conquest. Napoleon and Hitler were actively supported as long as they were winning, as was the Iraq war initially. Sometimes dictators succeed because they bring economic stability out of chaos, as Putin apparently did. Part of Trump's success is due to the racism and xenophobia of a part of the population. To bring Trump down it may be necessary to identify the critical thing or things that a majority actually want and make a convincing case that they can be supplied. Moral outrage has seldom worked as a counter to dictators.
171
@skeptonomist
Interesting point. Everyday brings another outrage from IMPOTUS. I read about it. Swear. Dispatch forum comments seething in anger and hate. Take a handful of antacids. Write/Rewrite my representative and senators, pleading that they check and challenge that vile monster. Take more antacids. Discover that the gut-in-chief has transgressed even further. Scream at the news. Finally (seriously), start thinking about drinking away the discomfort. Granted, I'm allowing him too much control over my life. But until I actively volunteer to support in the flesh/from my wallet ANY Democrat in 2020, all I have is an ulcer, a hangover, and the possibility of four more years of intolerable malfeasance.
19
@skeptonomist While I agree with much of what you say. How do we supply the racists and xenophobes? A good dose of moral outrage seems appropriate.
8
Finally, the "E" word is used. Yes, there's no other word for the atrocities around us. The man is evil, and emanations of evil are evident throughout the land. We have to fight.
24
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing."
Sorry, but if the 'they' were 'good' they could not be doing nothing.
"Goodness" requires doing something. Check any secular or scripture teachings.
9
Trump joined a “Team” where evil was already well-planted.
He’s just reaping the “produce” of seeds long sown by the GOP.
15
I think all that has happened in this episode of Trump is that our national dysfunction, the fallout of our history of white patriarchy, has finally become so blatant that it can no longer be patched up, placated or ignored. For years we’ve handed out rape whistles instead of addressing rape culture. Ditto for racism, income inequality, etc.
We are asking people to make sacrifices. Whether it’s just standing up to family members or putting their jobs at risk, they believe they stand to lose something by stepping away from what has worked in the past. When you perceive yourself to be barely surviving in the first place, that is not inconsequential.
No answers here and no defense of Trumpers, just some understanding of why people cling to old ways of thinking and voting. And I guess some acknowledgement of the magnitude of our current problem. It’s gonna take more than removing Trump from office.
8
We are living under a pall of hate. Thank you for expressing what so many of us are feeling.
13
"...for good people to do nothing."
I give you those who "made a statement" by not voting because DJT and HRC were "essentially the same."
It seems obvious they were not.
11
I am not quite sure what exactly is the purpose of this article. If it is to suggest that the society has been corrupted by Trump and is now "evil" then I would say save the ink. I am not evil. My family is not evil. My friends are not evil. And some of them even voted for Trump. To make the case that evil is contagious is even a bit of a stretch, especially if you are using Trump and his followers as an example. Trump has not increased the level of evil a cent. He has just exposed it. He has given license to bigots, nativists, racists, misogynists, and other "ists." We now get to see such folks "out of the closet" thanks to Trump. Better to know who's evil and who's the enemy than not.
To say that evil has become contagious and Trump is the reason is similar to saying all of the Muslim world is evil just because a small minority of Muslims buy into jihadist politics. The vast majority of us folks in the US are not evil; we are decent, honest, hardworking people. To say otherwise is insulting to all of us decent people. Evil has not grown and its not contragious. It exposed... and that's a good thing.
3
@Jack Smith "Evil is as evil does." That even extend to the act of voting.
Evil is always contagious. The challenge is in controlling how far and how fast it spreads. Trump has taken advantage of the nature of evil and contaminated millions and turned many who embraced him into ashes. Evil is easier to spread than good because it deploys fear, anger, and hate stimulating an adrenaline rush. All the while, they are thinking that they are accomplishing something whereas the country is going down the tubes. Yes, the economy is doing OK but the society is being pulled apart to the point of grave concern. Even TV commercials are now mainly fear-based, pay attention to them and you will see.
5
Will there be a reckoning? Like after 1945 in Germany? Like when the criminal quality of 1933-1945 was seen in a different light?
Will Republicans forever be smeared by the foulness that is Trump? Will they reflect and atone, or bury and deny?
If only Canada could liberate us and conduct a full de-trumpification process, that would help, wouldn’t it?
7
It will take 4 Republican senators to stand up. Let us see if the whole GOP is so corrupt. Are they more afraid of Trump and Barr or are they Americans? The next few days will tell. I am talking to you Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, and Cory Gardner . Which side of history will you be on? Do you care?
6
Nicely done, and largely fact-based. The call to resist because Trump and his ilk are evil is the ultimate call for some, but really how many? 80+% of Republicans will support him no matter what he does on Fifth Avenue, and many liberals are uncomfortable with an appeal to good-vs-evil because it smacks of the religiosity they abhor. It occurs to me that Mr. Egan is in the same shroud of confusion that I've been in for 4 years : "who ARE these people"? Has there been an Invasion of the Soul Snatchers?
4
Complements also for the illustration with its shades of Goya.
@mflcs https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-9-spring-2007/you-nourish-yourself-everything-you-hate
More like - George Grosz
1
@mflcs
By the time my comment was posted, the grim, menacing, back-view portrait had been replaced! Too bad.
What makes you think there are enough "good people" among the Senate's Republicans to vote for conviction?
3
The essential treachery is that Trump’s main support comes from white evangelical Christians, who are calling evil good. They elected Trump because he will do ANYTHING to keep them in power. The lower he sinks, the higher they rise; or so they believe.
It is crucial to confess that evangelicalism has radically strayed from the heart of the Christian gospel in its embrace of Trumpism. It has become false doctrine.
Mainstream Christianity in America is on trial in this election. Will it allow the good name of the gospel to be hijacked by a monster, or will it protest?
9
@Paul C. McGlasson It is too late the ask that question. It was answered decades ago. It is "Yes."
"What is honored in a country will be cultivated there."
Plato
7
Mr. Egan, your work here is accurate and sobering. The GOP CULT of Evil will not voluntarily subside, it is energized and fully interwined in it's orgy of evil. You are spot on in reminding Americans that, "Evil triumphs when good people do nothing." America with it's flaws and unsteady steps of progress, has done much, but must continue to do grow and be more for all. As Thomas Paine said, ..."'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." NOTHING in the next 10 months should be left in our tanks as we work, struggle, and act to end Trump's reign of Evil.
4
Mob mentality has always been contagious. The only thing different today is that bored people don't need to leave their living rooms to contribute to bloodlust. They can share watch reality TV and pick their poison, and then, go onto social media fuel the fire.
4
Thank you for reminding us once again what is at stakein this election. I never thought that at the age of 72 I would be called upon to defend democracy on the streets if need be. We assumed that our democracy was safe until the GOP adopted the evil con man Trump. The presidency was to be honored as our highest office, the defender of democracy, not a tawdry side show circus of lies and obfuscations. Trump has pitted our society against itself and we are eating each other alive for Trump's egotistical evil purposes.
9
Might I add another truism? "The only thing necessary for ignorance to flourish is for educated people to say nothing."
Alternate facts are not truth. Many Americans are suffering from a lack of intellectual curiosity, allowing others to define and distort the truth.
Wake up! Read, watch multiple news sources, then fairly and calmly debate the direction our country is going with your friends and relatives.
5
I was wondering the audience that Egan was thinking he was talking to. I would wager that the vast majority of those reading this OpEd piece didn't vote for Trump. Yes, we do all need to fight but...
-we did vote (the majority did vote for Clinton)
-we have pushed back with family and friends
-we vote consistently in local elections
-we have written our Congress Representatives and Senators
-we have Commented in blogs and social media
-we have boycotted products and companies
-we have supported organizations via donations
...and yet nothing has or is changing for the better. For working adults, what else are we proposing here? (FYI. marching in the streets has proven to be ineffective in this country in the last 40 years and the approach needs a major overhaul to be viable See article below.)
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/08/21/is-there-any-point-to-protesting
3
Let’s remember that “good people” does not include republicans and trumpers, who have proven beyond doubt their utter corruption in their support of Trump.
3
I know I have said this before, but I am forced to reiterate it. I am 80 years old. The first time I voted was for John Kennedy in an election where people were afraid to vote for a Catholic man who might rely on the his church to govern. It wasn't true and I think we sadly lost someone who truly cared for his country and wasn't at all swayed by his Church. Frankly I never thought that Trump would win the last election. How could he? He was known to be a horrible person who lied and threatened people and cared only for one person...himself. I am still having trouble with the fact that my country put this dreadful man in office.He thinks he is now a king and acts accordingly. I am afraid that children will grow up thinking that his actions are to be emulated. I am looking forward to the next election hoping he will be voted out of office, but frankly I don't trust him or the Republicans who back him not to pull some horribly dirty tricks to see that he remains in office to do more damage. I am counting on my fellow thinking citizens not to vote for him. I probably don't have that many more years to see what will happen to this country, but I fear for my children and grandchildren who are growing up with this awful leader. Do his voters not care what sort of legacy they are leaving for their descendants? I can only feel pity for them and hope they push the right button on election day.
10
I have compared our time to Germany pre WW2. Trump is dangerous. And the evil he promotes is intoxicating to millions of Americans. But what about the people who know how bad he is and yet do nothing? How, how, how do we get them to budge? We must speak truth.
5
What 'good people'?
Trump didn't run a covert stealthy subtle campaign. Every American knew who Trump was and was not and voted accordingly. The same thing was true of Hillary Clinton.
Among the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 was 58% of the white European American voting majority including 62% of white men and 54% of white women.
While 66 million Americans voted for Clinton including 92% of the black African American voting minority made-up of 88% of black men and 95% of black women.
Mahatma Gandhi once defined leadership as the ability to seeing where the people are going and running out in front him.
Trump can't be blamed on divine royal sanction selection nor an armed uniformed military coup.
4
Thank you Mr. Eagan for stating what is so clear to - I hope - the majority of us. Pure evil.
I have never been able to wrap my head around how the German people could brutally murder six million of their friends, neighbors, wives, children. Now I know.
When I see those who call themselves Christians, and their so called leaders like Graham, Falwell, Robertson, Reed, etc., surround him and worship him like a modern day golden calf, I see how it happened.
And I guess I should include myself amongst the stricken. Every day I hope to wake up to learn that he is no longer amongst the living.
5
Terrific as per your usual, Mr. Egan. The level of depravity that you state so forthrightly is spot on, as depressing and shocking as it is. Your points taken to underline the depravity remind the reader of Trump's amorality, ignorance, and criminality to achieve this state of the Union. We find ourselves in a strange land with riches for many beyond any calculation while at the same time children continue to be in cages, climate agreements are broken, voter suppression seems on the rise, and impeachment beckons. I concur with Wilson and Egan: fight accordingly.
4
No. They suppressed their true evil and it was allowed to surface when Trump made criminality the right of the president. People who support the president were always evil. They were just able to hide it because they thought laws were meaningful. Well, laws are no longer meaningful so they can be their true selves.
3
“Do not, as my party did, underestimate the evil, desperate nature of evil, desperate people,” indeed. Garry Trudeau's amoral cartoon character, Duke, said it more succinctly, and chillingly, when he advised his equally amoral nephew, "Always bet on the cornered rat!" We can only hope that a few Republican senators suddenly develop spines.
2
Is questioning the moral judgment of people who voted for President Donald J Trump a strategy of desperate measures by Democrats that is equally contagious as Egan proports or is this just the rewording of Hillary Clinton's infamous "Deplorables"?
I really do not find any value in what Egan writes or thinks, since it is not unique rhetoric but just a recycling of a failed message.
2020 is here, so try your best and buckle up for four more years...
@MDCooks8 Well clearly the message has failed with you and I would say that many of us feel it's useless to have the conversation at all with trumpers. (if in fact you are even real) Trump's hatefulness was on stage the first day of his campaign and it has gotten worse from there. If you don't see why it's morally wrong to support him and at this point all the republicans who have excused his crimes, hatefulness, lying etc, well then yes your morals are questionable at best.
Very depressing. If "good" people do nothing then they are not good people. People like Trump have always existed. The fact that millions of Americans cheer him as our leader--that's really depressing.
2
What you say is true: we have to stand up and fight. But in times like these come temptations to adopt (always "temporarily") the tactics of the foe who appears to hold all the power. Keep that fact in front of you. Resist that temptation as mightily as you resist the evil we are confronting. Giving in to it can be expedient, but it is deadly. I don't mean B'rer Rabbit tricks. I mean tactics we know are wrong. Lying. Cheating. Scapegoating. You know. I know. We cannot forget, this time. Because it is what allows decent people to tune out, believing everyone is corrupt, and that the truth in any situation or proposition is unknowable, so why try.
3
"The smaller evils are the Republican senators who know the president violated his oath and deserves to be impeached, but don’t have the guts to say so."
Nope, these are not smaller evils. Trump seems to have dementia and is not fully aware when he is misinforming ...."? lying".
The Republican abettors to his acts are cognizant of their actions and are truly the evil ones. Nunes, Jordan, Collins, McConnell, Graham, Pence et al.
2
“The smaller evils are the Republican senators who know the president violated his oath and deserves to be impeached, but don’t have the guts to say so.” You are conflating courage to speak up, to risk losing their $174,000 salary, their limousines and preferred reservations at fancy restaurants and of course Trump hotel, with basic morality and Christian ethics. The Republicans we saw ranting and shouting in the House hearings, the White House aids like Barbie Kelly, the once moral lawyers like Barr, who all know the truth, are, yes, EVIL, because they are complicit in ”crimes and misdemeanours”, and have no morality whatsoever. It has nothing to do with courage, or lack thereof. It’s a question of basic moral character, which all of these Jim Jordan types do not have.
4
While I agree that Trump is evil and needs to go, I think the problem is way more complicated than just his being awful. The fact that good people ignored the evil that was spreading throughout Europe and the west contributed greatly to our current problem. Reporters being massacred for printing an image of Allah in an unflattering way was met with near silence. Women being abused throughout the middle east and yet our leaders shake hands with them and look the other way. People are scared because they were used to folks assimilating and admiring our system of government but now many come here expecting us to adhere to their way of life. Fear can create monsters as is evident in the white house.
1
Great piece as always Mr. Egan – but are they good people really? Pre-Trump they perverted Supreme court selection with refusing Merrick Garland. This and other tactics had they been done to the Republicans would have sent them into a frenzy. For this system to work requires both sides to act in good faith. Trump is the monster they created.
3
Evil people are evil people. Those who succumb to evil people are evil people.
We can observe human history as a battle of good struggling to overcome evil. Too often; evil has come out the winner. Human suffering has then been the result, often of immense proportion.
The battle against Donald Trump is a battle against evil. It is a battle for humanity. It must now begin with all intensity. We are in a critical evolutionary period. Hundreds of millions and even billions of lives hang in the balance. Each of us must understand that acts of rebellion, however futile they appear in the moment, are not wasted. We all must oppose this evil man with every ounce of energy we have.
www.InquiryAbraham.com
3