All It Takes

“Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.”

Thomas Mann

“ I am the one who knocks!”

Walter White

We have been raised to believe in the incompatibility between evil and inanity. Hollywood to history books reinforce the notion that the pursuit of evil is a structured quest, with forethought and dark strategy at work to impose the worst in sweeping and systematic fashion, nothing piecemeal or slipshod about it. When we think of notorious authoritarians we too often make them smarter and more deliberate than they were, as if launching a two-front world war against an ally fully prepared to cede you most of a continent includes some whiff of logic and intelligence.

Throughout Trump’s idiotic reign the principle solace many have grasped for is this assumption anybody so disorganized and ad hominem isn’t capable of destroying 250 years worth of democratic institutions and traditions, ushering in a dark age. Listen to him, they’ve regularly declared, he couldn’t plot a trip to the basement, let alone a coup to usurp the Constitution. When things get bad enough adults will abandon ship and he’ll turn to pudding. How has that worked out?

Fact is, nothing supports such confidence; history posts a long list of atrocity by incompetents. When it comes to the projection of evil, aptitude is never a requirement. Only two things are, both of which Trump boasts in spades: a sociopathic lack of empathy and self-awareness, and control of the resources required to impose it. When it comes to crimes against humanity, simply being devoid of conscience is more than half the battle.

We’ve learned on a near daily basis that our POTUS can always go lower, impulsively plunging to new depths. Yet and still, every now and again he will clarify straight up he is in fact evil and, with the immense power at his disposal, a grave danger to us all. Speaking the other day at a so-called coronavirus briefing, really just a platform for more unhinged gibberish, the Bunker Duffer wandered about his ever-growing enemies list, pretending it was still February and he hadn’t ruined the nation’s health and economy already.

Suddenly his eyes lit up at one of the bullet points Stephen Miller had provided for his teleprompter. New Zealand, who all but the worst took heart in for completely flattening their Covid curve, recently reported new cases of the virus. Trump was positively giddy about the news! “New Zealand, by the way, just had a big outbreak, and other countries, who were put up to make us look not as good as we should…” The next day, at a rally in Minnesota, Trump did a wink wink, nudge nudge for the wretched core chorus after revisiting the subject. “Of course, we don’t want that,” he said with the scurrilous smirk reserved for when he wants something with all of his ghoulish soullessness.

Since the turn of the 20th Century, America has been led by a number of Presidents with weighty baggage on their scales. Wilson had a stroke and was near fully incapacitated by the end of his second term. Of course, Franklin Roosevelt was heroic into four terms bound to a wheel chair. Nixon was corrupt and paranoid, but had enough shame and civic duty to leave when the gig was up. Clinton couldn’t help himself and felt victimized so many couldn’t get past his entitlement to seedy and improper personal indulgence – a kinder, gentler narcissism. Reagan was clearly in the early stages of Alzheimer’s toward 1988. The list is long. Yet and still, we’ve never before done evil born of sociopathic character disorder. Now we may get four more years of it. Oh, yes, he’s an imbecile to boot, Hitler and Klink all rolled into one.

The Democrats went after Trump as they had to do last week; anything less would have been complicity, a wanton surrender to consultants desperate enough for an income stream they don’t mind destroying its wellspring for. Nobody really doubted it would happen; but meted out over four nights among the companion theme of the genuine diversity Trumpism detests, its impact was a very pleasant surprise, more powerful than most expected. In particular, both Obamas provided long overdue bearings for defining how unfit Trump is for office with the style and substance anyone but despicables couldn’t help but celebrate as dawn to MAGA’s long night.

However, we’re still tip toeing through the tulips when it comes to what we confront, still trying to stick his square peg in our round avoidance of the indictment MAGA’s durability merits of our society at large. Our democracy is not meant to survive some certain tipping point when a collective lack of altruism makes the breeding grounds for despotism and atrocity sufficiently lush with too much apathy and self-absorption. At that juncture it’s just a question of when somebody is willing to consume whatever good is left; and they don’t have to be ingenious or even cunning, merely prepared to do what’s necessary without concern for precedent. Sound like anyone we know?

The next four days promise to be a true shit show. The temptation to permit the parade of America First clowns’ ineptitude on the stump to obscure the toxic platitudes all will slur, or amateurish production values to diminish the divisive cruelty they sloppily portray, will be strong and certain to allay some degree of alarm at the message this GOP enthusiastically embraces. But evil is evil, and MAGA is just that with increasingly diminished effort to disguise its ugliness. Worse, it’s doubtful this snake won’t keep slithering even if you do cut off its head in November; is their any doubt in the capability of any number of current GOP toadies to go full dark side as needed to replace Trump as the wretched core’s Jim Jones du jour? Cruz, Cotton, Jordan, Hawley, even ever more disgusting Marco Rubio, etc. No shortage of applicants.

We are necessarily wedded to the goal of trouncing Trumpism come November. There is nothing else we are allowed or should allow ourselves to consider right now. Blow them out. Landslide. Nonetheless, Trump provides hourly evidence he recognizes no such boundaries to his rabid inclinations, while now near constantly reinforcing how truly awful a human being he is, which both his niece and sister have provided their own depositions to support. Joe Biden was excellent last Thursday declaring “character and decency are on the ballot.” Indeed. However, we know, and should not forget, that he didn’t go near far enough. When it comes to Decision/2020 and beyond, it’s the evil, stupid! BC