I continue to struggle to understand the popularity of Trump and his policies. This especially disturbs me as I think of friends who continue to support this president in face of his amoral behavior and unprecedented policies.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, I\u2019ve come to believe that lots of people really don\u2019t follow the news, tune out information they don\u2019t want to hear, respond only to bread and butter issues that potentially affect them or simply conform to what their friends and social groups evoke. Above all, they are concerned exclusively about tangible issues such as immigration, the cost of living, war and peace, and cultural concerns about political correctness, sexual orientation and abortion; in short, those issues that have an immediacy, that have a visible presence in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n
What they don\u2019t see or want to see are those issues that have a more cerebral quality involving sanctity of the law, constitutional government, judicial independence, personal freedoms and religious and moral righteousness.
\nDoing the right thing for humanity becomes invisible. What they don\u2019t see or understand is that these less tangible and, God forbid, philosophical issues are ultimately the most important ones in maintaining our democratic republic.<\/p>\n
Proof of this is seen in the growing criticism of Trump because of the economy, what we are calling the \u201caffordability issue; without it Trump would be as popular as ever. Trump supporters would never abandon him because of his disregard of the law, unconstitutional attacks on the judiciary, the media and our universities. If you need further proof, look at the evangelical Christians who ignore their own principles to gain political advantage.<\/p>\n
I titled this post \u201cThe Banality of Evil\u201d because it strikes me that Hannah Arendt\u2019s famous quote provides an insight as to Trump\u2019s success since he was first elected in 2016. During the Eichmann trial, she observed that great evil is not always perpetrated by monsters, but by ordinary people who conform to the values of a corrupt society without critical thinking. In Trump\u2019s case, as in the Third Reich, personal responsibility and apparent refusal to think for oneself brings about a conformity to act immorally. Without thinking about ethical implications, the culture of the government becomes the norm as it is repeated over and over no matter how evil.<\/p>\n
Let me add, that this is my attempt, to think out loud, about what is happening in this very dark period of our history. There is much more to this story and I\u2019m sure that many of you can add other reasons and causes. But, as a friend recently wrote it has become increasingly difficult not to compare what is happening here to that of Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I continue to struggle to understand the popularity of Trump and his policies. This especially disturbs me as I think of friends who continue to support this president in face of his amoral behavior and unprecedented policies. Increasingly, I\u2019ve come to believe that lots of people really don\u2019t follow the news, tune out information they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-robert-fischer"],"yoast_head":"\n