Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
Most of Trump’s second term declarations and executive orders have been unwise (tariffs) or just plain silly (Gulf of America). Some of them have been much worse–evil by design and execution. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition), defines evil as “arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct” or as “morally reprehensible.” The presence of evil infects at least three current activities that the President has undertaken or greenlighted.
1. Gaza genocide. Trump has perpetuated Joe Biden’s complicity with Israel in its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Like his predecessor, he has continued to furnish the IDF with bombs, missiles and high-powered rifles. He has ignored or dismissed evidence that those U.S. arms have contributed to the massive destruction of buildings and more than 50,000 civilian deaths (mostly women and children).
Trump has encouraged Netanyahu to occupy the Gaza Strip and to consider developing it as a luxury seaside resort, one that would feature Trump hotels and lavish entertainment spots. He has also signaled his approval of Israel’s planned ethnic cleansing of the entire Palestinian population, both in Gaza and in the West Bank. Under the 1949 Genocide Convention, Trump (and Biden/Blinken) are accountable under the complicity provision. Trump’s aiding and abetting of Netanyahu is pure evil.
2. Arrests, detentions and deportations. Over the past few months, we have witnessed video coverage of ICE’s often violent seizures of immigrants, including international students whose only “crime” was to assert Palestinian rights in campus protests or publications. In early March, masked ICE agents forcibly seized Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil and drove him away in an unmarked car. We later learned that he was and still is imprisoned in Louisiana.
Other publicized crackdown victims, including Georgetown postdoctoral fellow Badar Khan Suri, Columbia student Mohsen Mahdawi, Turkish doctoral student at Tuffs University Rumeysa Ozturk, and Russian-born Harvard researcher Kseniia Petrova suffered similar fates. Although each of them, except Khalil and Petrova, has now been freed on bail, their confinements have put a damper on free speech at universities and bred fear among international students.
The ruthless kidnappings, disappearances and detentions have featured plainclothes men in unmarked cars who refuse to identify themselves or present a judicial warrant. They do not hesitate to break down doors or shatter car windows to reach immigrants on their target lists. Trump has even refused a Supreme Court demand to “facilitate” the return of the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia from a torture prison in El Salvador. Such actions by the Trump ICE teams are pure evil.
3. Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” (BBB). This eleven-hundred-page budget creates an economic time bomb by greatly expanding the federal deficit, increasing interest on the debt, and downgrading the US. credit rating.
But the terrible cruelty of the bill lies in the heavy burden it places on the poor. Tax benefits for the wealthiest and the corporations are paid for in part by higher taxes on low-income persons. Moreover, the projected cuts to food stamps and Medicaid (and new bureaucratic hurdles imposed on Medicare access) would help support tax reductions for the wealthiest taxpayers. Up to fourteen million residents could lose their lifesaving health and financial benefits. Budget experts have called Trump’s BBB the largest wealth transfer from poor-to -rich in U.S. history.
The common denominator in each of the three cited policies is an evil that springs from intentional harm directed at fellow human beings. The ongoing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, the persecution of migrants and immigrants in the United States, and the proposed economic assault on people who rely on food aid and health insurance are shameful realities. The administration’s continuing complicity in Israel’s genocide, its cruel deportation tactics, and its blatant nonconcern for those who live below the poverty line reflect more than hateful disrespect of the powerless. Such policies are active expressions of evil intent.
In his 2024 history, The World After Gaza, Indian scholar Pankaj Mishra expresses a dark reality. “After witnessing savage mass murder over several months…millions now feel less at home in the world.” Yet again referring to Gaza, the author finds some hope in the courage and personal sacrifices of campus protesters who refuse “complicity with corrupted institutions.” He applauds their “faith in the human capacity to resist thuggish authority and to recognize and empathize with the powerless in any situation.”
Perhaps we too can hope that a new generation of young people will help restore a moral compass for world leaders.
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