Editorials

“A somber President Trump mourned the victims of the Las Vegas attack and called it “an act of pure evil” during brief remarks at the White House late Monday morning.

“Speaking directly from a prepared statement, the president reached for unity and struck a religious tone that is unusual for him, though more common when he reads prepared remarks.” (from an article in The Atlantic).

You can always tell when the twerpish Steven Miller has written one of Trump’s occasional teleprompter speeches, because Miller’s had enough of a (rejected) religious upbringing to manipulate the lingo. His boss didn’t even have that.

Donald Trump’s only exposture to something resembling moral thought was the Norman Vincent Peale “Power of Positive Thinking” feel-good pseudo religion. In the current administration, you could say that Miller plays The Devil to Trump’s Faust, except that the incumbent president lacks Faust’s initial innocence.

In a week where Evil has reared its ugly head all over the planet, Donald Trump has earned the Pure Evil of the Week award for his tweets about Puerto Rico. 

His deliberate destruction of the Affordable Care Act is bad, though arguably based on economic ignorance rather than Pure Evil. The firestorm in Northern California is catastrophic, but probably not his fault. But as the expression of pure unmitigated capital E Evil, these expressions of malice take the prize: 

"Puerto Rico survived the Hurricanes, now a financial crisis looms largely of their own making… A total lack of..... ...accountability say the Governor. Electric and all infrastructure was disaster before hurricanes. Congress to decide how much to spend.... ...We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!” 

Is there a more classic example of a cowardly evil-minded bully than viciously kicking someone when they’re down? 

Three weeks! Twenty-one days! That’s how long the American citizens of Puerto Rico have been getting totally inadequate aid from their federal government. The citizens of New York and New Jersey are still getting help for losses in hurricanes which happened 10 or 12 years ago. 

As I looked today for the very first time at the TrumpTwitter page (a terrifying experience), I saw this one, a tweet to #ValuesVotersSummit: 

In America, we don't worship government - we worship God. 

Oh sure. Just exactly what god is that, Moloch? It’s a stunning insult to the God of the three desert religions, presumably the one Trump thinks he’s referring to, to imply that Trump’s attack on Puerto Rico is anything but morally bankrupt. 

In a New York Times profile of speech writer Steven Miller this week, the rabbi of his high school days plaintively wondered how he’d turned out so badly. 

“ ‘ We did our best here,’ said Mr. Miller’s rabbi, Jeff Marx, ‘to teach Jewish ethics and talk about our need to reach out to the strangers, to those less fortunate than we are.’ “ 

That’s not just Jewish ethics, it’s a sentiment also endorsed by Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, and Moslems of all sects (not to mention the plethora of world religions which didn’t arise in the Middle Eastern desert.) The unholy allies Miller and Trump claim to worship that very same God, but in fact they are enthusiastic disciples of Pure Evil. 

This is not the first time that the name of God has been invoked as a cover for evil-doing. It’s happened over millennia, and it’s happening now all over the world. And not surprisingly, it’s often linked with what we mostly call racism. 

Modern racism, while often based on skin color, is one aspect of a more complex phenomenon, the fear of the Other, which frequently has religion as well as race at its core. Moslems in ex-Yugoslavia looked just like the Christian neighbors who despised and persecuted them. The Buddhists in Myanmar are now slaughtering Rohinga, who have lived among them as Moslems and Hindus for centuries. In this week’s London Review an article attributes the success of the Conservatives to centuries of anti-Catholic sentiment. And so it goes. 

Color counts, as does culture. The most likely explanation for Donald Trump’s disdain for Puerto Ricans is their dark skin tones, which reflect African ancestry, but their Spanish language plays a part too, part of his general animus against Latin immigrants. He can’t close the borders to Puerto Ricans since they’re birthright citizens, but he might be able to starve them out by withholding aid. 

Regardless of its cause, his attempt to do so is Pure Evil Incarnate. 

He gave a speech today to the Values Voter Summit, a gathering of Christian conservatives, about which NPR reported : 

" ‘We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values,’Trump said to applause.” 

Would that it were true. 

It’s hard to believe that in that whole big crowd of churchly people there was no one able to recognize Trump’s hostility toward suffering Puerto Rico as exactly that, an attack on Judeo-Christian values. 

I wonder if the Little Sisters of the Poor, whose name he invoked in his speech because their lawsuit about not paying for employees’ contraception is in the courts now, agree that denying aid to the poor of Puerto Rico is right and good? 

Somehow I doubt it. Although I don't agree with their stand on contraception, I don't think they've sold their souls to the Devil. 

On their website, they say that "our MISSION is to offer the neediest elderly of every race and religion a home where they will be welcomed as Christ, cared for as family and accompanied with dignity until God calls them to himself." 

Does that apply to the elderly poor of Puerto Rico? One would think so. 

Maybe the good sisters should be encouraged to speak up to Trump on behalf of needy Puerto Ricans. Why don’t we ask them to do so? 

From their web page: “For General Inquires contact the Communications Office at serenitys@littlesistersofthepoor.org”. 

Just shoot them a quick email suggesting that they take a stand, why don’t you? 

You might quote Edmund Burke: 

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

That applies to women, too.