Evil and idiocy stripping away veneer of western civilization

I’m often terrified to remember that the veneer of civilization on top of the savagery of human history is razor thin and comes off easily. That veneer is wearing very thin right now — and evil is forcing its way out into the open.

What’s even more terrifying is that many people are eagerly cheering for one form of evil or another. But they all assume they’re on the side of what’s right — and that the people they hate are the only evil ones.

We like to see political and social struggles as battles between good and evil. We like to choose good guys and bad guys. We like to see ourselves on the side of angels who are fighting against demons, whether real or metaphorical.

But there are times when titanic clashes are between one form of evil and another form of evil. Western civilization is locked in one such battle right now. The United States is ground zero for that clash of evil — which some people try to see as “the lesser of two evils.”

Choosing either side right now ensures that you become part of the evil.

Donald Trump is mentally ill. He’s a lying narcissist with delusions of godhood — and he’s enabling us to slide further and further into a one-man cult of personality which is both evil and dangerous. He’s not some genius playing a secret game with hidden motives. He’s an economic illiterate and he’s seized powers which are going to destroy economies around the world. He is hurting people in ways that are too numerous to list here.

But Trump’s popularity and rise to power didn’t exist in a vacuum. Trump is a reaction — as I argued back in 2015 — to a different form of tyranny that has a kinder face, but which is equally dangerous.

For close to a hundred years, radicals of the far left have pushed Democrats to adopt more and more extreme positions. What started out as nutty theories that grew out of so-called “critical theory” — from the academics of the Frankfurt School in Europe — have slowly become mainstream dogma for today’s progressive leftists

For decades, the radical left has been turning “white” into something evil. For the people who think this way, everything is about oppressors and victims — and whites are the perpetual oppressors, no matter what they’ve done. As a result, well-meaning white liberals have learned to hate themselves and to self-flagellate everything about where they’ve come from.

They’ve created an insane world where parents of newborns are asked to list their baby’s sexual orientation and “gender identity.” I thought this was satire when I first ran across it last month, but it turned out to be true at a hospital in New Jersey. (Here’s a copy of the survey form.)

Normal and sane people are outraged and confused about the idiocy and evil of what is being pushed on them in many, many ways — and this is leading many millions to embrace whatever they see as the opposite.

Those who have embraced the idiocy and evil of the radical left’s ideas have spent decades trying to force everyone to comply with those ideas — and this is pushing otherwise-reasonable people to embrace Trump, because they see him as a “strong man” who will stand up to what’s being forced on them.

And those who embrace the idiocy and evil of Trump’s cult of personality are terrifying moderates who would otherwise support sane and moderate conservative Republicans.

There is no sane and reasonable political choice right now — other than opting out and refusing to participate. Unfortunately, the vast majority have been brainwashed into believing they have a moral obligation to support one or the other of the evil groups vying for power. Almost nobody speaks for the moral truth of voluntary choice for individuals to live their own lives.

Rule of law has been slipping away in this country for many years. Democrats were eager to push the boundaries of power that the federal government should exercise. And now that Democrats have laid that foundation, Trump and his band of insane populists and narcissistic losers have come to Washington and proceeded to vandalize every institution in sight. They’re setting the stage for Democrats to push things even further to the left — as another reaction — when they inevitably regain power.

It’s a scary time to be sane and rational. We have an economic ignoramus who’s about to push the economy over the cliff in a dramatic way. (It had been heading that way for other reasons for a long time, but tariffs are going to make things far worse in the long run.)

If you’re not terrified right now, you’re not paying attention. And if you find yourself cheering for one political group or the other, you’re on the side of evil and idiocy — no matter which brand of evil and idiocy you’ve chosen to support.