When Jeffrey Epstein — a man whose soul resembled a clogged hotel drain — calls you “evil beyond belief,” you’ve officially left the zip code of standard human depravity and wandered into a neighborhood where even the streetlights refuse to turn on.
I am reading Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem – A Report on the Banality of Evil.
She attends Eichmann's trial, takes notes, deeply seeks to understand how Eichmann and his cohort could have done what they did.
And she learns that Eichmann was stupid, that he was a lifelong joiner, that he could not conceive of his life without having orders to follow, a group to which to belong. In short, he was an ordinary person, not an evil monster. He was the guy in the area under the bell curve. She wrote her conclusions – that ordinary people can commit evil without being malicious or monstrous, but rather through thoughtlessness, bureaucratic compliance, a failure to think for themselves, a need to belong, to advance in their careers, to please the strong man. Eichmann at his trial said he was “just following orders.” So long as there are no outside voices questioning his thinking, asking why he isn’t following the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, he can stay his course.
I thought of the GOP, of course. But I was smacked in the face by Eichmann’s testimony that he was living according to Kant’s categorical imperative.
Say what?
To the bookshelf, back to Kant.
Arendt writes that Eichmann had misunderstood Kant, that he had substituted Hitler for the internal moral authority. At his trial he testified that he was just following orders.
Thus is the GOP revealed. They are just following orders. They do not contain multitudes. They contain Trump.
This is true but the comparison between Eichmann and Trump doesn’t quite work. This is because Trump’s psychological profile puts him into a rare class where he is far from ordinary. Being a malignant narcissist with a sociopathy that means he has no conscience, no empathy, no self-awareness and definitely no self control, he acts without shame or impunity. He only considers other people in terms of their value or use to him. He sought and obtained the presidency because he saw it as a means of exacting revenge, being immune from his only fear, imprisonment, building up his wealth by plundering the nation and walking the world stage as some kind of hero. The Chosen One!
The depths of his depravity are as yet unfathomed.
As we note, I was referring to Eichmann and to the GOP in Congress. Their common points are the need to be in a group, to please the bully, to be insulated from moral criticism, and to follow orders - in order to release dopamine. I get my kicks on other trips.
Interesting. Kant’s moral imperative was developed by removing beauty from the standard of truth. From the Greeks onward truth had always included the good+true+beautiful. A three dimensional view of it, Kant argued beauty was inferior to truth because of its subjective nature. He was tempted to do the same to “the good” but argued himself out that via the moral imperative.Balthasar a philosopher argued that this twist enabled the modern age to ignore ugliness as a sign of wrong direction. As so much of modern development including war, was blatantly ugly,- that Kant’s reductionist separation enabled an over emphasis on the utilitarian, which allowed the utilitarian to become duty, as a form of human stupidity.
Great article, spot on. We all know DT is evil, mixed with narcissism, dementia, depravity, greed, sadism, cankles, etc. That's just what he is. I'm far more disgusted with his enablers. They (at some time in the past) knew better, yet they fall in line and bow to his every whim.
Epstein may not have been able or willing to leverage Trump, but we are waiting for (ras)Putin to play his fifth ace. You know he’s got a full deck of faces & aces up his sleeve and just bided his time until the stench is ripe enough.
There simply are no words to adequately describe the depravity of douchebag Donny. He’s a whole new breed of human evil. Next level. The Beast on steroids. Jabba the Hutt.
Perhaps he was designed and delivered by off-planet, soulless alien creatures, like musk.
In any event, Trump may be living proof that evil itself evolves, and that Mephistopheles needs to up his game. Like SOON. Think he’s up to the challenge? And what comes after treachery?
I am unable to describe trump. 'Evil' may be too light a term.
I agree that the only thing trump seems to fear is imprisonment, and that is the reason he is hellbent on trying to rig the 2026 and 2028 elections, or even declare martial law to prevent them from happening. Even now,he is ordering military strikes off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. Would it be surprising if if he does not do the same thing to US cities?
This is so incredibly apt. In fact - in the email messages that were revealed... Jeffrey Epstein himself remarks about Trump in "post-leverageable" terms. Instead of leveraging Trump - Epstein talked about using Trump as political capital. Not in a way that would actually leverage Trump. But instead in a way to provide gains for his own organization having navigated Trump's known evil tendencies.
I am reading Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem – A Report on the Banality of Evil.
She attends Eichmann's trial, takes notes, deeply seeks to understand how Eichmann and his cohort could have done what they did.
And she learns that Eichmann was stupid, that he was a lifelong joiner, that he could not conceive of his life without having orders to follow, a group to which to belong. In short, he was an ordinary person, not an evil monster. He was the guy in the area under the bell curve. She wrote her conclusions – that ordinary people can commit evil without being malicious or monstrous, but rather through thoughtlessness, bureaucratic compliance, a failure to think for themselves, a need to belong, to advance in their careers, to please the strong man. Eichmann at his trial said he was “just following orders.” So long as there are no outside voices questioning his thinking, asking why he isn’t following the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, he can stay his course.
I thought of the GOP, of course. But I was smacked in the face by Eichmann’s testimony that he was living according to Kant’s categorical imperative.
Say what?
To the bookshelf, back to Kant.
Arendt writes that Eichmann had misunderstood Kant, that he had substituted Hitler for the internal moral authority. At his trial he testified that he was just following orders.
Thus is the GOP revealed. They are just following orders. They do not contain multitudes. They contain Trump.
This is true but the comparison between Eichmann and Trump doesn’t quite work. This is because Trump’s psychological profile puts him into a rare class where he is far from ordinary. Being a malignant narcissist with a sociopathy that means he has no conscience, no empathy, no self-awareness and definitely no self control, he acts without shame or impunity. He only considers other people in terms of their value or use to him. He sought and obtained the presidency because he saw it as a means of exacting revenge, being immune from his only fear, imprisonment, building up his wealth by plundering the nation and walking the world stage as some kind of hero. The Chosen One!
The depths of his depravity are as yet unfathomed.
As we note, I was referring to Eichmann and to the GOP in Congress. Their common points are the need to be in a group, to please the bully, to be insulated from moral criticism, and to follow orders - in order to release dopamine. I get my kicks on other trips.
Agreed. TFG is capable of living in a vacuum of Self.
No external oxygen required or in fact can be tolerated.
He exists in a bubble that his lifetime of vast wealth has helped maintain for far FAR too long.
Interesting. Kant’s moral imperative was developed by removing beauty from the standard of truth. From the Greeks onward truth had always included the good+true+beautiful. A three dimensional view of it, Kant argued beauty was inferior to truth because of its subjective nature. He was tempted to do the same to “the good” but argued himself out that via the moral imperative.Balthasar a philosopher argued that this twist enabled the modern age to ignore ugliness as a sign of wrong direction. As so much of modern development including war, was blatantly ugly,- that Kant’s reductionist separation enabled an over emphasis on the utilitarian, which allowed the utilitarian to become duty, as a form of human stupidity.
That is exactly what I envisioned too, at our “Nuremberg” they will all claim that they just followed orders.
They will run like rats from a sinking ship and claim innocence for doing the job they were supposed to do.
None of the Germany’s nazis spent their life in jail. Some committed suicide, cowards.
Sharing this for the world to see
Shout out to the bit:
“… the monster noticing a bigger, louder, more radioactive monster lumbering out of the fog and thinking, “Oh hell. That thing’s not housebroken.”
Came to say the same. Involuntary chortle material!
Great article, spot on. We all know DT is evil, mixed with narcissism, dementia, depravity, greed, sadism, cankles, etc. That's just what he is. I'm far more disgusted with his enablers. They (at some time in the past) knew better, yet they fall in line and bow to his every whim.
Not only do you make a good point, but you made it with some hella good writing. Hats off to you for insight and wordsmithery.
Epstein may not have been able or willing to leverage Trump, but we are waiting for (ras)Putin to play his fifth ace. You know he’s got a full deck of faces & aces up his sleeve and just bided his time until the stench is ripe enough.
There simply are no words to adequately describe the depravity of douchebag Donny. He’s a whole new breed of human evil. Next level. The Beast on steroids. Jabba the Hutt.
Perhaps he was designed and delivered by off-planet, soulless alien creatures, like musk.
In any event, Trump may be living proof that evil itself evolves, and that Mephistopheles needs to up his game. Like SOON. Think he’s up to the challenge? And what comes after treachery?
(And why is djt so obsessed by Hannibal Lecter?)
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/article/2024/jul/25/donald-trump-hannibal-lecter
I think we all found that out, when the Pandora’s box opened at his inaugural, and we saw his administration come flying out.
Fantastic writing 👏
Right? Some of that wording was pure poetry.
I am unable to describe trump. 'Evil' may be too light a term.
I agree that the only thing trump seems to fear is imprisonment, and that is the reason he is hellbent on trying to rig the 2026 and 2028 elections, or even declare martial law to prevent them from happening. Even now,he is ordering military strikes off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia. Would it be surprising if if he does not do the same thing to US cities?
"and Trump was un-leverageable"
This is so incredibly apt. In fact - in the email messages that were revealed... Jeffrey Epstein himself remarks about Trump in "post-leverageable" terms. Instead of leveraging Trump - Epstein talked about using Trump as political capital. Not in a way that would actually leverage Trump. But instead in a way to provide gains for his own organization having navigated Trump's known evil tendencies.
Trump is visceral, endemic evil, but even that can be swallowed by a black hole of evidence.
I love these descriptions of evil and ignorant ego evil.
No truer words ever written
What is this author's name? It's brilliant writing.
Hollow to the core.