Most of us who grew up in the mid-20th century are accustomed to talking about political issues as if they only amounted to differences on policy. 

 

Consider the issue of the minimum wage. Republicans and Libertarians would argue for a low or nonexistent minimum wage and refer to Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” metaphor to explain how markets are best equipped to determine wage rates. Democrats would counter that in a modern society social justice demands a certain minimum hourly wage. The ensuing debate would resemble an academic colloquium — a dispassionate exchange of opposing views on the socio-economic implications of how much money  unskilled workers should earn. Voices would not be raised; a polite discussion would end with good people agreeing to disagree.

 

​​​​​In today’s America, too much is at stake to spend time on prolonged, nuanced  discussions about Donald Trump’s policies because there’s nothing nuanced about them. His policies are blunt instruments that pit evil in its most elemental forms against good. So far, evil is winning. 

 

I offer two examples: mass deportation and our complicity in the Gaza genocide. 

 

Since our country was founded people have crossed our southern border to find better jobs and escape poverty. They do all kinds of work, but typically resort to jobs that native-born citizens shun. Our economy has benefited enormously from their presence. However, our two political parties have failed to come up with a common sense policy to a) deal with illegal immigration and b) deal with the status of undocumented immigrants who have lived and worked here for many years.  

 

In 2015, Donald Trump burst on the scene, raising high an anti-immigrant banner and inspiring millions to follow him. He and his cult denounced immigrants (almost all Latino) as rapists, murderers, drug smugglers, and mental patients. His movement metastasized, culminating in a rabid demand for mass deportations. The Republican Party, seeing that Trump’s dogma was catching on, enthusiastically jumped aboard his bandwagon. By 2024, Trump and his vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance even managed to broaden their demonization campaign to include hard-working Haitian immigrants in Ohio. They repeatedly passed along a vicious lie that Haitians were eating the dogs and cats of the townspeople in Ohio. The lies Trump and Vance told were debunked, but it didn’t matter. Shortly after Trump was elected he removed Haitians and other immigrants from Temporary Protective Status so that they could be deported. After knocking them to the pavement, he kicked them in the face.

 

The foot soldiers of Trump’s mass deportation campaign are agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They have rounded up anyone who looks like she/he might be Latina/o. You may know a hard-working immigrant who has suffered this cruelty. Roundups happen every day all over the country in broad daylight. If someone looks Mexican, they risk being yanked off the street and taken to a detention center. The architect of all this is the demonic Goebbels look-alike Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff. Clearly, Miller couldn’t work his cruelty without the backing of Republican elected officials who either applaud him or cower in silence for fear of getting on the wrong side of the administration. 

 

In another dark time, Adolf Hitler used mass deportation to eliminate Jews from Europe. I realize that Hitler comparisons can be dangerous and foolish, but I do so here because scenes of burly ICE agents, their faces hidden by masks, remind many of images from pre-war Germany. State sanctioned cruelty against a designated group of people is evil per se. I cannot effectively communicate with people who see it differently. Knowing that millions of so-called Christians support it — mostly white evangelical Protestants — makes me despair for the future of Christianity in the United States. 

 

The second example I offer is our country’s stance on Gaza. The entire world has watched the mindless slaughter and mass starvation of the Gazans for nearly 2 years. Large majorities of populations across the globe are horrified at the carnage and cruelty inflicted upon Gaza’s noncombatant citizenry. As I have written previously, Israel could have used less lethal options; several were suggested by wise people at the beginning. Israel could have defanged Hamas without killing tens of thousands of innocents, many of them children. 

 

A significant number of Israeli citizens are as horrified by the slaughter as anyone else. Israel’s former prime minister, Ehud Olmert, outraged over the continued killing, has spoken out forcefully. But Benjamin Netanyahu has managed to hang on to power by a thread, thanks to his alliance with Israel’s far-right parties.

 

The starvation, killing and immiseration of Gazans is a war crime. It has gone far beyond a proportional response to Hamas’s ruthless attack on October 7, 2023. And our eyes have been opened to an inconvenient fact: The government of Israel, our long-time ally, has committed evil with its strategy of maximizing civilian casualties in Gaza — with our acquiescence and with weaponry we supply. For both Israel and the U.S., it is an evil and a mistaken choice.

 

Our government, in typical chest-pounding fashion, was all in for Israel’s staggering military response. After Oct. 7 Joe Biden flew to Tel Aviv to hug Netanyahu and pledge America’s complete support. At the United Nations, the U.S. vetoed every motion for a cease fire. Planes and bombs produced by  our military-industrial complex were rushed to Israel so that it could kill more effectively. American weapons manufacturers earned handsome profits. Stocks soared. CEO’s got bonuses. Gazan civilians died by being shot, blown up or crushed by tons of concrete when their homes collapsed from shelling.

 

In a show of support for Gaza, France recently recognized Palestinian statehood. The United Kingdom and Canada followed suit with conditions. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his country would recognize the Palestinian state if Israel doesn’t agree to a cease fire by September. 

 

What did our leader do? Nothing. And our silence is complicity. Given our full-throated support for Netanyahu, our vetoes of U.N. Security Council cease fire resolutions, our supply of the weapons used to kill Gazans, and our profit from those sales, are we not also guilty of war crimes? 

 

Evil stalks here and abroad. Our government is committing evil and we should talk about it in that context. This is not about small differences over policy. We have entered a period that demands a choice: Call out evil and take action against it or live with the ignominity of our continued complicity in evil. Choosing the latter will leave a stain that can’t be erased.

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