Giving oxygen to evil

To the Editor:

I once read a quote about evil that went something like this: “I used to think that you could defeat evil. Now I realize that the best you can do is suppress it and drive it underground, where it remains until it crawls back out from under a rock when someone or something gives it oxygen.”

When I observe what’s going on in our country, my biggest fear is that we are heading down a path toward authoritarianism, a form of government that I consider to be inherently evil. Our president undeniably has authoritarian aims and ambitions. The cruel, over the top and inhumane way he is handling immigration reform. Picking advisors based strictly on loyalty, rather than experience and competence. The continuous stream of executive orders that he considers edicts. Using the U.S. Treasury like it’s his personal bank account to monetarily punish the media, universities, and any group or organization that doesnt align with his political agendas or are critical of him. He hasn’t declared martial law yet, but he’s taking baby steps towards it with his National Guard deployments and threats to invoke the Insurrection Act. So much is going on with all of this that many people are becoming numb to it and accepting this as the new normal. 

With that being said, there has to be peaceful pushback. The No Kings protests are a good start. Legislative and judicial pushback needs to be more frequent and more forceful. This isn’t about Liberal vs. Conservative, it’s about a democratic society being replaced with something far worse.

I used to tell my students that there are three things that will eventually bring down people in positions of power: greed and misuse of funds; scandalous sexual behavior; and abuse of the power itself. Donald Trump has managed to dodge accountability on all of the above. How long his luck will hold out is anyone’s guess. Is he evil? It’s not up to me to judge what’s truly in his heart. I will say though, his actions are giving evil oxygen. 

Frank Siedschlag 

Rhinelander