gracchusdixit

In 1963, the political philosopher and journalist, Hannah Arendt, published a book called Eichmann in Jerusalem: The Banality of Evil.  Its subtitle, The Banality of Evil, instantly became a permanent part of the language, and the book itself no less instantly became controversial.  It remains so to this day.

Eichmann had been a senior officer in the dreaded SS and played a major role in Nazi Germany’s attempt to exterminate the Jews, Slavs, and Gypsies of Europe.  When Germany was defeated, he fled to Austria and thereafter to Argentina, where Israeli intelligence agents eventually caught up with him.  He was kidnapped, spirited away to Israel, tried for crimes against humanity, convicted, and hanged.

Having observed Eichmann throughout his trial, Hannah Arendt reached the conclusion that he was not an abnormal or sociopathic monster but, rather, “banal”—that is to say, a drearily ordinary, rather dim-witted, and ignorant man, who subordinated his individual moral responsibilities to the dictates of the genuinely sociopathic monster who had taken control of his country, Adolf Hitler.  Eichmann’s defense was not merely the stock excuse of all war criminals—that he had “obeyed orders” and was therefore not personally responsible for the crimes he committed.  His defense was that he and every German citizen had had a patriotic duty to rally around the head of the German state and to carry out his wishes.

Hannah Arendt took Eichmann at his word and concluded that he sincerely meant what he said.  She was immediately criticized, and to this day is still criticized, for seeming to have excused Eichmann as a hapless victim, rather than an active and fully aware perpetrator of mass murder, genocide, and evil.  This criticism misses the point that Hannah Arendt was trying to make.

She was not at all trying to excuse or exculpate Eichmann by normalizing him.  Indeed, her point was quite the opposite.  She was trying to tell us that banality can abet evil by normalizing it; that ordinary people, by ignoring the unique awfulness of a truly evil man or ideology, can become the agents of that man or ideology; that the moral responsibilities of individual human beings are indivisible and non-negotiable, and, in the face of evil, cannot be subordinated to social, political, or ideological norms—in short, to banality—without extreme moral jeopardy.

We now find ourselves, as an entire nation, facing just such a moment—a moment of extreme moral jeopardy in which we are being asked to accept evil in the name of normality.

There are many, not the least of whom is President Barack Obama, who have urged us to do everything possible to ensure a smooth transition of power, to unify behind a new president, to help Donald Trump succeed, because, as the president put it, “If he succeeds, the nation will succeed.”

The problem with this gracious banality is that it begs the all-important question:  Succeed at what?

If Trump’s success means deporting or incarcerating millions of innocent immigrants, banning Muslims from entering the country on religious grounds and persecuting those who are already here, overturning the reproductive rights of women, legalizing discrimination against gay and lesbian Americans for their sexual choices—if that is what Trump’s success means, then his success will be a disastrous failure for the nation.  Without answering the question “Succeed at what?” the president’s exhortation to unify behind the man who will follow him is illogical, contradictory, and (I am both sorry and sad to say) immoral.

I have no doubt that these exhortations from President Obama and many others spring from the most sincere, heartfelt, and honest motives.  I have even less doubt that the president believes that he is trying to fulfill his constitutional duties and to remain faithful to our historical traditions and norms.

The trouble is that, in asking us to unite behind Donald Trump, the president is also asking us to ignore the abnormal, to normalize evil, to subordinate our individual moral obligations, as Eichmann did, to a national leader who shows no respect for the constitution or the basic human rights of millions of our fellow citizens.

Let me be clear.  I do not mean to suggest that Donald Trump is the moral equivalent of Adolf Hitler. Trump is not proposing genocide, nor, despite his obvious psychological flaws, does he seem to be utterly demented.  Equating him with Hitler would be tasteless, grotesque, and wrong.

This does not change the fact that Trump and what he represents are evils in their own right.  He is a clear and present danger to our democracy—an authoritarian demagogue, who, like Vladimir Putin, is perfectly prepared to ignore our constitution, to suppress the freedom of speech, to persecute and prosecute his political enemies, and to run the country for his own financial gain and that of his children.  Trump’s evil does not rise (or sink) to the level of Hitler’s.  It is evil, nonetheless.

Fifty years ago, Hannah Arendt warned us against the banality of evil.  Fifty years later, we run the risk of normalizing evil.  To normalize Donald Trump and the evil he represents would be unpatriotic, immoral, and disastrous.  He must be opposed, not normalized.  He must be rejected, not accepted.  He must be stopped, not supported.  Trump’s success is not, and never will be, the nation’s success.