Good Does Not Fight Evil, But Stands Firm And Dispels It

The liberal/progressive commentariat is writing a lot of dumb stuff in the run-up to Trump redux.

For example, a leading foreign affairs columnist in the Guardian writes today, “Many leading countries believe Trump #2 could be a good thing for them. Europeans are the odd ones out. If they refuse to play ball, they risk marginalization and irrelevance.” That’s the mentality and language of appeasement.

Trump reminds people of Mussolini, but we’ve entered the post-Weimer phase in American politics, when a soulless, deracinated people have elected a dictator that will destroy the Constitution, make a mockery of the rule of law, and wreck what’s left of the international order.

As in mid-1930’s Germany, foolish people now insist, “The whole ballgame for foreign politicians, diplomats and lobbyists is to lead Trump in desirable directions, find ways of working with or around him, and curb his worst instincts.” Ludicrously, they say, “What the world needs now is a ‘Trump tamer.’”

Trump is not Hitler, but as in the 1930’s before World War II, it’s as imbecilic to speak of a “good Trump or bad Trump” as it was to speak of a “good Hitler or bad Hitler.”

So only incorrigible wishful thinkers are saying inane things like: “Guided by skilful diplomacy, it’s possible Trump, if handled right, could become a force for good in the Middle East. Right now, it’s a toss-up.”

No, it’s absurd to believe that “Trump’s foreign policy, lacking firm principles and beliefs, could swing either way, for good or bad, better or worse.”

Such thinking gives new meaning to obtuse. Hell is about to be unleashed domestically and internationally. An unconstrained Trump believes he has been given a mandate to rule the world.

In the Middle East for example, Trump supports Netanyahu’s plan to destroy Iran’s capability of building a nuclear weapon by preemptively bombing Tehran’s enriching facilities.

Even before assuming office, Trump believes only he has ended the war in (actually on) Gaza, which Biden couldn’t achieve in over a year of intensive diplomacy. When Trump runs into reality, and cannot wave his little hands and end the war in Ukraine, or chummy up to Kim again and stop North Korea’s nuclear program, he will resort to “fire and fury.”

Our foreign policy columnist concludes his pre-Trump #2 analysis by writing, “Who will tame Trump? An answer is urgently required. But don’t ask Michelle Obama. She’s out of here.” That’s not only wrongheaded; it’s ugly.

The true “toss up,” or more accurately, what hangs in the balance, is whether the inward and intellectual foundation for a true global order has been poured, since the so-called international order is about to collapse completely. If not, the Trump Administration, in the words of a professor of international affairs at Georgetown University, will “bring down the old order and simply leave the US and the rest of the world standing in the rubble.”

The die is cast where Trump, the United States and the post-World War II order are concerned. The failure of insight and imagination by academic, media and political elites, exemplified in the moronic “good Trump, bad Trump” fantasy, feeds the widespread hopelessness and paralysis.

Trump’s heartless and cruel immigration policy, set to begin on day one of his autocratic presidency (which will probably produce violence in many American cities, followed by ruthless suppression by Trump’s militarized police state), is the true augury of his foreign policy.

So the choice is not between the dream of a beneficial Trump vs. the proven worst president in US history, but between whether the human pillars for a true global order will stand as Trump knocks out the last strut of the vaunted international order.

The forces of man’s darkness in human consciousness, for which Trump is the main conduit in the West, have been planning this takeover for a long time. There are energies of intelligence working to meet evil without opposing and resisting it, which just adds to collective darkness and gives evil more power, leading to greater conflict and war.

There is no Manichean duality between the forces of darkness and the forces of light, on Earth or in the heavens. Good does not fight evil, but stands firm and dispels it.

What is at issue is not what Trump’s America is going to do -- that’s already been decided and is clear except to purblind wishful thinkers. What’s at issue is whether humankind can change course and begin to live in harmony with the Earth and each other on a planet where national borders have become secondary if not irrelevant.

As in the past, but with much more dire consequences for the present, only the worst among us are squeezing the pus from man’s suppurating nationalistic/tribalistic wounds. Let’s take power away by ending identification within us, and by never saying, thinking or feeling “my country” again.

Trump and his kind are compelling thinking/feeling people around the world to face the choice between continuing man’s hellish course and changing the course of humanity.

As a Philippine journalist writes, “Has our world gone mad? It has. We look at America now and joke: should we do workshops for our colleagues? It’s utterly sad.” In facing the world as it is, one sees there is no choice but to radically change and thereby directly contribute to changing the basic course of humankind. No “movement” is workable, or necessary.

Our outward response or reaction flows from our inner clarity or confusion. The foundation for a true civilization is in self-knowing, insight, and stillness. Let it be so.

Martin LeFevre

© Scoop Media