This post is a continuation of my focus on kindness, positive psychology, and becoming the best possible versions of ourselves. Lyrics from Katharine Lee Bates’s America the Beautiful are part of my underlying inspiration. Buried in the 3^rd verse, she wrote, “Till all success be nobleness.” We all should be seeking to be our best and noblest selves, but there are forces in the world pulling in less noble directions. Be forewarned that this post can be interpreted politically or through an historic religious lens. That’s not my intent. The point is simply that we should resist darker impulses and join together to elevate virtuous well-being for as many of us as we can muster. (Here’s Keb Mo singing my favorite version of “America the Beautiful” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcUx3I0k_Fw):

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In 2015, at a family dinner, I told my sister that if then-candidate Donald Trump were caught in a strong headwind, his hair would fly up, revealing the number 666 (the mark of the Beast) on his forehead. My sister said, “John, you’re being overly dramatic.”  She was right.

And so was I.

So many scenes and statements over the past month have been nauseating and shameful. When Trump, along with his #1 sycophant, JD Vance, berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (the only courageous person in the room), it was like a bad episode of an already failing reality television show. Trump likes to use the word disgrace to describe his adversaries. Trump was, is, and always will be a disgrace. As with most of his insults, “disgrace” is a projection that he pulls out of his own psyche and pastes onto others.

Musk and Trump are firing civil servants and dismantling government services. They have no concern for the lives of people they are destroying. One of their first targets was USAID. Why? Because USAID does kind, generous, and nice things for people across the globe who are in need and suffering. USAID does not promote crypto or cater to the well-heeled. For Musk and Trump, the suffering of others is sometimes collateral damage; other times being cruel is their point.

My new measure for politicians and other humans is kindness. USAID was doing more kind, generous, and compassionate things in one day, than Musk and Trump have done in their combined lifetimes. Marco Rubio recently announced that over 80% of USAID programming is cut. This is not a noble path.

If you don’t believe me, that’s fine. Do the research. Check it out. But don’t believe them. Mega-wealthy people who tell you they’re looking out for your best interests are nearly always lying. Trump and Musk didn’t get rich off their compassion; they got rich using, abusing, and scamming others.

My list of republican sycophants is long and boring. I’m thinking of Lindsey Graham and Rubio, but there are so many others. Most republicans don’t have Zelenskyy’s courage, so they insult him, or imply that he didn’t read the room. Seriously? He read the room with precision. His first option was to get screwed by Trump and Vance while acting like their lap dog. His second option was to stand strong in the face of their theatrical insults to fight for his country and his people. He chose the latter. There never was an option that was in Ukraine’s best interests. The situation was a set up; Zelenskyy took the only respectable option.

Many republicans recognize our democracy is at stake, but they cave to Trumpian bullying anyway. Spineless, led by their fear, they capitulate, even when they know that unpredictable tariffs are reaping chaos on the economy. They capitulate even when they know that pardoning January 6 rioters who attacked the police is wrong. They remain quiet and demur while a legal protester and recent graduate from Columbia University is arrested.

I’m in a fevered state. I may regret putting my thoughts into words, but what I’m saying is coming directly from the burning in my heart for noble causes. I love America. I love the goals and hard work of organizations like USAID. I love civil servants. I stand with them, with Zelenskyy, with peaceful protesters, with the Department of Education, to push back against the big gangsters in their big, imaginary thrones. 

If Evil had a plan, it might be this: Make the tired, hungry, and poor the enemy. Sow fear and distrust; grow it into jealousy and hate. Once the hate sprouts, attack the poor and disenfranchised. Cut federal education because of its great value to the poor and uselessness to the rich. Eliminate environmental protections for marginalized communities; let them breathe monoxide and drink brown water because their voices are easy to ignore or dismiss. Destroy USAID, because what wealthy person ever benefited from aid to the hungry or medicines for the sick? Convince the gullible to distrust medicine and question life-saving vaccines; only the affluent deserve to live long and healthy lives.

If Evil had a plan, it might be happening—even as you read these words. And the plan is profoundly Un-American.

But Evil is not a thing or a person. Evil, and all things we call Evil, are conceptual. The great Evil makes us all fall from grace. Evil plays the news cycle, promotes hate, stokes division, and makes us all less good, less happy, angrier, and less compassionate. I was wrong in 2015. If you look closely at Donald Trump’s forehead, you won’t see the numbers 666. He’s no concrete embodiment of Evil. Instead, if you look and listen closely, you’ll see and hear a large vacuous ego that seeks to fill itself with power, and by inspiring everyone to hate more and be less humane, because, quite frankly, that’s how “Evil” works.

Now is the time to put Evil in the rear-view mirror. We will need all our combined strength to make this happen. We need to reach out in kindness and compassion. We need to push back against messages of hate and division and policies that further decimate the poor and disenfranchised. We need to listen to the small, still voice in the night, the voice that knows our name, the voice beckoning us to embrace our better selves and noble natures.