If we look at Republican candidates for president over the last forty years, we find one significant difference between Donald Trump and his party’s predecessors. Despite all of his forerunners’ failings, it would be a mistake to label any of them as evil. Mistaken or misguided at times? Yes. But evil? No. Even progressive leftists should admit that occasionally, and sometimes more than occasionally, the six pre-Trump Republican candidates displayed moments of basic human decency.
A few definitions of evil are “profoundly immoral and wicked” and “something that brings sorrow, trouble, or destruction.” Doesn’t that fit Trump?
Several months ago, Michael Sean Winters, who “covers the nexus of religion and politics” for the National Catholic Reporter, wrote of “the seven deadly sins of Donald Trump.” One after another, the author ticks them off—greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, wrath, and pride—and comments, “What we see with President Donald Trump and his cast of sycophants and co-conspirators . . . is a rare thing: All seven deadly sins on display at once.” Continue reading.