Moral clarity

Ask not for whom the bells toll. They toll for thee.

A question critical to the climate cause and beyond: Can we still call evil when we see it? If so, there is still a path forward in the current darkness.

“Evil”. An old-time word. A strong word. In everyday life, we may think we experience evil only in movies: Someone unexpectedly kicking an innocent person in the gut. Or stabbing them in the back.

Who’s doing evil?

But wait, that’s YOU kicking someone in the gut. That’s YOU stabbing them in the back. This is how the world is seeing us:

Source: Marian Kamensky, www.CartoonStock.com

THAT is Americans’ reality now. That is OUR president, kicking millions of people in the gut, stabbing millions of people in the back: Ukrainians, Europeans, Canadians, recipients of USAID help.

In our name. With all the authority to speak and act in our name globally. With all the power of the US Armed Forces, US Treasury, the NSA and the CIA at his command.

We chose him, in the Electoral College vote, the popular vote, and the vote of every single battleground state. We allowed him majorities in the House of Representatives, the Senate—and the Supreme Court. We made him emperor. With almost limitless power. This is whom we chose:

“Dennis Burnham, who lived next door, was a toddler when his mother briefly put him in a playpen in their garden. She returned a few minutes later to find the current U.S. president, then aged five or six, standing at his fence throwing rocks at the little boy. Another neighbor, Steven Nachtigall, now a 66-year-old doctor, said he never forgot Trump ... once jumping off his bike and beating up another boy: ‘It was so unusual and terrifying at that age,’” - Trump Revealed.

“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same,” - Donald J Trump.¹

What he’s demolishing

The rocks he’s throwing now, in our name, threaten everything we hold dear.

World peace. By junking overnight the global alliances the US put together in 1945, he has radically destabilized geopolitics, inviting near-term war in Europe and Asia. And he’s turning old friends into victims of our betrayal—and into future bitter adversaries. ²

Protection from WMD and AI disaster. By switching sides against our historic allies, he’s forcing the Brits, Germans, Poles, Japanese, South Koreans and many others to rush to develop WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction: nuclear, biological, and AI weapons and delivery systems) independently.³ What could possibly go wrong?

Source: Luojie, www.CartoonStock.com

Economic prosperity. By weaponizing tariffs, and wielding them as an all-purpose stick against anyone he dislikes, he’s turning back the clock, from international free trade to the economic warfare that beggared everyone, and led to war, before World War I.

American-type democracy. By assaulting every center of independent power in the American system of governance⁴, he is blowing up the American Founders’ extraordinary governing framework, which made the US increasingly democratic, free, and prosperous for 250 years. And by extension, undermining every other democracy inspired by this model.

Respect for truth. By unceasingly “flooding the zone with shit”, he’s buried the idea of truth under a mountain of lies and cynicism. Andrew Sullivan explains this well.

(Trump’s) are not the usual politicians’ lies, which pay some deference to the truth, even when eliding it. Trump, like the critical theorists, has contempt for the truth. “Truth” is entirely a myth he creates at will to justify the use of power. Critical Trump Theory, so to speak, is unfalsifiable, irrational, and seeks to replace objective reality with Trump’s lived experience so that, in the end, only his power remains. Brute power — immune to fact, argument or debate. Trump power. That’s what the Founders started this country to resist. And it’s what a majority of Americans have now given up on.⁵

Source: Matt Percival, www.CartoonStock.com

Respect for human life and dignity. By regularly treating everyone else purely as a means to his self-aggrandizement and power, he turns his back on the central teachings of Christianity⁶ (and other religions), Enlightenment philosophy, as well as basic compassion.

Humans’ ability to surmount the climate challenge. Trump’s new world disorder, of war, want, political repression, and contempt for truth and human life, would marginalize the climate cause even if he weren’t doubling down in his aggressive drive to dismantle it globally.

The new axis of evil

In all these ways, Trump is taking us back to the worst kind of barbarism, which is the modern kind: Hitler’s kind. Stalin’s kind. Putin’s kind. The world of the dictators, before the 1945 “Pax Americana”—the liberal, albeit very imperfect global order that Trump is so gleefully destroying.

And he is bringing about these harms to others, recklessly, aggressively, contemptuously, step-by-step. This is not just an isolated act of evil. It is a deliberate campaign. It is his character. It is who he is. Vicious.

It is what he would make us, if we continue to let him.

Will we Americans continue to follow his siren call into complicity? He’s offering rewards! Many may hope to benefit from the ills brought upon groups targeted by MAGA. As did many German accomplices of the Nazi regime.⁷ May the USA not suffer the eventual fate of Nazi Germany!

But that is a choice even ultra-wealthy and powerful Americans seem inclined to make. (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg, fossil fuel barons, crypto edgelords, Wall Street titans).

Opportunists in other countries are flocking. Individuals, parties, interest groups: Of course, Putin. Orban in Hungary. Bibi in Israel. Milei in Argentina. The AfD in Germany. Marine LePen in France. MBS in Saudi Arabia. Reform in the UK.

Together, they constitute a new Axis of Evil.

Source: Pat Baley, www.CartoonStock.com

What is to be done?

We need a new anti-Axis coalition. A coalition encompassing governments and members of civil society.

This is what is needed from each of us as members of the anti-Axis coalition:

Engage

Don’t check out. You may think you’ve earned your peace and tranquility. You may think you’re already exhausted. Sorry, we’ve left behind the period when you could take a break when you felt like it or deserved it. The Axis is coming for others now—they’ll be coming for you and yours all too soon. The world we all grew up in is in the balance, and you owe it to anyone you’ve ever cared for to try to salvage as much as we can from the looming wreck.

Learn

Get smart. Have you been acting like a passenger on a cruise ship? Learn about the ship’s operations systems, surrounding ice floes, expected weather patterns, and your fellow crew members. The more you know, the better informed will be your contribution when the ship’s hull is breached.

Source: Charles Barsotti, www.CartoonStock.com

Join others durably

Don’t allow evil to divide and conquer. Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Mao—they all gained power and consolidated it by breaking-off and absorbing pieces of the coalitions against them. The Soviets eventually woke up to the Nazi threat, and they then sought to assemble an anti-fascist “Popular Front” of all willing parties—but too superficially and too late.⁸ They came within a hair’s breadth of succumbing to Hitler’s invasion. True solidarity is key.

Survive: Organize, but pace yourself

We first need to survive without selling out, which will be tough as long as the Axis holds all the positions of power. Organization is essential, as is taking tangible steps forward. But protect yourself, your loved ones, and your own joy and tranquility.

Bury differences

There’s much that currently divides the potential anti-Axis coalition: “Progressive” v. “Moderate”. “Feminist” v. “LGBTQ+”. “Religious” v. “Secularist”. “People of Color” v. “Working Class”. “Pro-Gaza” v. “Pro-Israel”. “Americans” v. “Non-Americans”. Get ready to put much of that aside. We need to WIN ELECTIONS , and then we need to govern energetically and successfully. This means listening to voters and accepting their verdict when they are not ready to back your group’s favorite goals. Whatever other cause matters to us, we need to subordinate it to the anti-Axis cause.

Source: Kieron Dwyer, www.CartoonStock.com

They have come together to work evil. We need to work together to protect ourselves.

Your choice.

Each of my posts is part of an extended strategy for how to surmount the climate crisis. This evolving strategic analysis is organised by themes, in a separate post, “Posts, organised thematically”, which I invite you to consult.

1. Quoted in “The Bully In His Pulpit: Tuesday night showed the core truth of Trump. And of liberal democratic collapse” By Andrew Sullivan. The Weekly Dish. March 7, 2025.

2. "‘Washington Has Become the Court of Nero’: A French senator's blistering indictment”. By Charlie Sykes. To the Contrary. March 7, 2025. Sykes provides an English translation of Claude Malhuret’s extraordinary speech in the French Senate, on March 4, where he said:

Never in history has a President of the United States surrendered to an enemy.

Never before has one supported an aggressor against an ally.

Never before has one trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could oppose him, sacked the entire military leadership in one go, weakened all counterpowers, and taken control of social media.

This is not a mere illiberal drift. It is the beginning of a seizure of democracy.

Let us remember that it only took just one month, three weeks, and two days to bring down the Weimar republic and its Constitution…

We were at war with a dictator (Putin), we are now fighting against a dictator supported by a traitor (Trump).

3. “You know there’s a problem when Poland asks in on the nuclear club: Global trust is already a casualty of Trump 2.0. Let’s pray insecurity does not lead to a new atomic arms race” By Matthew Syed. The Sunday Times. March 9, 2025.

4. That is: Insufficiently MAGA Republicans; the apolitical Civil Service bureaucracy; the independent Justice Department, FBI and courts; the armed forces; the intelligence services; insufficiently compliant news media, non-governmental organizations and academic institutions.

5. “The Bully In His Pulpit” By Andrew Sullivan. Cited above.

6. “There Is No Remaining Christian Case for Trump: Trump discipled the church more than the church discipled Trump”. By David French. The Dispatch. Published July 24, 2022. Updated October 11, 2022.

7. “The Oligarchs Who Came to Regret Supporting Hitler” By Timothy W. Ryback. The Atlantic. February 6, 2025.

8. "Popular front" Wikipedia contributors. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed March 8, 2025.