Member-only story
There are those who do evil and even worse are those who do nothing.
Under what circumstances would you tell a lie? Would you steal food if you were hungry? Would you kill someone who hurt your family? Perhaps you would if it was a matter of life or death? Or maybe even revenge is worth it sometimes? These are hypothetical questions we’ve all pondered at some point, testing our moral limitations to understand our threshold for when heinous acts would be worth the consequences. Long ago, if you asked me if I thought people were inherently good or bad, I would have said good without much contemplation. Most people are only trying to live their lives without causing harm to others. However, after watching events unfold over the past few years, I’ve come to realize the answer is quite unnerving.
I watched the Trump presidency in what felt like a slow-motion train wreck. The build-up of hate, anger, and lies, barreling towards the inevitable attempted overthrow of American democracy. How could others not see what was happening in front of their very eyes as I did? I realize now they did see it, with the same clarity as myself, but they just didn’t care. They didn’t care about the hateful, targeted, messaging that encouraged violence towards others, they didn’t care about the blatant ties to White Supremacists, Neo-Nazis, Fascists, and armed militias, and they didn’t care about the destruction of our…
