Until I was a teenager, my parents demanded that I attend Church of England services each Sunday. As a consequence, I ended up learning by heart what is called the Apostles' Creed. In that, there is a statement which says that Jesus “descended into hell“. I often wondered what this meant, but I never asked, and I do not recall anyone offering an explanation.
I have, however, recalled those words too often for comfort since Trump got into the White House. It seems to me that he is intent on taking the USA, and the world behind it, on a descent into hell.
Some may not like me using those words in this context, but if, like me, you think that the words of the Lord's Prayer, which I also learned by heart and which suggest that the Kingdom God should be present here on earth as well as in heaven, then it seems to me that consideration of what hell on earth might mean is entirely fair.
If releasing emotional terror is not part of a descent into hell, then I am not sure what is.
If trying to dismantle the structure of a society without seeking to put any form of order in its place is not, once more, a descent into hell, then again, I do not know what is.
If the process of issuing intimidation, threats, and aggression from what has been thought of as the single global superpower is, again, not a descent into hell, then what might it be?
Saying this, I am, of course, aware that in the Apostles's Creed, the idea that follows from the descent into hell was that Jesus rose again on the third day. I presume that the MAGA in the USA think that this is what will happen after Trump has released his terror. I really do not think that any sane person could possibly agree. Trump intends to create chaos, and there is no plan for anything else. That is why I think my argument is most especially justified.
We are most certainly descending. Hell might be the destination.
An afterthought.
I wrote (or, rather, dictated) the above during a walk yesterday, not knowing if I would use it or not. I do this sometimes to work out my own thinking.
Then, last night, I read Aurelien's latest Substack, which included this observation:
For all that the Allies had long considered themselves to be fighting absolute Evil, it was still a shock to realise that for the Nazi regime the lives of non-Aryans were simply worth nothing: they were consumables, worked to death if they could work, summarily killed if they could not, or just left to die of cold and starvation as millions of Soviet prisoners of war were. This realisation, together with accounts of the almost-unbelievably sick barbarity of the War in the Balkans, Poland and elsewhere, was an existential shock to a continent, and to an elite, which had considered itself civilised.
There is not a direct comparison with Trump, but the last line hit me strongly. Maybe I have been naive. Maybe I have been guilty of thinking that evil on the scale that Trump is delivering just could not happen.
I assumed the existence of empathy when there is none.
I presumed those seeking political office care when those around Trump clearly do not.
I did not believe that hate of the order that he obviously suffers from could so readily inform policy.
I assume he was civilised, and clearly, he is not.
I have to rethink, to consider what I thought unthinkable. But maybe that is what is necessary to understand what we are up against, and to find the way to solutions.
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My contention is that those who seek office these days are mostly sociopaths. (My first degree was in Psychology.)
Politics is the last unregulated profession. Regulation is something that sociopaths can’t abide, so they head for professions where they can pursue their agendas unfettered.
Gone is the idea that they are seeking to give service to the community of the country. There are very few politicians (at least in Britain) that I would consider as not self-serving.
Sociopaths have no sense of empathy – they are looking out for themselves and their immediate family, because that’s what brings them the most rewards. They seek power for the direct rewards of power, which includes the money and fame of holding power. It includes the kudos of having held power, for later on in life. They are badge-collectors, sometimes seeking a position or a promotion for the self-satisfaction of getting the position or promotion.
The problem that the left faces, is that they often assume rationality and a sense of accountability in the politicians of both left and right, when, actually, neither are now getting into politics with these qualities in mind.
There needs to be a movement to regulate politicians, but they will oppose it at every stage.
I disagree
I think that is where we should be heading
Is Banking a profession? Is it regulated? Yes.
Mid-1990s – Franfurt. Meeting of assorted finance types on CUMEX. Presenter states: “what I will present will make you/your clients a great deal of money, but will mean, for example, less funding for kindergartens, hospitals etc. Those that feel uncomfortable with thius should leave the room”. Nobody left.
Politicos take their moral cues from society & political structures & mores to some extent reflect societal realities (who suceeds (however measured), who does not.)
Another post today attacked KPMG – where partners are rewarded for failure. This is reflective of society-at-large where sturctures reward and promote failure and predators.
The question we should be asking is: what sort of a society do we want? This is a supremly difficult question to answer – and has been “in play” for perhaps a couple of thousand years – so far answers have been few and far between – and when something positive has emerged it usually gets corrupted by existing power structures – viz Christianity.
Regulate politicos? Tlaxcala – pre-Columbian republic: those that wanted to be on the council were exposed to public abuse, ridcule etc (page 356 The Dawn of Everything). Should it be unpleasant being a politico or the process of selection? What is the best way to select them? Johnson, Truss, Trump etc are they signs of functional process?
This got me thinking Mike….of the cart and horse kind. People’s predominantly self-interested attitudes these days did not come out of a vacuum. So I would argue that politico’s taking their lead from society at large is just part of a closed loop where policymakers have engendered the selfish, survivalist mode of living in the first place.
This is a root cause of much anxiety and dysfunction for we are, at heart, social animals with a strong moral compass and, some would argue, born knowing the difference between right and wrong.
We are not living the lives we know that we should be living.
My understanding is that Jesus’ descent into hell, was to redeem those who could be redeemed, before his crucifixion. This is a fair description: there’s a few verses that refer to it, but probably 1 Peter 3:18-19 and 1 Peter 4:6 (in the wikipedia article).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrowing_of_Hell
Your description of Trump dragging us into Hell, is valid, but with the opposite intent. In essence I think it’s five strands of thinking:
1. As a Libertarian, Trump only cares about himself: everyone and everything else is “simply worth nothing” except to the degree they glorify him. And that can be done just as well by our destruction if it makes him more powerful.
2. To the fossil fuel industry that Trump’s closely allied with, the sample applies, but for profit. I don’t believe everyone in the industry wants to see the world destroyed for profit, but it will certainly filter out people who care about the planet and take climate science seriously, while the industry’s momentum and institutional structure does the rest.
3. To neoliberals, climate science regulations are an impediment to entrepreneurs (as they see it), so it must be suppressed (or ‘canceled’ in their terms). Humanity will solve whatever problems appear to be coming, by the free market. I know you know massively more about Neoliberal economics than me, I’m just putting this one here for completeness. There’s a great DeSmog Blog series about that.
https://www.desmog.com/2014/10/24/thatcher-hayek-and-economic-cold-war-climate-and-society/
https://www.desmog.com/2014/09/09/neoliberalism-climate-denial-you-must-start-beliefs-yes-always-beliefs/
4. There’s a whole secular movement of Accelerationism, which believes that society goes through 4 phases every 80 years or so, one of which is destruction and we’re due for stage 4 now. By accelerating it; we get to the other side more quickly (I disagree).
https://youtu.be/CQmoQEeNYrs
5. Finally, but most dangerously, post-millennialist Evangelical Christians believe that Revelation says God plans to destroy the earth to create a new Heaven and Earth with the second coming of Christ. Helping God destroy the earth therefore honours Jesus by making it happen sooner. As a left-wing Evangelical, I don’t believe that at all, instead Revelation is describing the redemption of Earth (because Rom 8 makes that clear).
Put together, that’s a lot of (mostly Americans) who want to wreck everything.
Thank you
Trump operates on the basis of causing emotional distress. This is evident from what he said in his book “Trump: The Art of the Deal”:-
“The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have. Leverage is having something the other guy wants. Or better yet, needs. Or best of all, simply can’t do without.”
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1224415-trump-the-art-of-the-deal
I note that currently Trump has now gone from threatening the Chinese with a 60% tariff to a 10% one!
Apologies I forgot the tariff link:-
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jan/22/trump-tariff-china-eu-levy-yuan-stocks
“I did not believe that hate of the order that he obviously suffers from could so readily inform policy.”
His policies are based on feeding his base red meat in the “Cultural War” so they will not notice that he is unable to produce the “direct tangible financial benefit” for their households that they elected him to produce.
The Florida Legislature (very old school Republican) is pushing back against Trump’s policies and the current MAGA Governor, Ron DeSantis who is trying to carry them out.
There is hope!
Must admit to liking the joke the “Gulf of America” is the space between Mango Mussolini’s ears!
I’m sure you know, but it is worth saying. According to the religion, as it developed, Jesus descended into hell in order to rescue everyone who, since the beginning of the world, had been going to hell because of their original sin. (The inherited sin of Adam in disobeying God.) Jesus led them out to heaven, in an event that reshaped the universe. It is a story of amazing power.
Nowadays, this part of the story is glossed over, but it is the reason why Jesus died and came back. Nowadays we still have “he died to save our sins” but there is no clear explanation as to what the words mean. Jesus has become some sort of sacrificial lamb who somehow takes on the burden of our sins. The developers of the religion were much more practical in presenting the actual mechanisms of how this worked. (Within their perception of the universe, obviously.)
I prefer the doctrines of Buddhism, and karma as they involve personal responsibility. As do, interestingly, Spiritualist principles. They also believe moral progress is possible after death and there is no eternal damnation ( a dreadful idea) When counselling I learnt to look past the mask people wear. We all share our humanity which is flawed. Evil is not just ‘in them’ but exists in us as well. Fortunately so does the positive such as love and reason.
There is an American Indian story of the grandfather who tells his grandchildren in each of us there are two wolves. One is king, loving and protective. The other savage and ravenous.
Alarmed one of them asks ‘Wise Grandfather ( I like that title)which one wins out?
He replied ‘the one that you feed.’
I like it
Sorry, posted before Julian Skidmore’s links were up. Do reject it if you like.
The first foreign leader to be invited by Trump to the White House is Netanyahu who will visit next week. Evil doers gathering together.
I wonder what they will be discussing. One thing’s for sure, it won’t be about improving people’s lives, or even treating them with basic decency, neither is capable of that.
“The first foreign leader to be invited by Trump to the White House is Netanyahu who will visit next week.”
Trump wants to re-develop Gaza into a luxury vacation resort. I am not saying this with any cheek. This is what he really wants to do.
FYI: Trump just settled a lawsuit with Meta. Meta paid him personally $25 million for banning him and kicking him off Facebook after January 6th.
The Israelis have been gloating on social media since the genocide began that they would turn Gaza into some sort of luxury resort – for them, of course. I fear for the Palestinians – this is not over. They will never be allowed to live in peace in their own land until the west stops arming Israel.
As for Meta paying off Trump to the tune of $25m, well, Zuckerberg must fear for himself and his family, he caved in so quickly.
We now find who the appeasers are and who aren’t, who gives into the malevolent orange man-child and who stands up to him.
He’s undoubtedly evil and doing very evil things. But I think parallels with Nazi Germany are not correct.
The Nazis had a vision and an ideology. They were evil and did terrible things, but were not for the most part chaotic. In fact it was not until the rot of chaos set in that they started to lose.
MAGA. Is racist, but also anti intellectual and anti authority. It’s complete chaos. The end point will be more like what happend in Cambodia. That was also horrific.
The point of making this distinction is perhaps so people are more aware of what is coming and what they need to do.
The current crop of fascism is distinct from Nazism. Nazi ideology asserts the nature of the world is a racial contest for territory and resources.
The wealthiest today embrace Mudsill theory. It asserts civilization is constructed of a tiny elite, supported by a permanent under class. Their contempt of public prosperity is driven by this belief.
This time round, they see technology as the alternative to politics. That they can create an instrument of total domination. It’s one of the perverse motivations, driving their rush into AI.
The descent into hell surely must mean that Jesus experienced in an acute way the oblivion of all good, as every innocent being who suffers unbearable injustice does. Mr. Murphy you have captured in your powerful few words how this oblivion is being enacted on a world scale. And it is terrible.
Jesus was obliterated between the time of his death on the cross and his resurrection from the tomb. He went to hell to finally defeat satan for good. The hymn “thine be the glory, the risen, conquering son” captures this sentiment.
Shame it didn’t work.
I think Aurelien is mistaken in that while elites might consider themselves civilised, they can behave in ways very similar to the nazis. The only difference perhaps being quantitive. From Medieval Kings to Churchill, our elites hold high moral standards yet employ the more most immoral tactics on ‘others’ to further their aims.
The only brake on this psychopathy has been the brief emergence of democracy during the last century and which only found universal suffrage in the UK less than a century ago.
Ever since its inception the elites have attacked democracy, first in a frontal assault, second by reluctant acquiescence after the Wall Street crash and finally by attacking democracy from within via the neoliberal counter revolution in the 70’s.
Trump is merely the next logical step in weakening democracy to the point of irrelevance.
It is there that evil lurks, it is this decent into hell for the many and heavenly rewards for the few that elites are driving. Tufton Street and it’s equivalents are reducing ‘civilisation’ back to a medieval notion of chivalry in which moral turpitudes are paid for with occasional good works and prayers to a higher power for forgiveness
I see Trump as a representative of a long line and seemingly ever-growing self – interested group of people whose time has come, who are about to be superseded and are fighting like cats and dogs to survive and keep the gravy train they are on going for as long as possible.
Nothing is too low for this lot to stoop to in order retain their grip – corruption, lying and murder.
PSR,
“are fighting like cats and dogs to survive and keep the gravy train they are on going for as long as possible.”
I 100% agree with your comment.
Every time I hear the Lord’s Prayer, I crack up because I remember my 10 year-old (at the time) nephew changing the words to his prayers as such:
“And lead us not into Penn Station, but deliver us some email.”
He did much more but it is not suitable to post.
🙂
When I was a great deal younger than I am now, our version went:
Our Father which art in Downing Street
Harold by thy name
United Kingdom gone
We shall be done on earth and probably in heaven.
Give us each day our daily bread,
And forgive us for our devaluations,
As we forgive them that speculate against us.
Lead us not into the Common Market,
But deliver us to the unions.
For this is the Kingdom, no power, no Tory,
For ever and ever AMEN.
🙂
Unfortunately we are at the mercy of the normal distribution.
At one end we have the highly empathetic and at the other we have psychopaths. According to the American Psychology Association the number of people at the psychopath, sociopath and “low empathy” end of the curve may be as high as 30%. This is a bit depressing because we have lost 30% of the electorate before we start!
Less than 26% of the electorate voted for the Starmer government – 40% didn’t bother to turn out and 38% of those that voted chose Reform or the Conservatives.
Unlike us (the followers of Richard’s blog) most people are not interested in politics (family, friends, social life, work – all take priority) – though they are happy to complain about almost everything. They simply do not see the link between being politically ill-informed and the miserable state our public services are in.
No election will ever be won on the basis of rational and logical argument – and unfortunately the same seems to apply with Rachel The Accountant. One of the best software engineers I employed was highly logical (obviously!) but he was also a happy-clappy Christian. Rational and logical argument only goes so far.
To win our argument we have to stick to things that resonate with people at gut level. Even things like fairness and justice can be too high on the scale for those who react at the emotional and emotive level.
From personal experience I have found that the obvious unfairness of wealth distribution does resonate with people – as does the unfairness of Council Tax and nonsensical things like HS2 and the third runway at Heathrow.
A society with 4.3 million children in poverty, and over 2800 foodbanks, will never function properly while we have politicians obsessed with the household budget approach to running the economy.
With Trump rampaging in the USA I foresee a growing demand for a similar “strong man at the top” willing to “get things done”. This appearance of “action” is very attractive to those (the majority) who have lost faith in politics. Fortunately the only “strong man” on offer is Farage and, while he are Reform are a threat, his obvious greedy self-interest, and the ability of those on the right to cut one-another’s throats, may keep him at arm’s length. We may also be helped if, in the long run, people begin to see the mess that Trump will leave behind him.
Unfortunately people have to learn by their mistakes since they never accept the word of those of us who have seen it all before. Learning will be painful.
This is not the philosophy of despair – even while being realistic one can continue to promote a better way while people are learning!
Trump is an avatar of the people that bankroll him. The wealthiest nurture amongst themselves a cult of sociopathy. They believe that sociopathy is true human nature and its highest achievement, that each of us is seeking to become a master in the world of slaves. Neoliberalism is their sugarcoated sociopathy.
You see, if everyone is just a mini dark lord, the minions inside governments are all are out to get us, just as our neighbor is. This kind of thinking is unworkable for a social species.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/30/sterilization-women-roe-v-wade-trump
See, read and inwardly digest
Not a vote of confidence
Very worrying that women are being put in this situation
Sometimes the nice thing about being an atheist is I need only say Trump is a scheming, greedy, immoral little toerag who used people to get lucky.
I’m certainly no expert on psychology, but after doing some basic research online from sources I ran a basic fact-check on, it seems that the Trumpenführer is the dictionary definition of a sociopath.
Very well said. As a fellow atheist, I totally agree. For me, Jesus was a man executed for his political beliefs, unacceptable to the existing powers that be.
Unable to write more as in hospital for last two weeks and more to come. But couldn’t resist this one.
Go well – literally
That’s spot on, Richard.
I’ve always found the notion of evil theoretically incomprehensible and practically unhelpful. It makes more sense as a negative concept—the absence of. An absence of what? It could be morals, religion, or empathy.
The absence of empathy is far more common than we realize—the DSM-5 is full of examples. But while empathy is a psychological trait, its absence cannot be reduced to a psychological disorder. Sometimes, it stems from errors in reasoning, misinformation, or the exploitation of emotions like fear.
Civilization has nothing to do with it. Advanced societies commit terrible acts, while so-called primitive tribes can be the kindest of people.
One of the hardest questions of our time is how to ensure good political leadership. There’s no simple solution. Democracy, often described as the least bad form of government, has its flaws. Aristotle recognized that all political systems have ideal forms and corrupt deviations—democracy included. This is old knowledge.
Personally, I believe much of the necessary work lies in securing the preconditions for democracy: reducing inequality, improving education, and ensuring access to reliable information. Political philosophy today is often studied in an abstract, disembodied way, ignoring the real societal conditions that shape political processes. Much of political discourse fixates on rights, duties, and the limits of power, without addressing what makes democracies function in the first place.
It’s hard to imagine something like Donald Trump happening without the explosion of social media and algorithmic information distribution. It’s Orwellian in a way. For instance, Trump’s campaign notoriously used targeted ads—telling American Muslims to fear Jews and, simultaneously, telling American Jews to fear Muslims. This was exposed by journalists but barely registered amid the overwhelming flood of information during the campaign. Similarly, the falsehoods of the Brexit campaign—like the infamous NHS bus—became common knowledge only after they had served their purpose.
These things happen before our eyes every day, yet they barely provoke a reaction. Many Trump supporters are working-class Americans worried about inflation, backing him because he promises tariffs on China. Yet tariffs are one of the surest ways to drive prices up—a basic economic reality that isn’t hard to grasp, even without a degree in economics.
We are living in an Orwellian society—not exactly as Orwell imagined, but disturbingly close.
for very tragic reasons, a Sikorsky helicopter is in the news today. Igor Sikorsky was not only a leading Tzarist Russian aircraft engineer, and of course later moving to the USA, he also wrote a few books. One such is titled ‘The message of the Lord’s Prayer (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942/4 – I am not sure about the publish date). I do have a signed copy of this and others of his books ‘somewhere’. He was a deeply religious man, and wrote “often when walking alone through forests or climbing mountains I thought about the great prayer”. He would, I am sure, be saddened by the way in which the USA and indeed other parts of the world, are being now ‘ruled’.
I don’t think I have ever personally come face to face with a truly spine-chillingly evil person, although I’ve met plenty of “very bad” ones and seen plenty of “bad” behaviour. I fear there are more than we think, only most of them are disguised very heavily with expensive clothes, a good vocabulary and accent, and nice manners – study any photo of the Bullingdon Club… Evil people without power cause small scale havoc. But when they get to run countries, then they enter the history books and there is great suffering.
The issue of what constitutes evil has been keeping philosophers and theologians in employment for centuries although neither theists NOR atheists seem to have cracked it, and sadly, “evil” people seem to be fairly well distributed around our society, some are BIG evil people, others are SMALL evil people. AFAICS the Christian/Jewish scriptures don’t explain evil, merely acquaint us with it’s existence. give it an ontological shape, particularly in the post exilic period of Israel and leading up to the first century of the Christian era when apocalyptic literature was very popular. And of course, the central claim of the Christian Messiah is that he has conquered it, and we are watching it’s death throes and should be involved in countering it’s effects on the world and our neighbours – complacency not encouraged!
For theists (believers in a personal “god”), then the “problem of evil” is known as “Theodicy” – a problem relating to God’s justice (why does God put up with evil if he is in charge of creation?), and is used as an argument against God’s existence. At that point theologians gird their loins, put the kettle on and settle down for a long session. They are well used to it!
If you are atheist or agnostic, the “problem of evil” doesn’t go away just because God is out of the picture, and still presents all sorts of problems – some people still believe in something called “evil”, others don’t, depending on their views about human nature and psychology. I think we ALL struggle with it, whatever our religion or lack of it. Remember the discussion about the child killers of Jamie Bulger? Lots of unresolved disagreement about whether they were “evil” or very very badly damaged children.
Every now and then someone turns up who seems to unite us all across our different philosophies/theologies/world views, and we say THAT person is truly evil. I don’t think it is our job to decide such things although we DO have to do something about such people, to protect others around them, and that includes Trump – tricky when he is leading the wealthiest and most militarily powerful state on the planet.
I think those who were wavering on where Trump came on the spectrum may have shifted quite substantially when they saw him in action after the Potomac river air crash, making his nasty vindictive callous self-serving remarks about the supposed causes of the crash.What a small man he is.
I think that not only do we have to take account of his BADness (?evil), we also have to assume that he is going to be increasingly chaotic and irrational and he may completely disintegrate within months. What his handlers will do at that point, who knows, maybe Vance is part of that plan, maybe not. Will they send in the men in white coats or will he just be kept sedated as a convenient psychotic puppet in the White House?
@Julian Skidmore – I like that analysis of the various strands of thought that have a strong vested interest in the current behaviour of POTUS. With regard to the RW Evangelicals at the end of your list, I’d make a minor technical change – their apocalyptic scenario tends to be PRE- rather than POST- millennial, They believe that things degenerate into an Armageddon war and THEN the Messiah returns, THEN the thousand year reign of the Messiah begins. But they still believe that they will be doing God’s will to get Armageddon under way asap. What they don’t explain when they are in Israel ,is that the Messiah in this scenario ushers in the forced conversion of all the Jews (or they are incinerated). As the world is due to be destroyed and replaced, then all this environmental stuff is, in their understanding a waste of time. The Israeli leaders know this Messianic stuff, and its implications, but are happy to get the American cash. Anyone wanting to study this a bit more, stick “John Hagee” into your favourite non-oligarchic owned search engine or AI software.
Personally, I think that is a complete misuse of apocalyptic literature, which is not meant IMHO, to be read like that But there have been many people down through the ages who have found that such passages suit their political purposes
But I don’t believe that the large mass of “MAGA” Trump supporters, although they may call themselves culturally Christians (ie. White, civilised, American), don’t then associate that with a body of doctrine, or a practice of church membership or attendance. The word “Christian” merely differentiates them from “Muslims”, who are, for the moment, the enemy.
Thanks