The New Public Face of Evil

This statement is absolute, unmitigated evil. https://t.co/SOacPGGBse

— Kevin L Nenstiel (@KLNenstiel) March 27, 2023

I usually don’t like using moralistic words like “evil” to describe politics, because black-and-white thinking obscures the human souls involved. But watching the mass right-wing dogpile that happened within minutes this week after the Covenant School shooter was revealed as transgender, I think that word is appropriate. The conservative desire to turn this into a referendum on a class of people is, in a strictly Christian sense, evil.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

The key to understanding this evil lies in the second half of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s comment, above. She correlates the shooter’s gendered hormone replacement therapy with mental health drugs. Et voilà, we reach the core of conservative judgment: people struggling with mental health are considered morally weak. And gender “dysphoria” is, to the conservative mindset, a mental illness, not a medical condition to receive treatment and respect.

Despite recent trends toward racism and bigotry in American conservatism, elected conservatives still recognize the importance of coded language. They can’t explicitly say racial groups are devolved or dangerous; that’s why Scott Adams can’t buy lunch anymore. The same rules, though, don’t apply to mental health. It remains perfectly acceptable to say people with PTSD, substance abuse issues, or plain old depression are morally weak and individually responsible.

Elected Republicans vote against providing assistance for mental health treatment on a strict party line basis for years. They only mention mental health after mass shootings, to deflect from weapons hoarding as a cause for violence. Mental health remains toxic in America; PTSD is still not considered a “legitimate” war wound, for instance, and not eligible for the Purple Heart. Mental health is considered a personal failing.

This duality becomes pointed after public displays, like Monday’s shooting. By making the shooter responsible by dint of personal moral weakness, conservatives exculpate the two military-grade rifles the shooter carried. If transgenderism exists entirely inside the sufferer’s head, then the sufferer is individually responsible for handling their thoughts. Any person who can’t handle their thoughts is beyond the pale and irredeemable.

But simultaneously, by making the individual morally responsible for their actions, conservatives make the group responsible. Because the group, in this case transgendered people, is organized around something that appears to be a moral choice, then transgenderism is responsible. The mere fact that violence by transgendered people is vanishingly rare matters little. The group is responsible for this individual’s moral failure, and therefore all group members deserve punishment equally.

Right-wing moral judgment depends wholly on a narrow definition of what makes a good or bad person. Conservatives believe moral qualities originate within the individual, and each person is completely unique and isolated. Therefore nothing causes an individual’s actions but the individual’s moral core. Good people do good things, and anybody doing bad is always a bad person. Extenuating circumstances and cultural conditioning don’t exist, it’s always only the individual.

Florida Governor Ron DeSandis, author
of the “Don’t Say Gay” bill

That’s why, even as Republicans rush to blame this individual’s mental health for their violence, they continue voting to discontinue public support for mental health treatment, or even food support. Conservatives scramble to deny mental health treatment, poverty protection, and affordable health care to those who need it most. Thus they deny two groups Jesus specifically cited in the Parable of the Sheep and Goats: the hungry and the sick.

Food and health, American conservatives assert, are luxuries people earn. Those who can afford them, therefore, are already morally good people who don’t need outside support, while those who can’t afford them, don’t deserve them. If they were moral people, the poor wouldn’t be in this predicament. Though American Republicans tout Christianity as their unifying moral force, they actively reject Jesus Christ’s exhortation to defend those who can’t defend themselves.

Thus America persists in doing everything possible to avoid protecting those most needful of protection. Because the defenseless are considered bad people, doing anything to defend them only empowers their need, which only reinforces their immorality. This directly rejects Gospel morality, as expressed by Jesus Christ himself, which states that the poor and the sick deserve Christians’ support, not because they’re uniquely holy or good people, but because they’re poor.

Don’t misunderstand me; this position doesn’t require endorsing changing gender roles or sexual values. This only requires acknowledging that all people are human, and deserve to be protected. But people like Marjorie Taylor Greene can’t do that. They believe protection only extends to “good” people, usually defined as people most resembling themselves. And I consider that evil. As Jesus Christ himself said, even the pagans and sinners can do that.