Eichmann

Eichmann (1961)

Hannah Arendt of course coined the term "banality of evil." Is Trump an Eichmann? In Errol Morris' American Dharma Steve Bannon invokes Milton's "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav'n." Then there's Star Wars. Does Darth Vader equal Trump? One is hard put to see Trump as a man in a glass cage who's a product of some bureaucracy of death. You undoubtedly hate Trump and have dreamt of blowing him up with one of the tactical nuclear weapons Putin likes to threaten Ukraine with. But the implacable tyrant with all his similarly dressed minions brings back the Elizabethan theater which painted many outsized tyrants. Fanny Willis is on the back burner and both the documents and January 6th case will probably be delayed respectively by a Trump appointed judge and Trump leaning Supreme Court. Imagine Trump saying he was just taking orders--as Eichmann did. No way! Trump gets an A for evil.

read "An Incident of Defenestration" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to Joan Baum's NPR review of The Kafka Studies Department