Robert Gamer: Author & Activist

On Sunday morning, George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s “This Week” grilled New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu about his sudden support for Donald Trump in the presidential race. Sununu, once a sharp critic of Trump, has now flipped the script. Why? As Sununu himself explained, with more than half of Americans apparently unbothered by Trump’s criminal indictments or his actions on January 6th, he feels comfortable throwing his support behind the former president.

Stephanopoulos pressed him further: “Are you comfortable supporting someone who’s convicted of a federal crime for president?”

Sununu sidestepped: “Right now, this is about an election and politics.”

Undeterred, Stephanopoulos reminded Sununu of his previous statement that Trump’s actions contributed to an insurrection, a historical first for a U.S. president. Sununu’s response? “For me, it’s not about him (Trump) as much as it is about a Republican administration.”

This complete about-face by Governor Sununu, once viewed as an upstanding proponent of Judeo-Christian values, begs the question: How can someone who has dedicated his life to public service back a man he once derided as a pathological liar and a threat to democracy?

The answer lies in what might be dubbed the “Sununu Shuffle”—a prioritization of party over principle, where the perceived necessity of a Republican administration overrides ethical considerations. For Sununu, the end—achieving a conservative agenda—justifies the means.

Yet this political expediency is only part of the story. A deeper, more unsettling trend is at play: the routinization of evil. This concept, a twist on Max Weber’s idea of the routinization of charisma, suggests that actions once considered morally reprehensible have become so normalized in our culture that they are now overlooked or even justified.

Take Trump’s infamous hush money payments to a porn star and his affair with a Playboy model. These scandals, backed by direct evidence, would have sunk any other politician. But many of Trump’s supporters, despite their disapproval, choose to look the other way, rationalizing his behavior.

This echoes Hannah Arendt’s observations on the banality of evil during the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a key organizer of the Holocaust. Eichmann, Arendt noted, was not a monster in appearance or demeanor. He was disturbingly ordinary, embodying how evil can manifest in the everyday.

Similarly, Governor Sununu, with his affable demeanor, now backs a candidate who has openly threatened retribution, hinted at jailing opponents, and has no qualms about undermining constitutional freedoms. How does a man of supposed principle reconcile this? The answer is the same: the routinization of evil.

Eichmann claimed he was following orders—a defense of loyalty over morality. Unlike Eichmann’s contemporaries, half of American voters today are fully aware of Trump’s ethical failings. But their cultural conditioning has dulled their moral compass. This isn’t brainwashing; it’s a shift in societal norms where actions once deemed unacceptable have become part of the status quo.

Today, over half of the country is reportedly willing to reelect a president with multiple felony convictions. This isn’t just about a toxic political climate; it’s a sign that the routinization of evil has taken hold.

Trump once boasted he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing support. It was a chilling testament to the blind loyalty he inspires—an indicator of how deeply evil has been normalized.

Trump is not the cause but a symptom of this phenomenon. Hate crimes and divisive rhetoric have surged, not because Trump invented them but because they have been woven into the fabric of our society. People have become numb, indifferent to the suffering of others, be it migrants drowning in the Rio Grande or hate speech against minorities. This desensitization is the routinization of evil in action.

Historically, racism, homophobia, and xenophobia have always existed, but what is new is the extent to which they have been normalized. Like the German soldiers who executed Jews without question, believing they were serving a greater cause, some Americans today commit or condone acts of violence under the guise of patriotism.

Sununu’s choice to support Trump represents a broader trend: the normalization of actions and ideologies that should be unequivocally condemned. The routinization of evil has made silence complicit, complacency an enabler.

So, where does this leave us? Have we reached a point where the light on the hill has dimmed, where democracy teeters on the brink of collapse? Even if Trump is not reelected, the troubling reality remains that a substantial portion of the population has grown comfortable with evil.

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, the question was posed: Are we normalizing Trump? And if so, are we also normalizing evil? If Trumpism represents the routinization of evil, then we must ask ourselves: Have we, as a society, lost our moral compass? Are we on the path to becoming a nation that no longer recognizes right from wrong?

Governor Sununu has made his choice. The question is, will we?