Introduction
If you spend any time around very committed political or religious circles, you’ve probably heard a version of this argument:
“There’s a group actively working against our country (and especially against Trump), therefore America is fundamentally evil and decadent."
I get why this feels persuasive. It’s emotionally clean. It explains everything. It turns confusing events into a single storyline with heroes, villains, and a clear moral. But it’s also a leap—one that swaps analysis for apocalypse.
This post is about that leap: why it happens, why it feels so convincing, and why the existence of real enemies or organized opposition does not prove a nation is “evil” as a people.
Factions are normal in a free country
One of the oldest insights in American political thinking is that factions are inevitable. James Madison defined a faction as a group of citizens united by a common passion or interest that can run against the rights of others or the long-term interests of the community.
The key point isn’t that factions are good. The point is that factions are normal. They emerge naturally from human differences—economic interests, moral beliefs, regional cultures, religions, personalities, ambition, fear, pride, ideology.
So when someone says, “See? There’s a group working against us,” the honest response is: yes, probably. Welcome to human society. That reality doesn’t prove the country is corrupt at its core; it proves we’re human.
Madison’s argument wasn’t “factions are evidence of decadence.” It was that a large republic and constitutional structure can dilute factional power and reduce the odds that any one faction dominates.
In other words, disagreement and organized opposition aren’t signs of national wickedness. They’re a predictable feature of pluralism.
The apocalyptic temptation: turning politics into cosmic war
The “America is evil” leap usually comes packaged with something else: an end-times emotional tone. Not necessarily literal theology, but an apocalyptic posture.
You can recognize it when the language shifts from “they’re wrong” to “they’re demonic,” from “this policy will hurt people” to “this is the collapse of civilization,” from “we lost an election” to “the country is lost.”
Political scientist Alison McQueen has studied how apocalyptic rhetoric can make complex threats feel legible and urgent—war, disaster, collapse. But she also notes it carries peril: it can justify extreme behavior, break ordinary moral restraints, and turn opponents into existential enemies rather than fellow citizens.
Apocalyptic frames do something psychologically powerful:
- They simplify.
- They intensify.
- They sanctify.
And once politics is sanctified, compromise feels like betrayal.
“Opposition to Trump” is not a moral diagnosis of America
Even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that some organized actors work against Trump unfairly or maliciously, it still doesn’t follow that the American people are fundamentally evil.
Because the country is not identical to:
- the loudest activists,
- the worst bureaucrats,
- the most cynical media incentives,
- the most corrupt donors,
- the dumbest trends online.
That’s like looking at a city’s crime blotter and declaring every resident a criminal.
People oppose Trump for different reasons, and those reasons range from sincere to petty to corrupt to understandable to irrational. A mixed bag of motives does not add up to a metaphysical verdict on 330 million people.
A nation is not judged well by its worst actors. It’s judged by the overall reality of its people, institutions, and daily life.
Why it feels so true: affective polarization and moral theater
One reason the “we are decadent” story spreads is that modern polarization is increasingly emotional—less about policy disagreement and more about mutual dislike and distrust.
Political science research describes “affective polarization” as the tendency for partisans to feel hostility toward the other side that goes beyond ideological differences.
When politics becomes identity, every headline becomes personal. Every disagreement becomes an insult. Every setback becomes evidence that “they” are coming for “us.” That emotional environment is perfectly suited for apocalyptic interpretations.
On top of that, public discourse often rewards moral performance. Philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke describe “moral grandstanding” as using moral talk for self-promotion—status, attention, dominance, in-group admiration.
In a culture where outrage is currency, the most extreme voices get the most amplification. And once you live inside the outrage stream, it becomes easy to believe the outrage is the whole country.
It isn’t.
Moral panic: when a society invents “folk devils”
Another related dynamic is what sociologist Stanley Cohen called moral panic: a surge of fear and hostility focused on a perceived threat, where a group becomes a symbol of everything “going wrong.”
Moral panic doesn’t require that the threat is imaginary. Sometimes it’s real. The problem is the disproportionate, symbolic, totalizing nature of the reaction: it turns complex social problems into a single villain and a single storyline.
That’s what happens when “there are bad actors” becomes “the nation is evil.”
The category error: confusing “some” with “the whole”
At the heart of this argument is a basic mistake:
Some people do evil things.
Therefore the people are evil.
Some institutions behave corruptly.
Therefore the country is corrupt in essence.
Some activists are radical.
Therefore the culture is decadent as a whole.
This is not analysis; it’s a mood wearing a suit.
The United States is a massive, diverse society. It contains saints, criminals, heroes, grifters, hardworking families, broken families, wise people, foolish people, sincere believers, cynical opportunists, and everyone in between.
That mixture is not decadence. It’s humanity.
A more grounded way to say it
Here’s a version that acknowledges reality without surrendering to apocalypse:
Yes, there are factions, propaganda, and people who will exploit events for power.
Yes, some opposition is dishonest, and some defense is dishonest too.
Yes, tribalism is poisoning our discourse.
But no, that does not mean the American people are fundamentally evil.
If anything, the daily evidence points the other way: millions of ordinary people still work, build, serve, volunteer, donate, raise kids, care for parents, coach teams, run churches, run charities, run small businesses, and try to live decent lives—often while being disgusted with what they see on TV.
If you want to measure the soul of a country, don’t measure it by the worst tweets. Measure it by the quiet decency that still functions when nobody is filming.
Why apocalyptic thinking is dangerous (even when you’re right about the threat)
Apocalyptic politics tends to create predictable outcomes:
- It dehumanizes opponents.
Once someone is an existential enemy, anything becomes justifiable. - It makes you easier to manipulate.
Fear short-circuits discernment. If every issue is “the end,” you’ll accept almost any tactic to prevent it. - It destroys persuasion.
If you believe the other side is evil, you stop trying to persuade and start trying to crush. That invites retaliation, and the spiral continues. - It corrodes your personal life.
Living in “emergency mode” is exhausting. It makes people paranoid, angry, and brittle.
You can believe a moment is serious without believing it is the apocalypse.
How to talk to someone caught in the apocalyptic frame
If you’re dealing with a friend who talks this way, arguing facts often won’t work first, because the frame is emotional and moral. Try questions that force specificity and scale:
- Which specific group are you talking about?
- What do they want, specifically?
- How large are they, really?
- Do you think they represent most Americans?
- If not, why call the whole country evil?
- What evidence would change your mind?
- What would a “non-apocalyptic” interpretation look like?
The goal isn’t to win. The goal is to pull the conversation back from cosmic certainty to human reality.
Final thought
It’s possible to believe there are real threats—foreign, domestic, ideological—without declaring your neighbors “evil” and your nation “decadent.”
In fact, that refusal is a form of patriotism: not blind patriotism, but sane patriotism.
A country is not damned because it contains conflict. A free country contains conflict by design.
The real danger isn’t that factions exist.
The real danger is when we start treating fellow citizens as monsters, and call that insight.
References
Cohen, S. (1972). Folk devils and moral panics: The creation of the Mods and Rockers. MacGibbon and Kee.
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Iyengar, S., Sood, G., & Lelkes, Y. (2012). Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3), 405–431.
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Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22, 129–146.
Annual Reviews+1
Madison, J. (1787, November 23). The Federalist No. 10. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School.
Avalon Project+1
McQueen, A. (2017). Political realism in apocalyptic times. Cambridge University Press.
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Tosi, J., & Warmke, B. (2016). Moral grandstanding. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 44(3), 197–217.
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Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this post are opinions of the author for educational and commentary purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual or organization, and should not be construed as legal, medical, or financial advice. References to public figures and institutions are based on publicly available sources cited in the article. Any resemblance beyond these references is coincidental.
