Most people have heard the phrase “speaking truth to power.” It usually applies to people outside the seats of power like Martin Luther King or Gandhi who railed against evil in all its ugly manifestations. Rarely have we heard U.S. Presidents actually rail against evil in the three branches of government.

Pres. Biden’s two speeches on Jan. 6 in Washington and Jan. 11 in Atlanta spoke truth to power denouncing those Republican officials who downplay the actions of the insurrectionists and those undemocratic Republican led Jim Crow style voting laws. Too bad Biden did not foresee the recent Republican National Committee claim the Jan. 6th insurrection was a “legitimate political discourse!” It is glaringly obvious some Republicans are quite willing to follow Trump into the authoritarian rabbit hole.

Biden should have also recalled how evilness flourished when the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote counting in the 2000 election and when they undermined the Voting Rights Bill in 2013. He could have also said “Evil continues to flourish everytime Trump proclaims the 2020 election was a fraud and stolen from him.”

On questions about evil, why through all the years of the Trump administration have religious leaders of all faiths failed to gather together and stand on the U.S. Capitol steps and denounce Trump’s words and actions? Do they not see Trump as a corrupter of minds, a dangerous authoritarian? Why the deafening silence from religious leaders?

What is really troubling? It’s my understanding some police units and military personnel of all ranks support Trump and the Jan. 6 insurrection. What went through their minds when Trump called White Supremacists good people? Have those police units and military personnel not seen those rotten fascist White Supremacist’s carry the treasonous Confederate flag shouting sieg heil with their arms raised in a Nazi salute? Thankfully the military top brass is trying to investigate and weed those White Supremacists out of military service.

I am not blind to history! I realize this nation in the past like now has had Nazi or fascist sympathizers! It is my hope that all those Republican and Independent voters who did not support Trump in the last election continue to resist Trump and his authoritarian impulses.