Like many in America and around the world today, I feel the darkness that is the regime of Donald Trump and Elon Musk spreading around the world like a poison fog.
It is not unlike Hildegard’s painting of Satan with “poisoned arrows in his mouth” who sends a “very evil flame” and “poison” into the four corners of the universe. The poison is endless, every day brings more moral stench.
The abandonment of Ukraine to the wiles of a country that invaded them three years ago; the precedent it sets for other small countries vulnerable to a larger country and its military ambitions; the abandonment of NATO after 80 years of more or less keeping the peace; the naked blank check to Israel to do what it wants to the people of Gaza; the rounding up of people in America, admitting sending one to a prison in El Salvador by mistake but refusing to bring him home; the explosion of tariffs sending shock waves into the world and American economic system, setting the table for a world recession; the efforts to gut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, all programs to help the most vulnerable among us; the killing of USAID; the compulsion to give billionaires and successful giant corporations tax breaks on a permanent basis; and this recent headline: “The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a ‘death sentence.’”
What is being said in that recent headline? The Trump regime has ended funding to UN World Food Program emergency programs helping keep millions alive in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and 11 other impoverished countries, many of them struggling with conflict, according to the organization and officials who spoke to the Associated Press.*
One notice abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling, since the Taliban prohibits women’s education. The program is run by Texas A&M University. If these young women return to Afghanistan, their lives will be in danger.
Other contracts terminated included Save the Children and the UN Population Fund, which provided mental health services and other care to women and children at al Hol refugee camp in Syria. A total of $111 million for bread and other daily food to 1.5 million people in Syria was dropped.
The projects were being cancelled “for the convenience of the US Government” and at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Elon Musk’s DOGE appointed to oversee the elimination of USAID programs. This seems to sound a lot like the agenda and value system we have unmasked in our past two DMs recounting Musk and his DOGE project.
But there is good news too, that Hildegard also paints in her story of how Satan or Evil works. We shall discuss that in tomorrow’s DM.
* Ellen Knickmeyer, Samy Magdy, and David Biller, “The US ends lifesaving food aid for millions. The World Food Program calls it a ‘death sentence.’” AP News, April 8, 2025.
See Matthew Fox, Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen, pp. 132-135. And plate 20.
See Matthew Fox, Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society.
And Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the World.
And Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice.
Banner Image: Six masked DHS agents detain 30-year-old Tufts University Ph.D. student and Fullbright Scholar Rümeysa Öztürk on her way to break her Ramadan fast, March 30, 2025. Wikimedia Commons
Queries for Contemplation
Do you derive strength to fight the good fight from Hildegard’s drawings that name Evil? Does the fact that our ancestors also wrestled with Evil empower you to carry on?
Recommended Reading
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
An introduction to the life and work of Hildegard of Bingen, Illuminations reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations–24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them.
“If one person deserves credit for the great Hildegard renaissance in our time, it is Matthew Fox.” – Dr Mary Ford-Grabowsky, author of Sacred Voices.
Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a moment, for examining the archetype of the Antichrist, it is now…Read this book with an open mind. Good and evil are real forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling author Matthew Fox offers a new theology of evil that fundamentally changes the traditional perception of good and evil and points the way to a more enlightened treatment of ourselves, one another, and all of nature. In comparing the Eastern tradition of the 7 chakras to the Western tradition of the 7 capital sins, Fox allows us to think creatively about our capacity for personal and institutional evil and what we can do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a better vision and depth of perception far beyond the grasp of any one single science. A breath-taking analysis.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, author of Quantum Theology: Spiritual Implications of the New Physics
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he unearths ten metaphors, or archetypes, ranging from the Green Man, an ancient pagan symbol of our fundamental relationship with nature, to the Spiritual Warrior….These timeless archetypes can inspire men to pursue their higher calling to connect to their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Every man on this planet should read this book — not to mention every woman who wants to understand the struggles, often unconscious, that shape the men they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, author of The Left Hand of God
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts for the Peoples of the Earth
Fox’s spirituality weds the healing and liberation found in North American Creation Spirituality and in South American Liberation Theology. Creation Spirituality challenges readers of every religious and political persuasion to unite in a new vision through which we learn to honor the earth and the people who inhabit it as the gift of a good and just Creator.
“A watershed theological work that offers a common ground for religious seekers and activists of all stripes.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
“I am reading Liberating Gifts for the People of the Earth by Matt Fox. He is one that fills my heart and mind for new life in spite of so much that is violent in our world.” ~ Sister Dorothy Stang.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
In A Spirituality Named Compassion, Matthew Fox delivers a profound exploration of the meaning and practice of compassion. Establishing a spirituality for the future that promises personal, social, and global healing, Fox marries mysticism with social justice, leading the way toward a gentler and more ecological spirituality and an acceptance of our interdependence which is the substratum of all compassionate activity.
“Well worth our deepest consideration…Puts compassion into its proper focus after centuries of neglect.” –The Catholic Register
4 thoughts on “The Moral Stench from the Trump/Musk Regime Spreads”
We cast judgement at times as to who is evil and who is virtuous. Despite a weak kneed and fearful Congress, Senate, and billionaire corporate heads, there still are ‘Knights in armour’ out there to battle the US Administration. They exist in the ‘free world’ and in the ‘less than free world.
China is the 2nd largest economy in the world. Many of the best and brightest in the fields of science and business reside there and work there. China has enormous intellectual capital. Many of them have sat beside and learned from the world’s best at say, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, U of Toronto, McGill and on and on. And more so than their credentials and world class production and achievements, they do not fear nor respect the current American Administration. They also ‘know’ sound economics and do not want their economy to ‘crater’ like the US economy is on its way to doing. Nor will they back down and cower. And thank God for that. We have been conditioned to believe that Knights only come in ‘shining’ armour. We are so wrong. Just wait and see. – BB.
I am hoping that BRICS will continue to cooperate and provide economic education and assistance to emerging nations. The U.S. will continue to experience a brain drain. especially in the sciences as there is nothing but voodoo beliefs in the “top” administration officials in climate, weather, disease, etc., etc., etc. We are going to arrogant ourselves right out of business. It is such a waste of intelligent and caring professionals.
Evil is still a mystery to me. But I agree that it’s an archetypal and spiritual energy that humanity has had to struggle with in our inner and outer human evolution towards greater Divine Unitive Consciousness with the spiritual help and guidance of Divine Love~Wisdom in Our Eternal Souls from Our Divine Source~Co-Creator ….
“We have seen the enemy, and the enemy is us.” ~Pogo What good does it do to point our fingers at Trump & Musk when we need to look at ourselves and the world we have created based upon the illusion of our separateness? Trump & Musk are manifestations of what type of people we have become. We made them, or we tolerated them enough to allow them to assert themselves in the bizarre ways they are doing today. Another saying from J.
Krishnamurti explains quite well the type of people we have become. He said, “It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.” Man of man, but have we adjusted! We love our separateness so much that we have empowered those whom we tolerate today, and because we do, they have gained the power and freedom to do whatever they want, and they know this. Quit complaining about what we have created and create something that we really want.