Chances are when you are called upon to conjure up a mental image of the embodiment of evil, you picture a character like Darth Vader or Lord Voldemort, or maybe some satanic caricature. But while these may be the standard cultural icons of evil, the human instantiation tends to appear far less blatant and intimidating. In fact, it often appears downright benign — or at least like just ordinary guys on the street.

Pol Pot and Joseph Stalin could have passed for someone’s kindly uncles at the dinner table. Ted Bundy would have looked quite at home at a corporate Christmas party. There was nothing even particularly off-putting about the appearance of Adolf Hitler; if you didn’t know his history, you’d think he was just a harmless character with a comical mustache.

Philosopher/ historian Hannah Arendt, a Holocaust survivor, coined the expression banality of evil to characterize the blase willingness to commit horrible deeds out of duty, loyalty, habit or indifference — a willingness, quite often, to do evil without actually being evil. She applied the term especially to Adolph Eichmann, the notorious Nazi official who supervised the transport of Jews to concentration camps, but was otherwise an unremarkable and rather detached individual.

And he was hardly the only one. Many of the Nazis were, by all appearances, respectable family men who played with their children, attended church, danced with their wives, and perhaps bought a round of drinks for the boys at the pub — between sessions of gassing Jews. Maybe some of them at the core weren’t such bad folks; but they were all too willing to be useful idiots and unquestioning drones for people who were very bad folks.

The late Leonard Cohen wrote an unorthodox little poem called “All There Is to Know About Adolph Eichmann” that goes as follows:

EYES:……………………………………Medium
HAIR:……………………………………Medium
WEIGHT:………………………………Medium
HEIGHT:………………………………Medium
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES…None
NUMBER OF FINGERS:………..Ten
NUMBER OF TOES………………Ten
INTELLIGENCE…………………….Medium

What did you expect?

Talons?

Oversize incisors?

Green saliva?

Madness?

In the contemporary U.S. there are plenty of vessels for evil; most of them are readily identifiable, because they wear their evil on their sleeves, their chests, their backs, their heads, and everywhere else. These include Alex Jones, Elon Musk, Laura Loomer, Ron DeSantis, perhaps Jeanine Pirro (though admittedly there is a distinction between evil and just fucking nuts), and above and beyond all, Former Guy himself.

But there are also those who are more subtle, and aptly personify the banality of evil. These include the likes of Mitch McConnell, Dennis Prager, George W. Bush and J.D. Vance — though the latter is increasingly edging across the line into the territory of overt evil. But hardly anyone typifies the banality of evil better than Mike Johnson (R-LA), who as of this writing is, alas, the Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives.

On the outside, he has a Casper Milquetoast persona, a clean-cut and well-groomed contender to be your family dentist or your marriage counselor. He is as soft-spoken and bland as Clark Kent; but if he ever popped out of a phone booth, he certainly wouldn’t emerge as a superhero, nor indeed as any kind of hero; if anything, he would emerge as Lex Luthor. He’s chummy with pseudo-historian David Barton, a prominent voice in promoting Christian Nationalism (a euphemism for fascism) and has even acknowledged that Barton has had “a profound influence on my work and my life”.

He’s also buddy-buddy with Clay Higgins, a vile racist congressman (R-LA –what is it with this state, anyway? ) who perpetuated the vile racist Internet smears about (legal) immigrants from Haiti, tweeting thus:

Unquestioning transmission of dopey tabloid rumors about Haitians eating pets. Stereotypical allusion to voodoo (which he misspelled). Characterization as the “nastiest country in the western hemisphere”. “Cults” (one of which he himself belongs to). “Slapstick gangsters”. (One of whom he worships.) False claim that Haitians have sued the president and vice president. (They’ve actually sued the GOP candidates for those offices.) “Thugs”. (Which he adores.) A threat that they’d better leave the country — where they are lawfully residing. Just to be clear, this is not banal evil. It’s just evil.

Leave it to Mike Johnson to inject the quotidian factor. When asked about the Higgins tweet by reporters, he first rolled his eyes and gave a huff of frustration and a little dismissive shake of the head, and then said:

Clay Higgins is a dear friend of mine and a colleague from Louisiana, and a very frank and outspoken person. He’s also a very principled man. I didn’t even see it but he tweeted something today about Haitians. …He was approached on the floor by colleagues who said that was offensive. He said he went to the back and he prayed about it, and he regretted it, and he pulled the post down. I’m sure he probably regrets the language he used. But you know, we move forward. We believe in redemption around here.

“Dear friend”? Yes, birds of a feather. “Frank and outspoken”? Euphemism for asshole. “Principled man”? Yes, his principles are racism, xenophobia, hate and idiocy. “Prayed about it”? What’s the purpose or need of that? Why not just apologize? Which he didn’t. “Regretted it?” Um, no, he explicitly said he didn’t, and even indicated that he’d pull the same kind of assholery again. “Move forward”? Yes, by repeating the same behavior without consequence. “Redemption”? That would be relevant only if Johnson was discussing someone who had some actual interest in being redeemed. But he most assuredly knows better.

Johnson’s own racism and xenophobia are also sometimes on full display, even if not as glaringly. We’ve already mentioned the press conference at which he uttered:

We all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that is easily provable. We don’t have that number.

Bigotry, election denial, and anti-evidence all in one little statement. Quite an achievement. And it isn’t the only time he’s given a banal nod to the false claims of election fraud. Asked at a press conference if he’d commit to recognizing a Harris win in the presidential election, he replied with:

Well of course — if we have a free, fair and safe election, we’re going to follow the Constitution. Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely.

As you know (one hopes), there is only one possible answer to the question he was asked, a single word of three letters and one syllable. But that’s never the answer that MAGAts give. They always give the stock answer he gave instead. Without specifically saying so, he subtly and banally paid tribute to the “stolen election” lie and, furthermore, implied that it’s only an obligation for him to follow the Constitution when it suits his purposes.

Repeatedly dodging questions by George Stephanopoulos about whether he believes Biden won fairly, he just replied, “I’m not going to play the game”.

Game??? Where’s the game in just answering a simple yes or no question?

He also refused to say whether he bought into his Lord and Master’s outrageous claims that Democrats were behind the assassination attempts. Banal, maybe; but still as evil as his idol.

And after the second assassination attempt, he was in full banal, delusional, idol-worshipping mode:

He was not shaken… I mean, he is, he is unshakable. And the thing is that there’s no person and no leader in the history of America that’s been so attacked … as he has so aggressively … and yet remained so strong and resilient. But he still needs protection, and it’s inexcusable that it has not been provided as needed. He’s one of a kind. He is not going to stop fighting for the American people… God has spared his life twice now, and I told him that it reminded me of the bulletproof George Washington, our first president who evaded being shot at when he was an Army colonel, that the famous incident of the French and Indian War, where they all took shots at him and bullet holes went through his jacket, and it didn’t take him down.

Hoo boy. Can someone just bring the barf bag already? How many ways can a person be idiotic and insane in one brief interview? Let us count some of them.

“Unshaken”. That’s not what other sources reported.

“No person who’s been so attacked”. Yes, it’s been nothing but pure persecution all the way. None of his troubles have been the least bit his fault, have they?

“Strong and resilient.” So strong that he invoked bone spurs to get out of military service. So resilient that he’s always — always— whined and made false claims about being cheated every time he’s lost any kind of competition. Every. Single. Time.

“Fighting for the American people”. Okay, Mike, we’ll bite. When was one time he ever fought for the American people? Or anyone besides himself. Ever? Ever? Go on, take your time.

“God spared his life”. Of course, we gotta bring God into it, don’t we. Maybe he was “spared” because God wants him to answer for his actions by spending a long stint behind bars.

“George Washington”. Not sure that’s an appropriate comparison, Mike. Maybe we should go for King David. Or Batman. Or even, of course, J.C. Himself.

Again, it’s often hard to know when insanity ends and evil begins. But Mike Johnson evidently has one foot firmly planted on each side of the line.

Pressed to call Congress into session to address the horrific damage wrought by two major hurricanes, Johnson responded that there was no hurry — it could wait until after the election. He didn’t want to do anything that might cast a favorable light on the present administration, even if it meant needless suffering for a great many Americans. In the meantime, he was also helping to spread Former Guy’s evil lies that FEMA and Biden were not helping the victims. Both of these evil actions put the lives and safety of millions of people at risk; but he was quite willing to do so for the chance of a little political gain. It’s hard to get a lot more evil than this.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of his evil achievements. It’s just a sampling of the most salient incidents in recent (as of this writing) news. There are plenty of others to choose from.

Does that mean he’s as evil as he is deranged and stupid? Not necessarily. Determining that someone is evil requires examining the totality of their actions; and Mike maybe, possibly, theoretically, has some redeeming qualities too. But the more he opens his mouth, the more he tips the scale.