A recurring theme in the series is the question of how much principles can be compromised in the service of defeating a greater evil. In the very first episode, Foyle confronts a murderer who happens to work for the admiralty in an office dedicated to cracking German naval codes. He argues to Foyle that arresting him will materially set back this work, costing the lives of hundreds of British sailors and possibly giving Germany time to starve Britain into submission.
And his victims weren't that much of a loss. One was a German woman living in England. She was an enemy alien, but otherwise innocent. She would not be the last innocent German woman to die in the war; there would be thousands before it was over. His other victim was a thoroughly disreputable pub owner involved in blackmail and associated with a corrupt civil servant taking bribes to help young men avoid conscription.
Viewed from a certain perspective it's a persuasive argument and Foyle admits to his driver that he was tempted to let him go. But in the end he concludes "Murder is murder. You stop believing in that, and we might as well not be fighting a war, because you end up like the Nazis."
Now, personally, I find that reasoning a little simplistic but essentially valid. For one thing, when one considers the crimes of National Socialism, overlooking the petty murders of powerful people comes pretty far down the list. Here's how I would have put it:
World War II was, above all, a war for western civilization. To allow National Socialism to succeed in the land that produced Luther, Gutenberg, Bach and countless other luminaries would have discredited the whole idea of western civilization and tarnished the many blessings it has brought to the world.
As an aside, I think that's why it's proper to consider the crimes of the National Socialists as more significant than those of the bolsheviks. Viewed from the western perspective the Germans were "one of us." The Russians were never really part of the west, the efforts of their monarchs notwithstanding.
One of the pillars of western civilization is the rule of law. It is honored more in some parts of the west than in others but all western societies acknowledge it to some extent. To allow a murderer to go unpunished might have been useful to winning the war but it would have undermined the reasons for fighting the war in the first place.
Which brings me to Donald Trump. Every day legions of Trumpkins insist that those who oppose Trump are only assisting Hillary Clinton. Many of them accuse Trump's critics of being actively and consciously in league with Clinton, despite the fact that most of these critics have been criticizing the Clintons for decades in even harsher language than that deployed against Trump.
I should say here that there are two broad classes of Trump supporters: those who have concluded, somewhat reluctantly, that, despite his flaws, Trump is preferable to Clinton; and those who are wholly devoted to him, who have ascribed to him an almost messianic mission to save the United States. Sometimes this latter group reminds me of the entranced thugee cultists of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
But Trump's conservative critics have made essentially the same calculation that Foyle did. Some, including myself, have even been tempted from time to time to support him. But Trump, and the people he attracts, have no knowledge of, or respect for, the ideals, the principles, the institutions and the traditions that made the United States what they are, or were.
The actual policies that might result from a Trump presidency may or may not be more harmful than those that would result from a Clinton administration. But if conservatives attach themselves to Trump, they will have done critical damage to their ability to advocate for a return to the constitutional principles that are the only way to make America great again.
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