I'd disagree with your characterization that it is empty rhetoric.
In fact, it is actually using the word and meaning correctly within a rational context.
Most people today are not properly taught to correctly recognize evil.
Often as a result of this, they become evil themselves when they falsely justify evil acts which are unjustifiable.
There really isn't much ideology, or hyperbole to this. From a non-ideological perspective, Evil is any act that does not promote the long-term beneficial growth of self or others. This includes destructive acts regardless of intention or knowledge. The more destructive the act against long term growth, the more 'evil' it is.
Evil people are people who have blinded themselves through repeated acts of self-violation such as false justification, where they no longer resist doing such acts. The only way to prevent them from continuing is to stop them, and you don't argue with evil because they don't see what they are doing as wrong. They have willfully blinded themselves, and once blinded they can't see again.
This is the generally held rational view of evil. Most people today instead are taught to embrace Tolstoy's pacifism (without knowing it). Live and let live. Turn the other cheek. Its in a lot of places.
The problem with evil, is that it spreads exponentially, and consumes all until nothing is left, it turns those which it consumes, and bends them to that destructive will.
If you follow this Live and let live philosophy, Evil will grow faster than those who seek to survive, for themselves and their children, eventually it overflows and causes catastrophe.
The type of people that embrace chaos and destruction, given sufficient technology or sufficient time will cause extinction, since they turn it on themselves when no one else is left.
Illyin wrote a treatise back in the 1900s which appropriately covered this subject matter.
While there were some aspects in his writings that were not generally agreed upon (or considered correct today), he very much captured the common definition of evil known at that time, which remained consistent up through WW2 into the 60s; before sentimental moralism and nihilism introduced in the indoctrination within the public education system started watering this down for future generations.
It is such an attractive and alluring thought, that one cannot do evil unless they choose to knowingly and actively do evil, where opinions and beliefs cannot be evil (nihilism).
Obviously, to anyone rational, this last line of thought is pure fallacy (by trivial contradiction), but also commonly used as a basis for false justification...
Most people who believe they are good today, often are evil and they simply don't know it. They are products of their 'disadvantaged' environment. Destruction follows them around like bad karma in their interactions, but they are rarely touched by it themselves, they act like parasites promoting and inducing evil in all that they do.
With the advance of society, these people have also found that systems are a very efficacious way to induce people into these acts as well (great acts of evil).
As a system, any act that is contentious, or dubious can be split among several roles with only a select few knowing the actual outcomes in any reliable detail. In isolation the parts you may work on don't appear to be evil.
This can happen to anyone just doing a job, if they don't have full visibility because a business is a system.
To reiterate, to be an evil person, one simply must be willfully blind, and the actions performed must support destructive outcomes.
You can't take elements in isolation and draw a conclusion about the outcome of a undisclosed system. A system is what it does.