Now, nine years later, here we are: A man who does not represent or respect the norms of our society is leading it. A man who intended to pull down our government was administered the oath to defend and protect it. The discordance is so harsh and blaring, it is impossible to absorb without blanching.
We whisper, “How much damage will be done? How long, if ever, to repair it?” Why are we whispering? Perhaps, he should have been ostracized rather than followed, ignored rather than attended to, incarcerated rather than elected.
That might have worked, but it is not what we did. So now the problem is not only Trump—it is also us. Now we have accepted Trumpian norms and values. He has changed us. We have not, in any way, changed him. He was immune to us; we were susceptible to him.
Even as we know that, as we feel it in our bones, still, the temptation is to turn away or capitulate, to deny or to divert by asking, “Why did this happen?” However we got here, the better question is how the heck do we get out of here? Nonetheless we are humans—not always rational or effective but always curious, so let’s explain it this way. A minister of a church in Chicago, a man I did not know and whose name I cannot remember, made an indelible impression when he said this: “Many of us dedicate their lives to bringing out the best in human beings. Donald Trump is intent upon bringing out the worst.”
I knew that minister had said the truest thing in the simplest way that anyone would ever say to describe Trump. I knew it when, during a speech in Long Island, N.Y., in 2017, then-President Donald Trump suggested that police officers should be less cautious about protecting suspects’ heads when putting them in police vehicles. He was talking about the common police practice of placing a hand over a suspect’s head to prevent it from hitting the car door frame. Trump stated that he told officers, “Please don’t be too nice,” and that they could “take the hand away”—like the devil on one shoulder in the kid’s cartoon, “take the hand away.”
So that’s it, simple: He meant to bring out the worst in us, and he succeeded. Here we are more unpleasant, more selfish, more materialistic, less spiritual and imaginative, less empathetic, and less generous. The result? We are unable to work together, problem solve, or think straight. We are frightened, depressed, and are fast forgetting who we were and who we should be. We have been put through the wringer, and we need a fresh start or the direction in which we are going will lead to a destination we deny is possible in the United States of America.
52 Days
January 30, 1933: Nazi Party leader Adolph Hitler is named Chancellor.
February 27: The Parliament building burns and Hitler claims it is part of a communist assault.
February 28: The Chancellor is granted emergency powers.
March 5: Last elections in Nazi Germany.
March 22: Outside the town of Dachau, the first concentration camp is opened to incarcerate political opponents of the regime.
March 23: Parliament passes the enabling acts that allow Hitler, as Chancellor, to initiate and sign legislation into law without obtaining parliamentary consent. The act effectively establishes a dictatorship in Germany.
132 days
January 20, 2025: Trump is administered the oath of office and begins his second term.
January 20, 2025: Trump uses his pardon power to free 1,500 violent offenders who have demonstrated their willingness to act violently in defense of Trump’s interests.
March 15, 2025: Trump first uses the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798 to justify taking people off the streets, incarcerating them without due process and whisking them away to prisons in foreign countries. The courts stand against him; the legislature does not.
June 8, 2025: Trumps calls up the Marines to stand ready to march onto the street of the United States of America authorized by the Alien and Seditions Act. He need only redefine a demonstration as an insurrection and the streets of America will be in military hands, and then our options as citizens are critically curtailed.
This nation needs to change beliefs and behaviors before everything that is good is gone and all those things that harm people are well established. We need to know how to change. Not one citizen of any political stripe can look away or stand aside.
There will always be those willing to put on a mask, grab a gun, and bully somebody, but from schoolyard to Main Street, they will always be a minority. As long as the majority remembers right from wrong, as long as the majority is willing to fight for the right, they will lose. They never leave, but they recede, but a long as the majority is willing to listen to the ones who want to bring out the best in us, we will be able to continue to desist.
Fifty-two days in Germany and it was over. As you read this, it is 132 days in America, and we are still fighting.
