Dystopia?

At this time, I’m very concerned about the state of our nation. Ever since Trump was elected president, our country has plunged into a downward trajectory.  I don’t even know where to begin:  the unfair tariffs imposed on many countries including our friends;  the cruel, wholesale deportation of immigrants and refugees from countries south of our border who are being sent to detention centers like Alligator Alcatraz;  the placing of National Guard troops in major cities across our country like LA and Washington, D.C.;  the indiscriminate firing of many, long-time civil servants;  the appointment of an incompetent, anti-vaccination Secretary of Health;  the cutbacks in health care programs like Medicaid;  the elimination of funding for media organizations like MPR and TPT;  the detrimental foreign policy that has put our country in a very dangerous position;  the hostility towards our longtime allies and cozying up to dictators and authoritarian rulers like Putin and Nettenyahoo.  Need I say more!

Where we are now reminds me of the situation in the 1930s when fascist regimes were rising up all over the world.  My dad, for example, came of age in 1930s Berlin and lived through the Second World War.  He witnessed first-hand how Germany descended into a nightmare of brutality and destruction.  He saw Jews and other undesirables rounded up and sent to concentration camps.  In fact, one of his close friends, a Catholic priest, survived four years in Dachau after being turned by a parishioner to the Gestapo for preaching a sermon against Hitler’s euthanasia policies. My dad also witnessed the full-scale destruction

of German cities like Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt, and Dresden. 

I seriously wonder if we’re heading in the same direction.  I’m scared that we have lost our way!  While Trump and his MAGA supporters are steering the country towards a course of authoritarian rule, both the Congress and the Democratic Party seem helpless and incapable of putting up an effective resistance.  Many institutions that have preserved our democracy in the past are now being threatened with elimination.

However, I don’t want to leave you with such a negative taste in your mouth, even though every time I turn on the news, I’m confronted with another outrage!  I sincerely hope that there are enough courageous people who will counter the present policies and stand up for their rights.  I want our hard-earned democracy to survive, even thrive to see a new day.