MAKING OUR WAY TO "HELL NO!"

Avoiding the insidious temptations to cave

The news at this point is everywhere, and anyone who doesn’t see it is simply choosing not to. The roots of authoritarianism, previously underground, are sprouting their evil tree in branches all around us - from the destruction of federal agencies; to the imposition of restrictions on universities and law firms so as not to in any way threaten officialdom; to demanding that museums and other cultural institutions revise history to meet white supremacist narratives; to economic recklessness that will wreak havoc on the majority of Americans while sure to serve well the corrupt in-group now in charge; to bullying Canada and Denmark and anyone else who gets in the way of their imperialistic designs; to outright threats to the Constitution, unabashed and brazen, on everything from birthright citizenship to limiting Presidential terms to two - and more - the Trump juggernaut is staging a totalitarian coup in front of our eyes. Its goal - no longer such that anyone can honestly say, “Don’t be silly, he doesn’t actually mean those things!” - is the ultimate suspension of free elections and the nullification of the U.S. Constitution.

When I was growing up, my dad used to go on and on at the dinner table about Hannah Arendt. On one hand, I appreciated my father’s articulation of history and historical figures, but never in my wildest dreams did I think she would be so relevant in my lifetime. Arendt’s description of the creeping plague of Nazism in Germany in the 1930’s is chilling … particularly if you live in America in 2025.

When Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander during World War 2, first entered Ohrdruf concentration camp in Germany at the end of the war, he was deeply shaken by signs of unimaginable brutality he saw there. "Conditions of indescribable horror prevail," he wrote. "I have visited one of these myself and I assure you that whatever has been printed on them to date has been an understatement." Touring the camp, Eisenhower commanded his staff to photograph the horrors. “Start taking pictures,” he told them, “because someday some sons of bitches are going to come along and say this never happened!”

It did happen, and the fact that it did is more than historical fact. It’s more than a warning. It’s an urgent message to look around.

Our democracy isn’t dying in darkness but in broad daylight. The information is readily available, as content creators patriotically inform us and elucidate our current situation. We all know it’s happening. Our main challenge now is characterological: to not give in to complacency, to not normalize unacceptable behavior, to not just hope that somebody else will fix it, and to not obey in advance.

There is a season for everything, and this is a season for moral outrage. From the ill being denied needed medicine, to the hungry denied food they need in order to survive, evil is as evil does. Here in the United States, people are literally being hunted down, in their homes and on the streets, given no due process and sent to wherever. The most unfortunate among them so far are Venezuelans, as way more people than “violent criminals” have been tossed into El Salvadoran prisons as part of the administration’s mass deportation raids. Border Czar Tom Homan admits to “collateral arrests.” Simply being a Latino with a tattoo is enough to put a man at risk.

Today, it’s Venezuelans with tattoos. Tomorrow it could be anyone.

Attending a dinner party recently, I was surprised that anyone was talking about anything else. As though bringing it up would be impolite or something. It wasn’t that I thought anyone at the table doesn’t care, because I know they all do. But I’ve seen among people a strange unwillingness to let out the scream so many of us are feeling, as though holding it in will make the situation less awful. But it doesn’t, actually. It’s time to act on that scream, not simply hope that someone else will.

Whether it’s attending one the of the many protests happening around the country on April 5; calling your Congresspeople and attending Congressional Town Halls; or participating with any of the myriad organizations working to resist the neo-fascist onslaught that’s slamming down on the rooftops of our democracy, what’s important is for each of us to do whatever we can. To keep talking and not shut up. To keep posting. To keep protesting. To keep praying for the world. To make ourselves radically available to the work at hand…doing whatever is put in front of us that’s a way we might help.

One thing does give me hope when I read Hannah Arendt. Are what Trump and his minions doing waaaay too similar to what some terrible people have done before? Yes. But will Americans succumb as easily, give in as quickly, or betray their country as spinelessly as have some others in the world when faced with what confronts us now? That remains to be seen. American history so far is one of an ultimate “Hell No!” in the face of tyranny. We’ve done it many times before, and I pray we’ll find it within ourselves to say “Hell No!” again.

I know we’ve got it in us, and one thing is sure. If we don’t act on the screams we’re now holding inside, there will be screams in the future impossible to hold in.