We are not the first to experience a world turned upside dowm.
We are not the first to see our most cherished vales, the lodestars we have followed our entire lives, trampled upon, dismissed, and violated in the most horrendous manner imaginable.
Think back to what many people must have been thinking and feeling in Germany in the 1930’s as the Nazi Party gained in strength and its Leader become Chancellor of Germany (on January 30, 1933) and an absolute dictator following the Reichstag fire (on February 27) and passage by the Reichstag of theEnabling Act(on March 23, 1933).
There were undoubtedly millions of rational people who did not succumb to the Nazi virus which infected growing numbers of tge population as tge Nazi Party became the Nazi state.
Imagine what other thinking Europeans thought as reason was swept aside by the mass emotions manipulated and directed by Adolf Hitler and Josef Goebbels, his propaganda minister.
Undoubtedly many reacted in horror, much as many are reacting to the latest outrages by Amrrica’s 47th president since his inauguration on January 20, 2025.
Undoubtedly many Europeans reacted with outrage over the Nazis’ actions and assumption of dictatorial oowers.
But they reacted too late, a# did the French and the British at and after Munich (September 1938).
Everyone assumed they had more time, much more time.
But then time ran out, much more quickly than anyone had thought possible.
It seems that the majority of people including business leaders and elected representatives have reacted to the fascist challenge of Trump and his Republican supporters with what Timothy Snyder in his primer On Tyranny terms “anticipatory obedience”.
It feels like tge fascists are in power, and tgat for the moment at least they have triumphed.
Acquiescence is the norm.
Aside from a few intellectuals, no one seems to take the warnings of experts on fascism and authoritarian rule seriously.
Instead we face the brilliance of the fascist propagandists who have reduced public discourse to a kind of vaudeville act and what Neil Postman described in Amusing Ourselves to Death