To Whom it May Concern:

             

             I’m in shock, disbelief…denial…of the tragic feelings I associated with Kennedy’s and ML  King’s assassinations, 9-11, and now the power grab of Donald Trump. What consequences will the imposition of this character on the world stage have?

              As an instructor, I taught citizenship classes to immigrants in the nationalization process, including my parents, who came legally in 1956.  We learned of the Balance of Powers of the Three Branches Of Our Government, the value of a Constitution and that the majority should rule, within a framework of a republic, not a democracy.  We were expected to be positive that this system would work.  There was a consensus that this government was about as good as we could have, and that there were a Bill of Rights and other amendments that we were told, would predict a more open, multi-cultural society with equal respect and Rights Regardless Of Race, Gender, Ethnicity Or Religious Belief. 

              As a historian and product of WWII, in Europe, I learned of the disasters that a psychotic dictator like Hitler or Mussolini inflicted on the world, and the power that came so easily because of the German depression caused by the punishment the world inflicted on Post WWI Germany, leading  to The NAZI rise.  My German sister-friend, endured the first years of her life in Eastern Germany listening to bombs and scrambling through the trenches to find food.  On the first day of Trump’s campaign she yelled,” Oh God, he reminds me of Hitler”, as she fought off her Post Traumatic Stress.

              The Devil Dragon of Patriotic Isolationistic Nationalism, which has been breathing fire for a while, has finally burned through the common sense of an interdependent mutually sharing species living on the same life raft requiring us to cooperate to save our planet, and not appeal  again to the xenophobic gene to get wealth from war preparation.  My father warned me in my youth, having survived two world wars himself, that the nationalistic gene fires up when there is too much competition for resources or wealth.  Machiavelli had it right: “Divide and conquer!” .  It worked, so in 1938 the smoldering European continent once again found fuel in religion, language, ethnicity and national identity to start another profitable war for the corporate class. Thus the pattern of fascism repeats: Create scapegoats through false accusations and appeal to hate and divisiveness.      

        Postwar, the Marshall Plan was America’s ingenuity to stabilize a war torn continent and create a mutually dependent economy that would lead to the need for uniting under one banner.  A United Nations was founded by America to help diplomacy overcome that warrior testosterone impulse to fight, with all of its divisive and horrific consequences.  Eisenhower, too, warned us not to let corporations and warfare set our agenda.

              Now, we suddenly find ourselves (in the words of David Brooks, a Republican himself) with a ‘narcissistic egotistical 5 year old’ brat who suckered enough of the lower white working middle class to give the 1% plutocrats the opportunity to retreat from the hard won civil rights of our history, and dig back into the “Take care of yourself, we’re not responsible, we don’t need you, stay where you are.” Yet, every step of both industrial and financial progress was made possible by those waves of immigrants from all over the world looking for something like the peace, stability, employment, and necessities their home country no longer afforded them.

              Besides toppling The Statue of Liberty, he also has designated the most contrary staff to manage the very department they despise.  The blatant ignorance of an already educational dysfunctional system, which she will privatize,  and then home schooling and including religious schools back in play in a country of ‘Separation Of Church And State”  Suddenly we’re back to arguing over evolution and science, logic and reasoning, and the cognition necessary to distinguish a world of “alternative facts” from truth.

              Then add suggestions he could get away with shooting someone, insulting patriots like John McCain and the Kahn Family losers, resorting to ‘pussy grabbing’ and shaming the handicapped.   The “system” has either been paid off, or is too cowardly to pursue Trump University, and several rape charges not to mention huge conflicts of interest. 

              Sure, I could definitely support returning key industries to be more accountable to local taxation, and I do believe that a sustainable future will require more and more local adaptations to a rapidly changing planet.  But if that’s going to be accomplished with coal, logging, petroleum and other harmful chemicals then this man is in violation of the one divine command that life requires, Each Specie Should Be Seeking The Most Positive Future To Further Its Own Species, To Find Habitat And Resources.  Now I know most homo sapiens are never satisfied but if there is no leadership willing to educate and act upon ‘facts and truth’, then we have entered another era that will only further the collapse of global civilization and our very planet.

              So, the challenge for those of us who are horrified, and we are the majority of the population, if not the Electoral College “Cowards”, we find ourselves in a world where even speaking up for the rights of others has almost become a crime, and the line between peaceful and violent protests virtually disappears.  The very technology upon which our world is dependent is vulnerable to a loss of our control, yet like 1984, we’re being monitored.  What does that leave?

              We must defend our right to speak our mind, and to defend the fundamental Bill of Rights upon which this nation agreed to unite.  Somehow, our checks and balances must be strengthened so that one administration cannot simply overturn the last 75 years of progress making all humans equal..

              Meanwhile we need to overcome the denial that we have entered a new era in American history, one that 1984 and Brave New World had prophesied:  Propaganda and distractions as a means of brainwashing the populace into apathy and resignation.  At last the sales of “1984” are surging again.

Peter M. Prehn