Tom's Musings

The ‘I didn’t know‘ phenomenon is a curious thing. As I matured and became increasingly  curious about my world, especially the larger political issues of the 1960s, two questions that persistently bothered me were: First, how could a sophisticated nation like Germany fall for an obvious clown like Adolf Hitler? Second, how could so many Germans claim ignorance about Nazi atrocities after the regime finally had been smashed?

The answer to the first query is now very apparent to me. Simply look at the cult of Trump movement in the U.S. Here we have a totally despicable and degenerate human being, a pathological narcissist with observable traits that mark him as a sick sociopath. At a minimum, he has a borderline personality disorder that, without his wealth and notoriety, would find him sequestered in a mental institution and not the Oval Office. And yet, he has been twice elected to the highest office in the land and reigns, without observable opposition, over one of our major political parties.

Therein lies one of life’s confounding conundrums. If you are poor and nuts, you might get put away in an institution if deemed crazy and a danger to the public. If you are rich and nuts, you can rise to the highest office in the land. That fact reminds me of George Bernard Shaw’s elegant quip … steal a loaf of bread and go to prison; steal a railroad and go to Parliament. Even if you are a degenerate pedophile, you can become a savior-like figure of adoration to those both gullible and looking for permission from on high to hate the others of their choosing while avoiding much guilt. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.

For example, during Germany’s economic struggles in the midst of a global depression, Hitler gained just enough electoral support to enter mainstream politics. Germany’s economic plutocrats, top military brass, and center-right politicians suddenly saw him as a useful tool, a clown without substance who could be manipulated for their own purposes. Three months after being appointed Chancellor, he had crushed democracy and created the 3rd Reich. They thought they had the tiger by the tail, and the tiger devoured them. Given the right circumstances, the inmates can be put in charge of the asylum. For Herr Hitler, the key was vague promises of glory (Make Germany Great Again) and specific vows against an easy scapegoat (mostly the Jews and Communists).

The second question is more puzzling for me. Remember post-WWII Germans claiming they were unaware of the regimes crimes against humanity based on sheer ignorance. REALLY? What do they think happened to all those Jews, leftists, Gypsies, Slavs, and handicapped people? Some 10 million cannot be exterminated (including 6 million Jews) absent clear evidence of such atrocities. You would have to be willfully blind when so many people began disappearing. People didn’t know because they did not want to know. They did not see because they chose not to see.

In today’s context, we see a growing number of Americans expressing buyers’ remorse for their support of Trump in the last election. As suggested by the meme above, Trump’s support has plummeted (at least temporarily) as Elon Musk ran wild and the Donald’s absurd tariff plans have resulted in the expected equity market chaos. Realty has sunk in for even the most gullible that the wizard behind the curtain promising a new utopia was just another conman. Initially, Musk promised $2 trillion in savings. That goal evaporated over time to $150 billion. But some cuts by DOGE are now seen to cost money (e.g., IRS staff cuts might result in the loss of $500 billion over time). In any case, the Republican controlled Congress is struggling to codify a measly $9 billion in DOGE cuts. The MAGA utopia has become a delusion, if not a nightmare.

The common response by disenchanted supporters runs along these lines: ‘I thought he’d lower the price of eggs.’🙄 Or, I thought he would understand my concerns better than the Democrats.’ Of course, these may be classic obfuscations to hide underlying beliefs that are socially frowned upon. ‘While I’m talking about inflation, I’m really freaked out by the growing diversity in our society.’ Put another way, I’m just your garden variety racist. Therein lies the core truth of political discourse. There is the veneer put on our public positions. Then, there are the primitive passions governing our darkest choices. For MAGA extremists, hate for the other dominates all else, especially rational thought.

Now, my guess is that some 30 to 33 percent of the population are hard core Trumpers. Basically, they don’t care what he does or how he does it as long as he attacks ‘those‘ people that his cult followers hate with a passion … those that look and believe differently. They would have been the good Nazis in 1930’s Germany, and they are the devoted MAGA types in America, 2025. Hate, when primed by unreasoning fear, is a primal motivator. For today’s GOP, they would easily sacrifice our government of laws, an experiment some 250 years in the making, to preserve the illusion of a white, nativist, Christian America … our version of an Aryan Supremacy.

I recall an incident that took place just before the election last fall. (Note: I’m apologizing in advance if I’m repeating myself here.) My good female friend was preparing the sailboat used at her summer lake cabin for winter storage. As we approached the place of business in rural Wisconsin where the work would be done, she told me not to drive on to his property. Why? I asked. She responded as follows: If the owner saw my Harris-Waltz sticker, he would go ballistic. This rural Wisconsin resident, like many of his neighbors, really believed that a Democratic victory would bring Communism to America. As with so many others, he had lost touch with reality. His fears and prejudices drove out any ability to see his own self interests, never mind objective reality.

When my female friend and I would drive through rural Wisconsin to her lake house, virtually all the farms had Republican signs out. Forget the fact that it was Democratic administrations starting with the New Deal of FDR that virtually lifted agricultural from deaths door to make it what it is today. The Dems are now seen as WOKE … catering to urban minorities and educated elites while looking down on hard working Americans.

It matters not what reality is. It matters not that Democratic administrations have a superb economic record in recent decades … more job and wage growth, fewer economic downturns, lower poverty rates, and so forth. Reality across the American landscape is shaped by the propoganda spewed forth by right-wing and increasingly by mainstream outlets. As a result, we have a new Orwellian dystopia… black is white, up is down, and the GOP are the defenders of workers and farmers. Wow! As Joseph Goebbels popularized in the 1930s, lies told often enough become accepted truth.

We have all heard the rationalization about why rural and working class citizens vote against their self-interests. They feel threatened by the pace of change. They see an uncertain future for themselves and their offspring. They are struck by primitive fears about changing demographics where their tribe (e.g., white, Christian, nativists) lose their dominant place in society. When fear displaces reason, rational thought tends to evaporate. We see working class and rural families rushing to conservative, MAGA candidates as saviors for their way of life. The absurdity of this reaction is beyond calculation. You might decide that Democrats don’t talk your language, but why in the world would you rush to a party which consistently has favored the interests of the top 1 percent, really the top one-tenth of 1 percent over your legitimate concerns. Why not just shoot yourself in the head if you want to commit suicide. It would be quicker. One answer … the right is far better at telling people what and who they should fear and, of course, at offering themselves as saviors.

Again, we now see responses from those same demographics claiming they are surprised at how Trump and his minions are governing. They are shocked that they may pay a price merely to enable a further redistribution of more income and wealth from the bottom 90 percent of the population to the top of the pyramid. Again, this is no secret. It is calculated that some $50 trillion dollars has been redistributed from real people (the bottom 90 percent) to the elite (top 1 percent) since the Reagan revolution in 1981. The proposed GOP tax bill would further this redistributive imbalance while adding some $5.8 trillion to the federal deficit over the next several years. The GOP has been the masters of duplicity and misdirection. They use emotional questions (transgender issues that impact a tiny few people) to mask massive thefts from huge portions of the American Public.

In truth, the public never should have been surprised by what is going on today. Virtually all of my acquaintances and colleagues could see what was coming with total clarity. It was no secret at all to us. It was laid out in the Project 2025 plan in great detail. Beyond that, all the tell-all books from Trump’s first administration focused on how much time and effort it took by the common-sense people in the WH to keep Donald from destroying the country. His proclivities and instincts were totally at odds with good government and the well-being of the public good. But, that first time around, he was sufficiently unsure of himself to keep some mainstream officials in his orbit. That saved us.

It was also clear that Donald would be much worse this time around. This time around he would NOT surround himself, as he did in 2016, with enough real experts to keep his worst instincts at bay. Trump never forgave those who kept him from joining the mob attacking the Capitol on January 20 when the election results were being certified. This time, he has surrounded himself with sycophants and toadies. His cabinet meetings resemble obsequious displays of adoration of the supreme leader. He will spend perhaps $100 million on a military birthday parade for himself while trying to kill needed spending in health care to keep people alive.

No one should be shocked by this. NO ONE! It was clear to me and to everyone I know. It was clear to U.S. Grant almost a century ago. If anyone did not see this disaster coming, they chose not to look, not to see. Like the good Germans in 1945, they will pretend to be shocked. Like those Germans pretending ignorance, they will pretend innocence.

Our political landscape is a disaster. We have a mentally and morally challenged executive who, enabled by a spineless majority party, is a walking disaster. Trump is tearing apart almost 250 years of the American experiment … democratic governance under the rule of law. He is attacking historic allies while courting the worst authoritarian rulers around the globe. His economic policies demonstrate an astounding combination of avarice coupled with unimaginable ignorance. He has peppered the Civil Service and his cabinet with incompetent toadies whose only redeeming quality is obsequious loyalty to himself. He has purged the Pentagon and other federal agencies of competent leadership on grounds that only make sense in his warped mind. He uses the Office of the President to push products for personal gain and to seek revenge on an ever expanding list of enemies. He has permitted an unelected outsider to dismantle federal institutions and eviscerate the civil service without any real thought to longer-term consequences. He is systemically attacking science and the (to date) best higher education system in the world. He has attempted to bully key institutions and individuals into total compliance, wesponizing the nation’s law enforcement organizations for this nefarious purpose. He has advanced a key principle inherent in all totalitarian regimes … attacking a defenseless scapegoat group to stir up negative and irrational passions. He has waged unceasing war on the poor and the vulnerable while seeking to further enrich the top tenth of one percent of the income and wealth pyramid. In the latest GOP budget bill, that elite group would see another $180,000 in federal benefits while the bottom 40 percent of all Americans would come out losers.

It is hard to imagine a more horrific scenario than the one we are in. It is like living in a Steven King novel of unending terror with a plot that suggests no easy escape from the enveloping pain. The resulting hopelessness arises, in part at least, from the knowledge that we have done this to ourselves. No one invaded us. No one imposed tyranny from without. This was evil willingly and knowingly embraced by Americans themselves. They did so eagerly, with some apparently believing that Trump has been divinely sent to save us. And therein lies the ultimate horror. Even though our wannabe dictator is experiencing short-term declines in favorability polls, I have no faith that the electorate will not be fooled again. Or worse, perhaps this is what they ultimately want from our government.

However, I do have a source of comfort amidst all the pain. Virtually everyone in my circle of friends and associates (with at least one obvious exception) shares my views and concerns. Every conversation I have quickly descends into a corrosive discussion of the dire state of our public affairs. The highly educated members in my collegial orbit are stunned and depressed by what they see. We all express disbelief that our fellow citizens, who often appear normal on furst glance, apparently suffer from a debilitating form of cognitive decline. How tragic. How depressing.

While discussions with like-minded associates afford some relief, they often result in further agitation. We tend to feed into each other’s senses of despair and anger. Not good! Not good at all!!! Fortunately, there is a more soothing form of relief. Oddly enough, it comes from an unexpected place … a place one might not suspect. It comes from out there. Not just out there, but in places where our poor capacities for apprehension typically fail us. I am soothed by the incredible majesty of our magnificent cosmos.

When I look at the night sky above, all I can see are a few scattered stars. There’s just too much light pollution. Perhaps, if I get out into the country I can catch a bit of the Milky Way Galaxy … which is our celestial neighborhood. But that’s little more than looking at the ground around me. I can still recall seeing a canopy stars when I spent two years in rural India. That was the one time in my life when I fully appreciated the visible heavens above. Still, even that was a mere taste of what exists out there.

In truth, there is no way to fully embrace what is out there directly. That is beyond our meager powers. No, we have become creatures of technology. Thousands of years ago, our ancestors started with the simplest tools … clubs and flint sharpened with rocks into tools for both conflict and domestic use. Now, we send incredibly sophisticated machines with highly calibrated, digitally controlled telescopes to penetrate the edges of the known universe and the origins of time. These are toys of incredible sophistication and possibility.

The pictures that have been sent back by our amazing new technologies have reimagined our universe in ways no one would have conceived a mere century ago. Then, the limits of the cosmos were contained within our own galaxy. Soon, however, as we could peer deeper into space and farther back into time, unimaginable worlds and spectacles opened up to us. There were black holes and giant stars and novas and super novas and billows of interstellar gases whose dimensions defy understanding. But mostly, the known universe kept expanding and expanding as we looked in wonder at someone’s (or something’s) creative masterpiece.

How does this affect me? Well, today we have identified somewhere between two and three trillion galaxies out there. Each of these has billions or trillions of stars. Who knows how many earths or earth-like planets are out there. Who knows how many life forms exist in this vast cosmos or even how close we have come to calculating its boundaries. Perhaps we have only touched upon a corner of what exists. And then, of course, there are those theories, articulated by the advanced mathematics of brains far superior to mine, that postulate many parallel universes. Perhaps what we can see, or measure, is merely one of a multitude of possibilities that defy our meager intellects.

How might we think about all this? I can not speak to what others think or how they might react. For me, the awareness of these otherworldly dimensions of time and space is extraordinarily humbling. We are nothing in this vast tapestry of cosmic wonders. We are one planet orbiting a very ordinary sun that is situated in a remote spiral arm of one galaxy among billions and billions of such. Homo-sapiens, our species, has been around for maybe 100,000 years. Seems like a long time, but that’s a blink of an eye over the 14.5 billion years since the initial big bang (or is it the latest big bang). Of those 100,000 years, settled humans have existed for 10 percent of that period; urban societies perhaps 5 percent; our industrial world perhaps two-tenths of one percent; our modern, technological society has been around for a mere nanosecond in the history of the species and much less in the history of life and even less in the duration of the cosmos as we know it.

I am totally humbled as I think on such things.

Is there any meaning in contemplating our magnificent and mysterious cosmos? If so, perhaps it lies in the miracle of consciousness. Think about this. I once had a friendly debate with a scholar who also happens to be my neighbor. He argued that the probability that life formed anywhere was the product of an almost infinite number of serendipitous and highly unlikely events. He thought we were probably the only advanced life form around. I countered that with so many galaxies, stars, and planets out there, the prospect of multiple life forms is more than reasonable. There are countless potential petri dishes out there for endless experimentation.

Even if we are the only game in town (or the cosmos), we have no idea where evolution can take us. Look how far we have progressed since the emergence of deductive scientific methods and the industrial revolution. And just consider how fast the pace of evolution and change is occurring. Can we even imagine the possibilities when human creativity is merged with advanced technologies. It could be mind-bending. Then again, it might also be Armageddon.

Is there a bottom line? For me, contemplating the cosmos and the broad sweep of evolution leaves me with a sense of wonder. It helps me put our petty problems into perspective. Small minds like Trump and the MAGA minions cannot see the bigger picture. Their lives are circumscribed by petty goals and limited ambitions. They seek power and money as if such things mean much in the broader scheme of things. I feel bad for them.

If there is a divine presence out there, the cosmos being unfolded before us is His or Her masterpiece, an ultimate work of art. And if the struggling species of homo-sapiens manages to survive, perhaps our primitive consciousness might evolve into some higher form that we can not possibly envision. At some point, perhaps we can shift our sights from irrelevant earthly issues and petty political squabbles to the bigger questions out there.

There is so much more to understand. And it is so much fun speculating about the possibilities.

I started this message Easter morning, then got distracted by other things … a rather typical occurrence. While it has been many decades since I’ve believed in the Easter bunny or that the Son of God miraculously rose from the dead, this celebration yet strikes me as a good moment to reflect on more elevated matters. What counts in life? What matters? Where is meaning found? Whether or not we are judged by some divine arbiter at the end of our days, how will we judge ourselves in the final analysis?

I came of age in an era when college age youth routinely asserted that developing a coherent personal philosophy was the most critical challenge they faced. (Today, a similar cohort of young people stress a need to make a lot of money).

Personally, I believe we were fortunate. My parents were grounded in the harsh realities of the great depression. Economic survival was critical to them. While I was raised in near poverty, what I saw about me was confidence and hope in the future. For some reason, making the world a better place was more important than merely making money. Perhaps we were fortunate to come of age during what economists called the great compression … that three decade period after WWII when income and wealth inequality narrowed and the vaunted American middle class expanded. This occurred despite top income tax rates of 90 percent. Even we poor kids saw opportunity before us. That might partially explain why the youth of the 60s responded to President Kennedy’s call to do something for your country with such intense fervor.

That inherent sense of possibility, perhaps better thought of as optimism, was reflected in how I approached my higher education. To me, getting a degree had little to do with a future career. It had everything to do learning more about the world. I studied what interested me in school, which largely focused on how our political and social world worked. I explored such macro-issues such as peace, justice, and fairness as opposed to mastering technical skills in order to make money. I examined issues, including our own history, both critically and with an objective eye. Finally, I focused on that central challenge that captured the attention of so many of my peers … formulating a core moral center upon which to ground a personal philosophy. Many of us struggled to understand our world rather than merely accept what we were told.

Those interests, that perspective, was far different from what I saw in my university students several decades later. They were hyper-anxious about the future, the debt they had accumulated, the uncertainties that clouded their confidence. They seemed dominated by a sense of angst … a feeling that the future was full of peril. Too many were hemmed in by an inchoate sense of dread that I felt limited their vision and freedom. It certainly added to their overall feelings of anxiety.

I came of age in the 1950s and 1960s, graduating from high school in 1962. In some ways, those few years were an inflection point in U.S. history. At the beginning of the 60s, most of us kids were quiet and submissive. True, the Port Huron statement had been penned by future radical Tom Hayden. It was a call for a questioning of society by the young, a call that led to the creation of Students for A Democratic Society (SDS). Moreover, the first Southern lunch counter sit-ins to oppose American apartheid were reigniting the civil rights movements that Rosa Parks had sparked a few years earlier. Still, it would take some time, including Kennedy’s assassination and the making of the conflict in Vietnam America’s war, for these early rumblings to emerge into outright rage and then revolution.

By the time I had finished college and took off for India as a Peace Corps Volunteer, the quiescent 50s seemed like a distant dream. I had gone from a good working-class boy who entered a Catholic seminary to become a missionary priest to being the leader of the leftist anti-war movement in college … Clark University in my hometown town of Worcester Mass. But that transformation was not casual or easily accomplished. It was the result of endless dialogue, study, and debate among my peers. It was the result of a deep process of self- examination and personal questioning. Moreover, it could be painful since it involves first questioning and sometimes rejecting long-held truths and ingrained ethical precepts.

On the morality and wisdom of Vietnam, perhaps the seminal issue of my young world, there was an identifiable and specific turning point in my personal views. I remember it this way. I had been selected as one of several top students to do summer research with a National Science Foundation grant. Another one of those selected (who would go on to get his doctorate at Harvard) and I spent one whole day discussing the war rather than working on our projects. I remember trying my best to cling to my childhood script that we Americans were in the right, that the domino theory was real, and that our efforts were entirely defensible. After all, just a couple of years or so earlier, I had contemplated leaving the seminary and joining the military during the height of the Cuban Missile crisis. The correctness and righteousness of America was the myth in which I had been raised. It was deeply embedded within my psyche … a belief system that was extremely difficult to question and harder to repudiate. Discarding it was like excising part of my being.

I did not admit it in the moment, but I knew that the other student had bested me that day. The doubts that had been creeping into my worldview soon overwhelmed me … replacing my naive beliefs with a new and more questioning framework. That transition was assisted by many endless debates about policy issues and ethical dilemmas that often went deep into the night. Perhaps I should have studied more but, in hindsight, this seemingly endless dialogue proved to be my real education. This is where I sharpened my analytical and debating skills on which my later career rested.

Why was this transition all so important? That is, why was this period of self-examination and change so critical to whom I became. I will answer that query with a story about what I saw coming back from India in 1969. Upon my return, I was in a masters program in Wisconsin. The anti-war fever still raged. However, when I attended my first protest since returning to campus, there was something off. It was as if the students were largely repeating slogans they had been programmed to utter. I had no evidence that they were not sincere. But I felt somehow that they had not earned the right to resist. It was not clear to me that they knew why they were protesting. It seemed more like they were doing the in thing rather than the right thing. Silly, perhaps, but that is how I felt. Protest ought not to be mere parroting of socially acceptable scripts. It should emanate from one’s core set of beliefs.

Perhaps it does not matter how and why one arrives at their personal moral position. Perhaps the actuality of opposition, of taking a stand, is all that counts. In the end, though, I can’t accept that. How we arrive at our moral positions does matter. Beliefs arrived at without effort, absent some pain, appear somewhat shallow to me.

I often considered my reactions during those turbulent years of my youth over the succeeding decades. In truth, those of us who rose up in protest were always a minority. Despite our rosy recollections of that era, most kids ignored all the righteous uprisings that erupted on campuses and in the streets. Most of my peers saw the protests, the tear gas, the shutting down of campuses as mere inconveniences. Why did only some of us take it so seriously when most went on with their lives without much, if any, reflection?

To this day, I can not answer that simple question fully. There are, however, hints in my distant memory. As I’ve written about before, my early years were spent in the suffocating confines of rigid Catholicism, ethnic tribalism, and working class orthodoxy. Prejudices and this feeling of superiority surrounded me in childhood. The WASPS were our social and political enemies. Anyone of a different color or religion or cultural background was deemed inferior. Even those in my environment who differed slightly were suspicious.

There were five Catholic churches nearby. Two catered to the Irish; one to the Polish; one to the Lithuanians; and one to the French living in the general area. People would walk past the nearest Catholic church to get to their Catholic church. In short, I lived in a Balkanized and divided world. Imaginary hierarchies and artificial divisions were everywhere.

The first question you might be asked on meeting someone new was what are you? I would say half Irish and half Polish … a child of a mixed marriage in this strange world. Then, the questioner would know where to situate me in the mosaic of religion, ethnicity, race, and class. Of course, there was that moment when, as a toddler, I was confused by the question and said I’m English … because that’s the language I spoke. My father immediately gave me the lecture on why we Irish hated the English. I never made that error again.

As I grew up in this rigid society, and despite my dad’s diatribe on our hatred of the Limeys, I started to think differently about things early on. I rebelled against the stereotypes prevalent in my world. I rejected the ethnic prejudices and casual racism so easily embraced by those around me. I surely dismissed what I saw as religious arrogance that assigned non-believers in the Catholic faith to limbo or purgatory or even Hell. That was a non-starter for me. Early on, I even questioned why we were divided into all these distinct countries. Were we not all residents on this one fragile globe? From afar, in space, there were no visible dividing lines. Why all the fighting? It made no sense to my young mind. And why, when we had such surplus crops, we’re we not feeding a suffering world. That made even less sense to me. Sharing with those in need is what my image of Christ would have demanded.

I can recall so many moments in my youth when I felt things (or expressed ideas and opinions) that were at odds with my environment. It was only later, with years of experience and perspective, that these anomalies struck me as odd. Why, for example, did I argue in defense of the Brown vs. the Board of Education Supreme Court decision as a preteen? No one I knew felt that way. Where did these strange notions come from. Few, if any, in my young world had such beliefs, at least not that I recall. It strikes me that the seeds of my future rebellion had been planted early on. They resided within me from the start.

Of course, one can not discount nurture or our environmental inputs. In that regard, one vignette that I’ve shared before involves an article that I read many, many years ago. Obviously, it struck a deep nerve in me since I keep retelling it. A justice of the New York Supreme Court recalled his college years growing up in the 1930s. As with many of his peers, he dabbled in leftist politics during the horrendous economic sufferings associated with the great depression. He even flirted with Communism for a while. That youthful experiment didn’t last long. Still, he considered himself lucky to have come of age when he did. The challenges of that decade forced him to question everything about him. In desperation, he had to formulate his own personal worldview … not merely embrace something off the shelf. He had to forge a moral code unique to him. That personal journey made him a stronger adult. I felt the same about my trail by fire during the 60s.

There it was. I am a product of nature and nurture. There always was something inside pushing me to see beyond artificial barriers. In part, it probably was some inherent accident of biology, some structuring of my brain, that drove me inexorably beyond the strictures and limitations of tribal codes. It was a byproduct of the intense exloration that I, with the help of close college peers, experienced as we tried to make sense of our changing world. Is there a label for that byproduct, that personal attribute? Well, we might call it empathy.

Like the New York Justice, I came of age in a tumultuous decade and feel so very lucky that I did. It was not economic necessity that drove me (us) but the inexorable winds of change. The old codes were challenged, sometimes radically. Racial injustice, gay rights, Native American exploitation, women’s emancipation, and environmental degradation all became subject to intense scrutiny and change. And there was the elephant in the room, an ill-advised war half a world away that sapped our sense of moral superiority.

At the end of the day, one either dug in and ignored those winds of change or confronted what was going on about them. Today, over five decades later, we are in another turbulent era. Everyone must either bury their heads in the sand or confront the moral and ethical challenges about them. Will each of us retreat into our tribal shells (i.e., Make America Great Again) or will we think and act with sensitivity, understanding, and empathy.

And there it is. In the end, all the self-examination and moral questioning come down to simple choices. Do we only consider our own needs? Or, conversely, do we see each of us as connected to a complex matrix we call mankind? Do we only think about today, or can we look into the indefinite future? Do we have that basic attribute essential to our longer-term survival … empathy.

I remember a moment in college when I was probably attempting to seduce a young lady. The effort, like most of them, probably failed. Nor can I recall her identity. However, I recalled one moment in that conversation. I said something like the following: “Life is hard. We are born and then, after many years, we pass. The best we can do during those intervening years is not cause much harm to others. If fortunate, we might even pass along a few smiles to those we touch on our journey.”

My guess is that the words are approximated. The meaning, though, is rather exact. All these years later, oddly enough, I could not improve upon them. They still capture whom I wanted to be.

I grew up in an era when we paid attention to the so-called Doomsday Clock. This virtual timepiece purportedly represented how close the world was to nuclear annihilation … an apocalypse in which innocent victims like myself would be incinerated in a flash of atomic insanity. The timepiece was managed by a group of concerned scientists who monitored world events to determine how near to global Armageddon we were at that moment. It struck us as real back in the day. After all, who among us ancient farts can yet recall the school exercises where we scrambled under our desks … not to escape mad gunmen with AR-15s but rather to futily protect our fannies from Soviet ballistic missiles.

That persistent dread receded with time. Though miscalculation remained a threat, it increasingly became clear that rational minds, or perhaps the reality of mutual annihilation, would restrain the worst impulses of global leaders. The collapse of the Soviet Union around 1990 seemed to end the presumed utility, or at least relevance, of the Doomsday Clock. The minute hand had always hovered near midnight, the moment of truth, but thankfully never touched it. With the Soviet walls crumbling, that eschatological threat now seemed quite remote.

Perhaps, however, we were premature in our optimism. After all, nuclear annihilation has never been the only substantial threat to what we considered the freedoms of Western Democratic traditions. While the ominous shadow of Communist totalitarianism seemed to recede with the collapse of Moscow’s empire, another threat, once considered ended in the aftermath of a Second World War, emerged to replace the tyranny of the left. Right-wing authoritarianism had seemed relegated to the ash heap of history given that 60 million or so had perished to destroy it once and for all. Unfortunately, neither wars nor wishful thinking bury pernicious ideas deeply enough. Like a bad horror movie, they have a way of coming back to life.

Ironically, this new authoritarian threat from the hard-right does not reside outside our borders. It will not be imposed upon us by some nefarious foreign power. Its seeds were nourished within the frailties of America’s own birth and evolution. Slavery was tacitly supported within our foundational documents … including the Constitution. That signaled a malignancy within the DNA of what purportedly was an exciting experiment (at the time) … what might be termed a democratic republic. This was to be a government of law for the people, by the people, and of the people. Alas, with a wink by our founding fathers, the concept of ‘people,’ it turned out, meant only some of the people.

In his Gettysburg address, Lincoln dated the birth of the American experiment to the Declaration of Independence, not the enactment of the Constitution. Using that date, it took about 190 years to fulfill the promises embedded in the so-called American experiment, that all men are created equal. The civil rights bills of the mid-1960s represented a high water mark in the long, tortuous, and nonlinear path toward social justice and full civic participation by all. Since then, the pushback has been relentless and growing. Today, the unfulfilled American promise totters on the brink of extinction.

The reelection of Donald Trump, especially the full-on charge to enact the provisions of Project 2025, constitutes the most serious threat to our Republic’s integrity in my lifetime, perhaps in our history. (Project 2025, lest you have forgotten, is a detailed plan to replace our democracy with an authoritarian alternative.) As I’ve said before, no external threat in my lifetime realistically seemed likely to replace our democracy with a totalitarian regime (no matter what the John Birch Society claimed). That is not to say that outside forces might well have unleashed horrific military harm and destruction in the attempt to do so. They simply were unlikely to succeed, as reflected in the ‘domino theory’ employed by war hawks to justify our national embarrassment in Vietnam.

No, the only legitimate threat to our democracy is found internally, in that DNA flaw that has been with us throughout our history. It is located in the pernicious belief of a racial and ethnic hierarchy in which some people are deemed superior based on accidental attributes … for example, skin color and ancestral origins. It is that very premise that first rationalized slavery, the rejection of Irish famine immigrants, Oriental exclusion policies, the near genocide of Native Americans, and the building of walls at our southern border. It is the premise that led to the southern ante-bellum mudsill theory where some people are destined and ordained to lead and others to labor quietly in subservient subjugation. It is a perspective that facilitates and sustains the creation of the KKK, neo-nazis skinheads, and a host of other hate groups throughout the country. It is a world view that prepares us for an ordained hierarchy where a plutocracy (an elite aristocracy) rules without limits and with few or no constraints. It is a governing philosophy where the people evolve into bleating sheep, having sacrificed freedom and responsibility for the illusion of security touched with more than a hint of tribal superiority.

And therein lies the fertile ground in which American Fascism has thrived. There lies the fascination of so many Americans with the cult like adoration of a man without any redeeming qualities … Donald Trump. He offers a promise that almost half of the country finds seductive…the promise of permanent group superiority … namely in their insular tribe of native-born, white Christians. That utopia is guaranteed, though, only if one provides the cult leader with unyielding loyalty and unstinting devotion. It is, in the end, a patently false promise driven by fear and irrational hate, our two most deeply embedded tribal emotions.

The plan for this new utopia has been laid out for us in Project 2025, a document developed by right-wing think tanks in preparation for Donald’s 2nd administration. Each day, since inauguration, we see giant steps toward its full execution. In reality, the foundations for this final push toward revolution have been long in the making. Slowly, over several decades, control over the courts, the media, local political apparati, some educational organizations, and other key institutions has been carried out with laser focus and incremental precision. Now, with control of Congress and the White House in hand, the final push for a unitary executive has arrived. All power is to reside in the hands of the sitting president.

But is the minute hand of our contemporary Doomsday Clock really about to strike midnight? Are we on the precipice of a full-blown authoritarian regime … a dictatorship on steroids. While that seems like a hyperbolic claim, is this fear justified in reality? Perhaps, in actual fact, we are only facing a clownish Bavarian beer hall putsch in which Hitler failed to secure even local control. Or, to the contrary, perhaps we are confronting the Fuehrer’s successful assumption of total control with passage of the Enabling Acts after the staged Reichstag fire almost a decade later (1933). I fear we must take this threat seriously. Let us review several ominous signs:

1. The MAGA movement is becoming more brazen in ignoring or repudiated judicial decisions they do not like. Refusing to bring back wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a brazen disregard of a high court decision. Our independent judiciary is on its last legs.

2. Top military brass deemed insuffiently loyal to the MAGA regime continue to be purged. Now, the military may be assigned to the Mexican border to perform domestic duties. This also is an ominous sign. While the military take an oath to defend the Constitution, will they do so when the crunch comes? Or, will they merely follow the illegal whims and dictates of one man?

3. Trump continues to threaten law firms and legal representatives he deems to be disloyal. His threats to an increasing list of firms (and individuals) include being banned from public buildings unless they perform pro-bono work for his causes and fall in line with his wishes. Non-compliance would seriously damage their bottom lines.

4. Trump now routinely threatens media outlets when he finds them too independent. A 60 minutes segment raised his most recent ire. Threats of retaliation are increasing. The days of an independent media may soon be history. All dissenting views are under threat of attack and revenge.

5. Trump threatens more and more individuals whom he has designated as enemies. When the Governor of Pennsylvania’s home was firebombed by a MAGA devotee in an attempt to kill the Governor and his family, Trump remained silent. Some believe this was a tacit endorsement of right-wing terror.

6. Trump is extorting our top universities to fall in line with his right-wing agenda. Billions are at stake for each schoolp. Harvard, which stands to lose more than $2 billion, finally took a brave stand. But will they be alone?

7. Trump and his minions are rewriting history, redesigning official bureaucratic websites and, in other ways, banning all thought not consistent with his regime. This is an updated version of the book burning carried out by the Nazis in the 1930s.

8. Trump met with the President of El Salvador in the White House. He asked that this central American country erect five more prisons to house domestic Americans deemed criminals or perhaps undesirable. Given the erosion of due-process protections, will these not be today’s version of Germany’s initial concentration camps? The first inmates of Nazi camps were not Jews but rather the 95 members of the Reischtag that did not fall in line with the 3rd Reich, along with many other political prisoners.

9. The MAGA crowd is seeking access to social media accounts of students, public servants, and private citizens. The intent is clear. Foreign students deemed disloyal will be arrested and/or deported. Public servants will be fired at the least. Private citizens will be harrassed and, if important enough, may find themselves in an El Salvador prison.

10. The administration has fully enacted the fundamental step essential to any totalitarian regime … defining and vilifying the outgroup (or groups) to generate emotional allegiance to the ruling clique (and leader). For this regime, hordes of the criminal element on our southern border will serve that purpose (much like my desperate Irish ancestors were vilified when they long ago washed ashore in Boston and New York).

The next mass demonstrations against the MAGA movement are scheduled for April 19. The first of these drew some 5.2 million people into the streets across America. How will the notoriously thin-skinned Donald respond to such continued expressions of opposition? Then again, he doesn’t need much provocation.

Like the false flag used by Hitler to justify his invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, any excuse will do. Some imaginary crisis could be employed to invoke the Insurrection Act, constitutional provisions usually only considered in times of war or a legitimate crisis. Under a pretext that exists only in the feverish minds of the MAGA gang, our democracy could be summarily strangled. It is already half dead.

I cannot forget the moment in the campaign when Trump promised his evangelical base that, if they vote for him one more time, they will not have to worry about voting again. Why? He knew, or at least presumed, that we would no longer have a democracy going forward. After all, this was the man who encouraged a full-scale insurrection of our nation’s Capitol, a mob that wanted to hang his own vice president and subvert the peaceful transfer of power established in our Constitution.

Is the minute hand about to strike midnight? I hope not. BUT I CAN NOT COUNT IT OUT 😕! All the signs are there. In the darkness of my soul, I hear the hourly chimes of this virtual clock approaching the midnight hour. It is an ominous sound.

Our political landscape is not a constant … it evolves over time. When the modern GOP was launched in 1854, it was clearly the progressive party of America. This fledgling faction wanted to limit slavery, had deep suspicions about states-rights, and wished to increase federal investments in the national infrastructure. On the other hand, the Democratic Party was centered largely in the south and among some urban immigrant groups. It supported the oligarchic tendencies that underly autocratic rule among slave states. In addition, it was eager to let the Confederacy secede to end hostilities.

Over time, the character of the parties evolved in surprising directions. The Republican Party emerged as supporters of big business by the time of the gilded age. Dems, on the other hand, became the defenders of Western and rural ‘white’ progressive interests even as they yet defended racial apartheid. It wasn’t until the New Deal of FDR that minorities started flocking to the Democratic Party, a shift partly attributed to Eleanor’s (FDR’s spouse) support for Black causes. Then, with Lyndon Johnson’s passage of the 1960s Civil Rights bills, a full partisan political realignment ensued. The Dems emerged as progressive stalwarts while the GOP started their long drift to the extreme right.

Demographic allegiances also shifted significantly since the 1960s. When John Kennedy won the White House in 1960, his extremely narrow victory (by little more than 100,000 votes) was largely powered by support from average working class Americans, including many living in rural areas. The working class went for the junior senator from Massachusetts by a massive 2 to 1 margin. White, college educated voters preferred Richard Nixon by a similar majority.

Fast forward six decades, and everything is reversed. In 2020, Joe Biden won with the support of college educated voters while Trump claimed the loyalty of the working classes and rural interests by margins similar to those found six decades earlier, except in the opposite directions.

In my youth, farmers had been thankful to the Dems for bailing them out of the depths of the depression, for stabilizing farm prices, and for investing in rural development. Those memories diminished as the optics associated with the Dems brand went negative. Somehow, the party was now deemed both elitist and catering to the needs of various urban minority interests. As I would drive through bucolic Wisconsin farmlands in recent years, all I would see are signs for Republican candidates. (One small exception … the city of Ripon Wisconsin, where the Republican Party was first formed to fight the extension of slavery, surprisingly went for the liberal candidate by a small margin in a recent statewide supreme court race of national import).

Therein lies one of the great mysteries to us residents of the elite, urban bubble. How could struggling working class voters (or those living in hard-pressed rural communities) favor what has become a hard-right reactionary political cabal … the MAGA dominated Republican Party. If there has been any consistent theme within the GOP since the Reagan revolution, it is that the new party of Lincoln cares only about one interest group … the uber wealthy. Every social and economic policy challenge leads to the same solution, more tax cuts favoring the rich. As the saying goes, every problem looks like a nail if your only tool is a hammer.

Let us examine the plans of the titular autocrat running the GOP at present, the would-be king Donald Trump. How would hard working-class Americans and rural workers fare given his policy predilections?

1. High on Trump’s agenda is the extension of the 2017 tax cuts that expire this year. The GOP plan being proposed in the Senate is like most Republican initiatives … it highly favors the wealthy. The 2017 plan resulted in benefits averaging some $60,000 for those at the top of the income pyramid compared to $500 on average for those in the bottom 60 percent of the income distribution. Worse, this version of the extension is projected to add almost 6 trillion to the deficit over the next decade (see below).

Annual deficits add to our structural debt. This debt requires continuous servicing unless we wish to default and damage irreparably our ability to borrow in the future. Already, paying the interest on our $36 trillion dollar debt has mushroomed to a major budget outlay. This crowds out other possible spending priorities, especially on programs designed to help workers and farmers.

2. Let’s look at Donald’s favorite cure-all for everything…reciprocal tariffs (targetted on specific nations) and general tariffs. He has even promised to replace the income tax with tariffs since he apparently believes they are paid by foreign governments (as opposed by American consumers). In fact, they do function as a kind of tax on foreign goods. Obviously, Trump’s genius plan immediately ran afoul of reality, thus resulting in erratic decision-making and costly market instability.

If Trump executes what he wants, estimates place the cost to typical American families at about $4,700. That’s a huge hit on the working class. And farmers, they don’t fare any better. The last mini trade war cost soy bean farmers in America almost $30 billion as American exports in that commodity were replaced by Brazilian farmers.

3. As DOGE slashes their way through the federal bureaucracy, the claim is made that waste and fraud are being eliminated. In fact, they haven’t even addressed step number one if that were the case … actually defining waste and fraud. They are merely slashing anything they don’t like.

For example, the hard right has always hated universities and the educated, so higher education (and the research they do that keeps America competitive) are under attack. But the real damage will be to programs that assist average people. The cuts to big ticket items such as Medicaid and Social Security (personnel) will be devastating to the average Jane and Joe.

Cuts in federal spending are justified in the minds of the GOP as providing cover for further tax breaks which, as we know, inevitably favor the wealthy. In effect, this is merely another tactic for redistributing wealth from those who haven’t got much to those who have way too much. That is, this is clearly a way to further enhance income and wealth inequality.

4. Let’s look at two sets of cuts in particular. Some of the first to be axed (fired) were independent budget and program auditors and evaluators. These are the very people with the skills to actually detect fraud and abuse. The more recent ax fell on personnel in the IRS. Guess what many of these people do, ensure that (mostly) high income individuals pay their fair share in taxes. Absent anyone reviewing what the well-connected do with our federal treasury and with fewer watchdogs holding the wealthy accountable for paying taxes, fraud and waste will have a field day. There will be no one left to protect Joe and Jane from the predatory machinations of the powerful. Yale University experts estimate that the costs in lost revenues attributable to these cuts could approach $2.5 trillion over the next decade, another addition to our ballooning national debt.

5. Speaking of fraud for a moment, rumors are rampant that the tariff gyrations in recent days were a perfect opportunity for insider trading and market manipulation. Now, some will argue that Trump’s erratic decision-making was merely his inability to think coherently … the incompetence argument. The other explanation is that he knew exactly what he was doing. He would tank the market, permitting his wealthy followers to sell equities short. Then, he would delay the implementation of announced tariffs so that his buddies can buy at the trough and enjoy the upside of the sharp recovery. That only works if insiders get an advanced signal. Some have noted that Trump issued a statement that this is a great time to buy just hours before he rescinded many of his reciprocal tariffs. Coincidence, or a signal to those on the inside?

6. I might also mention that Trump has gone after regulations that safeguard average folk. In particular, he has eviscerated consumer protections. Such cuts are always justified as ending burdensome regulations. On the other hand, consumer protections do lessen the costs average folk pay for unscrupulous or manipulative corporate activities. I personally don’t experience government bureaucrats trying to con me out of money. However, I’m bothered daily by cons from unscrupulous persons and companies. They hound me all the freaking time. In the future, they will prey on us without limits. A Dickensian world of survival of the fittest is upon us.

7. Finally, who will suffer when (not if) our economy collapses. While the uber-wealthy might appear to lose some of their net wealth, they have a huge cushion to begin with and will suffer no substantive disadvantage. Moreover, they can move capital easily around the world, taking advantage of shifting fortunes and opportunities. Once again, the recession/depression will fall hardest on the very working class folk and farmers who supported Trump’s election in the first instance.

Let us reconsider the big question. Will working stiffs stay with Trump and the MAGA crowd even as this plutocracy systemically eviscerates their interests? Will they yet claim that this pathological narcissist and privileged autocrat understands their needs and festering angst better than the traditional party of working class folk back in their father and grandfather’s time? I suspect the answer is yes, even if conservatives experience a temporary setback.

For one thing, the right better understands how to appeal emotionally to the less educated population. They aim for emotionally charged narratives that stimulate primitive fears and concerns. Those politicians of a more liberal persuasion tend toward analytical and evidence based appeals. That works in academia and among policy wonks but not on the streets. [NOTE: I did notice that both the liberal and the MAGA candidates in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race of national interest attacked each other on slimy issues, attacks that had nothing to do with what justices actually do. This seemed juvenile to me. Then again, the liberal easily prevailed for a change. Slime, like sex, sells.] It also helps that conservative money and interests now control most media and social media outlets. They are in a prime position to shape public opinion.

The bottom line is this. If I recall correctly, it was W.E.B. Dubois, the first African-American to earn a Doctorate at Harvard, who noted the effectiveness of psychological compensation for working class whites. They will sacrifice potential monetary gains to retain an apparent superiority over those whom they believe challenge their quasi-privileged social position. What Trump and the MAGA crowd know is that the white, working class crowd will pay an exorbitant price to be enabled and supported in their fear-driven hate for those whom they loathe and see as a threat. In their eyes, the Democrats have become the party that defends and tries to help minorities, immigrants, and those who believe and behave differently than they do. They can not forgive that sin, even as Republicans continually violate their class concerns for their own selfish interests.

Therein lies the frustration of liberal snobs (like me). I was raised in a struggling, working-class family. They were firm Democrats (until my mother shocked me by voting for Ike in 56). Watching working people flock to a common grifter and con man like Donald Trump is exceptionally painful and bewildering. It is like watching innocent people, my poor Janes and Joes, being wantonly and repeatedly violated (e.g., raped) while knowing you are impotent to do anything about it.

The denoument of English poet John Donne’s iconic poem on the significance of death goes like this:

Each man’s death diminishes me,

For I am involved in mankind.

Therefore, send not to know

for whom the bell tolls,

It tolls for thee.

Strip away the heightened language, Donne’s words speak a simple truth. We are all connected in obvious and less obvious ways. One person’s passing ripples through families and communities in ways both incontrovertible and incalculable. The same might be said for the institutions we create.

Two recent incidents remind me of this elegant concept … one at the institutional level and the other at a more personal level. First, I got a message that Elon Musk’s DOGE team apparently visited the National Peace Corps office in Washington last week. For many federal programs, such visits signal an imminent programmatic death knell, or nearly so in many instances. The second was a message that a fellow volunteer, Jerry, was near death after a lengthy battle with cancer.

He and I were members of India-44 B, young men and women who, being inspired by John Kennedy’s words to ‘do something for our country,’ spent up to three years as Peace Corps volunteers. We served in hot and remote rural villages in Rajasthan and Maharashtra doing our best to improve public health or advance agricultural development.

Our overseas service was challenging to say the least. We faced disease, isolation, torpid heat, cultural frictions, and the embarrassment of working in technical areas that we had barely mastered. Hidden amidst the debris of self-doubt and second-guessing might lie the real reason we persisted in our mission on the other side of the world. For all our deficiencies and frailties, we showed the people of India a different kind of America and Americans. From movies and the media, they saw a society ridden with violence and exploitation, a people who too often employed power and arrogance to get what they wanted no matter the cost to others. That was the aggressive America and the ugly Americans.

In contrast, here were some Americans who lived among them, simply and without much pretense. Here were Americans who shared their lives and difficulties at the rawest levels. Here were Americans who tried to help, without apparent gain or advantage. If we left only a single contribution as volunteers, it might well have been a more balanced and favorable image of who we were as human beings with the mask of cultural superiority stripped away and discarded.

In doing that, we opened ourselves to new experiences and challenges barely perceived at the beginning of our journey. Our tenure on the other side of the world remained a time out of time. In the end, we experienced humor, doubt, success, loneliness, connection, some fear, embarrassment, understanding, and bewilderment. We endured a kaleidoscope of sensory and emotional assaults that it might take others a lifetime to accumulate. But, to a person, no matter how difficult the struggle, we felt that we emerged as better human beings, or at least different. Perhaps that was all we could expect.  Perhaps that was enough.

As many know, the Peace Corps had a rather accidental birth. Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy landed in Ann Arbor in the middle of an October night in 1960. He was shocked to find some 10,000 yet waiting for his arrival, mostly students. Despite weariness from a just finished debate with Richard Nixon (in which the Vice President accused Democrats of being the war party), Kennedy spontaneously sought to strike a different tone in his remarks. He harkened back to some unformed thoughts he had been considering:

How many of you who are going to be doctors are willing to spend your days in Ghana? How many of you are willing to work in the Foreign Service and spend your life traveling around the world? On your willingness to do that – not merely to serve one year or two in (military) service – but your willingness to contribute part of your life to this country, I think will depend the answer whether our society can compete.

What happened over the next few weeks is the stuff of legend. Rumors of a new volunteer program flashed across college campuses even in those pre-internet days … a program that did not exist. The Kennedy campaign was flooded with queries about this new and exciting voluteer initiative. Kennedy’s simple questions that late night lit a spark under a restless generation, those on the verge of adulthood seeking a new world overall and a new role in their personal lives. So many in that moment and from that generation desired to make some positive contribution to what they saw as a possible brighter future.

Responding to a demand that refused to be extinguished, Kennedy created the Peace Corps by executive order on March 1, 1961. Since then, close to 230,000 Americans of all ages have completed tours across the globe. In 1966, when we started our long training as college juniors, over 15,500 volunteers would be serving in some 46 countries while tens of thousands of all ages, but mostly recent college graduates, would seek to serve. A half century after its creation, some 13,500 applicants would compete for 4,000 available slots.

A young man named Jerry grew up in Evanston, Illinois. As he approached completing college, he and others (like me) applied for a Peace Corps program that admitted college juniors into an experimental program that integrated training for a difficult tour of foreign service with their final college year. That would be our group … India-44.

I recall Jerry being extremely bright and imbued with a deep interest in philosophical issues, including a passion for social justice. He fully embodied the spirit of the times. He did not finish his tour, running afoul of medical issues that necessitated an early return to the States. Disease was one danger we all faced, and from which a number of us suffered. It later became apparent, however, that his desire to somehow contribute never flagged.

A while back, I became aware of a blog he created called Feathers of Hope. In it, he argued that we needed to resist our nation’s slow descent into autocratic rule and hard-right ideologies. He fought to give his readers hope as well as specific and well-considered actions through which the rising tide of Fascism might be reversed. As I read his blogs, I marveled at his eloquence and his tenacity. It was clear that the inner fires that prompted his service in India had never been extinguished.

And that was true of virtually all of those with whom I seved. They went on to exemplary lives of service to others and to society. An extraordinary number would earn graduate degrees from our best universities before embarking on highly successful careers. One cannot measure what our Peace Corps service might have contributed to this remarkable record of achievement, but one cannot discount that the input was substantive.

And then, last week, I received a notice that this would be his last blog. It was a brief message … mostly noting that Jerry was in the final stages of a battle with stage 4 cancer. He had never mentioned it. Perhaps that was to be expected. His personal struggles were of little consequence when pitted against our national peril. He can be assured of one fact, however. His spirit will endure … through the words he left to others and his undying devotion to what he believed was good and right.

These thoughts bring me back to why Peace Corps has been important and successful. Ultimately, it was the quality and sacrifice of the 200,000 plus individuals who, over the past half century, gave part of their lives to the simple notion that sacrifice and giving of oneself is a good and decent thing to do. It was never easy, nor does it always turn out as anticipated or like the feel-good ending of the movie Slum Dog Millionaire. Yet, if given the choice, we of India-44 likely would do it all over again.

Undoubtedly,  we are better human beings for the experience. Perhaps more than that, we belonged to something special. We were, in fact, a band of brothers and sisters, with a connection that was forged half way around the world a lifetime ago. And yet, those bonds, that sense of sacrifice and commitment, endures to this day.

In those hopeful days, Richard Goodwin, an iconic speech writer for JFK, LBJ, and RFK (and who briefly worked with Sargent Schriver in the early Peace Corp days) penned the following:

Peace Corps touches on the profoundest motives of young people … that idealism, high aspirations, and ideological convictions are not inconsistent with the most practical, rigorous, and efficient of programs. [And that] every one of you will ultimately be judged – will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to the building of a new world society.

If we do begin to hear the bell tolling for the Peace Corps, the sound will signal the passing of a noble experiment first heard in the heady days of the early 1960s. Back then, despite the rumblings of war in Southeast Asia and discontent with legal apartheid at home, we were a nation that dared to hope. We had big dreams for the future. If the bell does toll, it will foretell the sad passing of those grand aspirations. It will note the woeful sigh of a people too willing to accept small dreams and selfish aspirations.

These days I weep for many things … for Jerry, for the possible loss of this iconic program in which we both served and, lastly, for the passing of any sense of hope and idealism that once lit a sense of anticipation and belief in our youth. If we bequeeth anything to the next generation, it should be that … an insatiable desire to create a better world.

Many are wringing their hands now that Trump has started a gobal trade war. But will disaster happen? Will the proverbial sky really fall this time? Will the Republican Party pay the piper for Trump’s seemingly terrible policy choices? My answer … who knows?

I can recall when Bill Clinton raised taxes in the early 1990s. He even had the temerity to hike the top income tax rate to something like 37 percent from around 33 percent. The Republican Party went ballistic, screaming that the sky surely would fall and that the end of Western civilization was nigh.

Reality, of course, proved quite different. Equity markets boomed, employment and wages increased, and we actually ran budget surpluses for several years. Despite all the good results, the hyperbolic political screaming had an impact … Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, thus scuttling (among other things) the welfare reform bill I had spent time in D.C. crafting as well as the long overdue health care financing repair bill. Over the next few years, Newt Gingrich, the fiery revolutionary, led the GOP into an era of ever heightened political confrontation and highly partisan conflict.

Unfortunately, the American electorate is not known for being astute or even awake most of the time. They believed Republican propoganda that Clinton was tanking the economy even as the good times rolled under Bill’s leadership. To put it more bluntly, at least half of the electorate couldn’t locate their self-interest with GPS and a guide dog.

Actually, Gingrich violated his never compromise with the enemy (any Democrat) principle at least once that I recall. He agreed with Bill Clinton on the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA), a bill that paved the way for easier trade with our neighboring nations. Newt went to great lengths to explain his violation of the one sacred rule he imposed upon his caucus about collaborating with the other side. He seemed profoundly and deeply embarrassed that he did something for the public good. How odd!

In those days, though, the premise of open and free trade enjoyed support across the partisan divide and among most economists. There were opponents of course … remember Ross Perot? Not surprisingly, support for open trade led to considerable anguish with some observers who once again predicted that the sky would soon fall. That is, all our jobs would end up south of the border.

Reality proved far more sanguin. While there always is some discomfort and adjustment issues with any major policy initiative, the sky is falling crowd were again proved wrong. The American economy continued to grow (until Republicans screwed things up again with the 2008 housing crisis).

In light of Trump’s drastic reciprocal tariff move on Wednesday, the one piece of bipartisanship in the Gingrich years seems oddly misplaced. Suddenly, free trade orthodoxy within both parties has given way to extreme protectionism among the Republican faithful (i.e., the slavish devotees of the GOP cult leader). Moreover, Republican views of our good neighbors to the north have soured in recent weeks. The percentage of Trump devotees claiming that Canada is an enemy has more than doubled. Canada, for Christ’s sake. They would swallow any nonsense spewed by Trump.

You would think they might learn something from earlier disasters for their party. Republican President William McKinley (Trump’s idol) imposed protectionist tariffs at the end of the 19th century. His party subsequently lost dozens of Congressional seats and control of Congress.

As the economy reeled during the early months of the 1930s, the Smoot-Hawly Act was passed that increased protective tariffs by some 40 to 60 percent on some 900 imported items. The intent was to protect American businesses. The result was to deepen the recession into a global depression as other countries retaliated. As one can see from the chart below, the U.S. economy struggled in the late 1890s and the first year’s of the 20th century, the period Trump claims was America’s golden age due to high tariffs and low income taxes.

Of course, Trump’s reciprocal tariffs might be different. He promises that we soon will be so rich that we won’t know what to do with all our money. On the surface, that claim seems preposterous. His plan is based on nothing that makes any rational sense. He has taken the trade imbalance between the U.S. and each other country and simply called that an unfair tariff on American goods. It is nothing of the kind.

A poor country doesn’t have the money to buy expensive American products. But they might well export stuff to us because of lower labor costs. Thus, a trade imbalance. No tariff or national tax was involved, simply the dynamics of supply and demand. Trump lying about normal trade imbalances merely is the excuse he needs to levy punitive tariffs. Did he really believe that others would roll over and play dead?

This is what happens when you let the children play with critical policies. They screw things up. Over the past few days, global markets are on the verge of collapse. Consumer confidence is collapsing. Over five- million Americans took to the streets Saturday to voice their displeasure at the actions of Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk … whose wholesale cuts to federal spending can be expected to exacerbate any tariff induced decline in domestic economic activity.

Will the Trump shock realign our politics for the intermediate future? We have had profound realignments in the past. The Civil War (and the reconstruction era in its aftermath) relegated the Democratic Party to a second class status for decades. The great depression did the same thing for the Republican Party (Eisenhower was hardly a Republican). And President Johnson’s successes in passing the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 shifted political fortunes back toward the Republicans just as he predicted. If a tectonic economic disaster unfolds during Trump’s tenure, will we see another such transformation? Will the sky fall for the Republican Party?

Only time will tell. Of course, perhaps Trump does have a secret plan. Right now, it looks like he will try to bargain with specific nations and individual industries to strike better deals or enrich himself personally (see meme below). If he can somehow make a buck, he will.

After all, he is the ultimate transactional president. He does little based on principle and everything on personal self-interest and pecuniary gain. Nevertheless, the tariffs and the wild spending cuts are adding up to a seeming death knell to what last Fall had been widely recognized as the strongest economy in the world.

There is at least one reason I have doubts that the Republican Party will pay a substantive price should the sky actually fall this time. Half the country is not responding to reason and reality anymore. They don’t believe in evidence, reject objective reasoning, and have lost all faith in our central institutions. They are molded and driven by pure propganda spewed about by outlets designed to distort, incite, and inflame passions and communal divisions. I no longer know if the conservative base can be reached by rational analysis. The MAGA base now behaves much like the followers of Jim Jones. Rather than question their bizarre belief systems, they will eagerly drink the kool-aid even as the sky falls upon them. There is a popular meme going viral that says the only difference between Donald Trump and Jim Jones is that Trump would charge his victims for the kool-aid.

I desperately hope I’m wrong. But alas, I’m not optimistic respecting future. There simply are too many brain-dead folk out there … way too many. Just how did we get so dumb?

I’ve been hoping to chat about something new, something other than America’s imminent decline and fall. That is difficult, especially given the rapid- fire political events suffocating us at the moment. A $100 million dollar judicial race in Wisconsin saw the MAGA candidate lose decisively despite Trump’s support and Elon Musk’s 20 plus million contribution to the conservative candidate. In his last minute visit to the Badger state, Elon distributed more cash and told the crowd that this race would determine the fate of humanity. Perhaps people believed him and thus voted for the liberal candidate instead. The next day, Trump returned to his personal folly by unleashing a host of ill-considered tarriffs. This is exactly what Republicans did at the start of the great depression, thus deepening that economic crisis. Today, global markets are tanking and doubts about Donald’s sanity are reaching new heights.

But I will ignore all that. I will touch on a very different topic … the gender wars. That sounded good to me, I thought. Nothing is darker and more depressing than male-female relationships, perhaps even matching the insanity going on in D.C.. You do realize that our perpetual gender conflicts make Trump’s war on both America and Western values look like a fun-filled hootenanny.

I start by noting that the whole men are from Mars and women are from Venus trope is utter BS. At their closest, these two orbs are separated by some 52.5 million nautical miles. The actual psychic distance between men and women can only be measured in light years, with a single light-year being some 5.88 trillion miles. In their respective personal make-ups, the two sexes reside on remote planets situated in galaxies far, far removed from one another.

I realize that the only image of God that has stuck with me into my dotage is one where this Divine Presence looks a lot like Don Rickles. Remember him? He was the master of very biting and sarcastic humor. Anyway, God was bored one day. So, He created man. It turned out not to be a good day for God. At their best, this creation of His were little more than clowns that were totally boring and surely pathetic. God then mused, I’ll try again. Can’t do any worse.

So, God thought hard for a bit before chuckling malevolently. I know, God murmured, I’ll create the opposite of man, which I’ll call women. But she’ll be close enough so both genders will be fooled into thinking that they are the same species. But this is where my real genius comes in … each side believes that they can get along with the other sex. This will be hilarious, God thought to himself. Then, He wet himself while doubling over in laughter.

God hit the jackpot with this one. His creation of two genders has proven to be an unending source of mirth to Him or Her (as the case may be). In addition, it has proven to be an unending source of mystery and fascination for those of us residing on either side of the gender divide. How many youthful hours were wasted by us guys attempting to divine the essence of the female being. Better I had tried to comprehend the physics mysteries of quantum mechanics or string theory. Understanding the nature of the universe would have been an easier challenge.

Now, however, I am an octogenerian. I have accumulated some eight decades of observation, interactions, and discussions on this complex phenomenon. Hopefully not overstating my capabilities, I’ve sharpened my analytical skills over a long policy and academic career investigating our most daunting social problems. So, while I cannot claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, I’m also far from the dullest bulb on the marquee. In the next paragraph, I summarize what I know about the fairer sex, what Ive learned from my long lifetime of experience.

NOTHING! I got nothin at all.

Oh, how I remember the endless failures of my youth. And by the way, those initial experiences are where we absorb our critical lessons about life and the opposite sex. In later years, we simply repeat embedded scripts with endless futility. As I think on it, I probably was always an advocate of the primacy of early learning hypothesis. That is, our first experiences set the tone for our entire lives. In relationships, therefore, we are sculpted by our initial romantic interactions.

In fact, I recall being awarded an NSF (National Science Foundation) undergraduate research award in college. They selected four promising psychology majors, gave us stipends to support us over the summer, and told us to do original research. I chose to explore this primacy of early learning thesis by running rats of different ages through a complex maze of my own design. I really can’t recall the methodological specifics nor the results, though the experience did end my interest in academic psychology. I had to terminate my subjects at the conclusion, a task that ended with one large rodent peeing in my face as I injected him in the stomach with a lethal dose of something or other. I subsequently would search for my life’s work elsewhere. However, my earliest research did not dissuade me from a belief that our early experiences are seminal.

But I digress. My early romantic experiences were dreadful and largely scarred me for life. I attribute these early traumas to being surrounded by Catholic girls. In my experience, they all had pledged their souls (and surely their bodies) to the Virgin Mary. That somehow meant that they would prefer being plunged into a vat of boiling oil than to be touched by some horny guy. And let’s face it, when we hit puberty, we guys all were horney predators, an incontrovertible fact that is beyond challenge. This was not a situation in which healthy relationships might evolve.

Now, knowing that I was being perceived as a horny predator, I always approached those of the female persuasion with great caution. Let’s face it, I usually was totally paralyzed. On occasion, however, I did make a move, pathetic as it was. Now, this usually happened after I observed the consensual signs of interest … playing with her hair, her gazing at length into my eyes, her laughing at my jokes (which were hilarious), her listening with interest to my endless prattle, and her touching my arm or even my leg (if seated next to one another). Upon observing all this, I would conclude that this female had some interest. If I were a betting man, I would wager the mortgage on this fact. I could never understand why she might have interest. After all, I wasn’t rich or powerful. But there it was … the signs were there.

At that moment, I would suck up all my failing courage and make a timid pass. There would be this brief moment of hope and anticipation before the inevitable reality struck. She would shoot me down, as so many had in the past. Quickly, I would retreat into myself and vow all kinds of improbable things … like a lifetime of celibacy. But hey, I was a horny male. I was more likely to be the first man on the moon than give up sex for good, no matter how much sense that made. Ah yes, celibacy might well have been the wise choice, but I was weak and pathetic, like all my brothers.

Now, in all fairness, my relations with women were not total disasters. I did have some successes in my youth. They typically were with very smart women with whom I could share important intellectual interests (my few high school and college connections all went on to get Doctorates back in the day that was less common). Essentially, I liked bright, witty, independent women. Later, I found I preferred to work collaboratively with women. They struck me as better organized, stayed on point, and were more focused than most of my male colleagues.

Despite my early traumas, I was lucky in life. After escaping a career as an academic in experimental psychology, I lucked into the fascinating world of social policy both as an academic (at an R-1 university) and as a policy wonk. In addition, I lucked into a strong marriage that lasted some half a century. The good woman had a forgiving nature and a strong tolerance for putting up with incompetence and idiocy.

Mostly, though, I wound up having a number of good female friends throughout my life. Women always struck me as more interesting, more emotionally elastic, and better able to plumb deeper into complex personal issues. Besides, they also laughed at my jokes (my Irish wit). Perhaps those early failures in romance were a blessing in disguise. As an adult, I seldom expected any erotic component to be associated with these interactions. I could simply enjoy the friendship.

Of course, I can never quite forget God’s joke on us poor humans. We boys hit puberty and lose all our senses. Girls very gradually awaken to their more erotic impulses much later in life, hitting their stride just as males start experiencing a loss of their testosterone. Some joke. However, I have concluded that lower testosterone can be a positive. To my way of thinking, it makes me a much better man. I can appreciate women as themselves, without any confounding baser needs that typically mess things up.

However, don’t ask me about male-female relationships. As I said above … I got nothin!

How do societies evolve? Is it an incremental, though linear and inevitable, process where change is unnoticeable but perpetual until one looks back in wonder. Wow, things have changed, the observer remarks while remaining discombobulated at the realization of just how dramatic those changes are. Or is the process observable and felt in the moment? Wow, things really are changing fast. Probably both are real at different times and for different people.

It is clear that homo-sapiens (our largely misnamed tribe since the label suggests higher order thought) has evolved in remarkable ways over the some 200,000 years we’ve been around or wherever the starting line has been established. Over these many eons, some transitions can be elevated to the status of transformational discontinuities in which our world is remarkably and fundamentally different sometime after the interruption of business as usual is complete. Though identifying such salient inflection points specifically might be somewhat subjective, the exercise remains unavoidable if we want to understand who we are or, more exciting yet, where we are going.

Some discontinuities happened over long periods of time: the final dominance of Homo-sapiens over their Neanderthal cousins; the discovery of fire which altered eating habits, tribal behaviors, and body types; the agricultural revolution which shifted tribes from nomadic patterns to settled communities; the urban revolution (5 to 7 millenia ago) which led to increasingly complex social structures and primitive, if hierarchical, methods of social control; and the monotheistic revolution (2 to 4 millenia ago) which permitted broader control of socially approved dogma. Such revolutions must have seemed imperceptible in the moment. They were so gradual that they could only be understood and appreciated in hindsight, long after the fact. Fundamental changes in our distant past were glacial and seldom linear. There were many false starts and dead ends before change was grounded, sustainable, and irreversible.

In more contemporary times, the pace of change appears to have accelerated. Some transitions appear to have been initiated by external events. Others were sparked by technological innovations. Still others might be attributed to intellectual or cognitive breakthroughs. Did I mention that this exercise was subjective, if not idiosyncratic? For example, the increase in east-west trade in yhe 12th and 13th century might well have triggered the European Renaissance, stealing this blossoming of human centered thought and innovation from the nucleus of the Islamic Golden Age centered in Baghdad (which fell to the Mongols in the mid 13th century where much was lost).

Other transitions can be identified or at least offered as grist for speculation. The onset of the Bubonic Plague in the mid-14th century resulted in massive demographic changes, with population losses of 50 percent or more in places. This had extraordinary long-term impacts on existing feudal arrangements that had stifled social mobility and innovation up to that point. Then, we had the introduction of Gutenberg’s movable type printing revolution. This one technical breakthrough impacted religion (facilitated the Protestant revolution), increased literacy (non-elites began reading), accelerated the expansion of local languages, and stimulated formal education (more universities were founded). The world would never be the same.

Soon, the pace accelerated. In the beginning of the 16th century, the Protestant reformation challenged the existing hierarchical structure of society and rigid intellectual canons imposed by the Catholic Church. It also facilitated the establishment of stronger nation states. At the end of the 16th century, Francis Bacon’s intellectual insights began to introduce an early form of scientific inductive reasoning which altered how we learned about the natural world. Though Islamic scholars had earlier touched on these methodological principles several centuries earlier, they were finally sustainable by this moment in history. In the 17th century, an exploration of the globe blossomed as brave navigator explored unknown worlds and societies around the circumference of our earthy orb. Following that came the industrial revolution (Watt’s steam engine) of the 18th century, and the communications-travel revolutions (railroads, telegraph, telephones, diesal powered ships and cars) of the 19th century. Soon, ideas and people could communicate and experience new thoughts, cultures, and ideas with unprecedented celerity, comparatively speaking at least.

The speed of change became palpable and perceptible. The French and American Revolutions spurred radical innovations in how humans would govern themselves and their societies. The general European uprisings of 1848 signaled further discontent with the old, autocratic way of doing things. Then, the catastrophe of WWI helped assign many older autocracies and creaky empires into the ash heap of history. The Great Depression (followed by WWII) seemingly broke the back of some totalitarian regines and fostered a period of liberal, democratic hope for a large part of the world.

Over the course of my lifetime, change appears relentless and ceaseless. Every dimension of life … from science to communications to transportation and so much else … is changing at break neck speed. When I was born, flight was done by clunky, propeller-driven planes. By the time I was 25 years old, we had put a man on the moon. In my beginning, computers were huge behemoths based on vacuum tube technology. At best, they could do the smallest computations at (by today’s standards) glacially slow speeds. Now, our hand held devices permit us to access the world’s knowledge, to communicate around the globe effortlessly, and to manipulate the world in ways our parents could not possibly have imagined.

It is all so exciting. Or perhaps not! It sometines is hard to know what really is going on in the midst of such profound changes, or what it all means. And dont forget, Putin has restored a feudal system in Russia. Trump has pushed America toward a banana Republic form of an authoritarian regime. Our global climate worsens annually while our political elites dither. And we hurtle toward the newest and most profound revolution … generalized artificial intelligence … without much analysis nor reflection. The pace of social and technological change doesn’t always flow in a discernable direction. Moreover, that pace seems to be outdistancing our available wisdom. My point … accelerating transitions (inflection points?) are difficult to grasp and oft (always?) control us, not the other way around.

But here’s the question. Are all the transitions we can identify over the past several decades really discrete inflection points, or are they part of one large transformation, like the agriculture or urban revolutions. Even more intriguing, are we in the midst of a more profound transformation unlike any seen in the past? Might some future historians look back in several hundred years and remark: Oh yes, the 21st century marked the end of a major inflection point in social evolution where we transitioned from a carbon-based life form to a world ruled by sentient machines (i.e., from homo-sapiens to mechanicus-sapiens). That historian of the future will note that this radical new species was the start of reaching out beyond earth in a serious way.

On the other hand, I am struck by a quote from the iconic cosmologist Carl Sagan. Some three decades ago, not long before he passed, he asserted the following: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time…when the U.S. is a service econony; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical facilities decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true. We then slide, almost without notice, back into superstition and darkness …”

There’s the rub. Is Carl’s dystopian prediction an informed guess about where we are (were) headed? Or is it a short-sighted feeling of angst generated by the uncertainties of the journey. Rapid change is unnerving, unsettling. It may partly explain the reactionary era into which America has fallen recently. Then again, our current irrational political and social choices may suggest something more profound … hints of some future dystopian darkness.

We are told that the singularity, when human consciousness and digital machines can be molded into one, is on the immediate horizon. I’m likely to pass from this mortal toil before that happens. Oddly enough, I’m not certain that missing this epochful event is a good or bad thing. My damn curiosity, however, wants answers … what would that world be like? My human sensibilities, on the other hand, fear the possible answers. If God has created this universe to trick and frustrate us, He’s done one hell of a job.

One final thought. The meme below perhaps contains the greatest lesson of all. Our lives, our fates, seem so important to us. Yet, if our earth were to vanish tomorrow, our personal galaxy would not take note. Further, the Milky Way is only one of some 2 trillion galaxies out there, which may be just a drop in the bucket of our full cosmos. I consider such things when I get vexed about Trump’s antics. In the end, we are all just temporary arrangements of stardust. Would anyone out there even recognize, never mind appreciate, what happens to us as we evolve into the future? Would anyone give a damn?

Probably not! On the other hand, our survival and evolution may be the most critical experiment in our vast universe. We just don’t know.

Not long ago, a neighbor sent a meme to me suggesting that our values and our political choices depend upon who we associate with and those to whom we listen most closely. I couldn’t agree more with her though, among the local tribe in our residential association, she is the only one I know that supports the values of Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy. I’m guessing she listens to right-wing propoganda outlets. Of course, I would argue that I listen to objective media outlets even though she undoubtedly would label my preferred information sources as radical, left-wing trash. As I explored in a recent blog, we all have our preferred bubble.

I unquestioningly live in my highly preferred bubble … a fact I fully acknowledge. Virtually all my associates are rabidly anti-Trump. Then again, they all are highly educated professionals, the vast majority possessing advanced degrees from our finest institutions of higher learning. They are capable of higher-level analytical thought that typically is grounded in data and research.

At the moment, I’m thinking of one in particular. He is a reknowned infectious disease physician at the University of Wisconsin who remains active professionally well into his mid-80s. He also affirms that he is a political independent. At a recent neighborhood gathering, however, he sheepishly announced that, despite fears that we would consider him crazy, he has concluded that Trump must be a Russian asset. Nothing else could explain the President’s bizarre behaviors. No one in the group thought him the least bit crazy.

As I likely shared in a recent blog, I can not forget one scene from an early Woody Allen comedy titled Bananas. Somehow, the hopeless Woody Allen character gets caught up in a Carribean Island revolution that deposes a corrupt government, drawing clearly on the Cuban uprising led by Fidel Castro. Then, something goes wrong. The new strongman, who presumably now represents the interests of the common man, turns out to be a lunatic. He issues a bunch of bizarre orders such as all citizens must wear their underwear on the outside. He is quickly replaced, with the Woody Allen character being inserted in his place. The expected comedic results predictably happen.

Life is now replicating art. We are now living in a script that rivals Bananas in sheer absurdity. Trump is flooding the zone with a barrage of executive orders if, taken at face value, are designed to destroy our current government and replace our constitutional democracy with a dictatorial autocracy that is eerily reminiscent of a traditional banana republic. Just think of the following: our wannabe dictator has threatened to impeach any judge who opposed him (even conservative chief justice Robert’s has bridled at this): purged top military brass; fired all personnel charged with ensuring accountability in the bureaucracy, filled all top federal positions with sycophants who possess little experience or expertise, fired or demoted many members of public systems charged with defending the Constitution (DOJ, FBI) who were deemed enemies for specious reasons, threatened law firms and media outlets that he deemed disloyal, and vacated many of the preemptive pardons issued by his predecessor on highly shaky grounds. What do these and other actions tell you. Essentially this, Trump is marching toward his dream of an imperial Presidency. That, by the way, is merely another term for ‘dictator.’

Everyone in my circle of friends (perhaps save one) see this with absolute clarity. Yet, the better public opinion polls show only a slight decrease in support for the President, down perhaps 3 percentage points to a 47 percent approval rating. His disapproval rating, on the other hand, has inched up slowly to just above 50 percent.

I’m not at all sanquin with such small shifts. After all, the MAGA movement represents the most direct threat to our form of government in my lifetime. In addition, the economy is being torn apart at the seams while the historic Western alliance is in tatters. Trump has allied us with a Russian autocrat while demeaning and threatening historic allies. Yet, there has been remarkably little blowback. The fact that his approval rating has moved so little suggests how deeply felt the loyalty of his base is. They are driven by an abiding hatred of a society that embraces such attributes as compassion and civility, the core values of pluralism and diversity.

Then again, why am I surprised? Our history suggests strong fascist leanings throughout our history. The ante-bellum South was a strong mix of contemporary feudalism mixed with hierarchical notions of racial superiority. Our Civil War forced the South back into the Union but failed to undo the basic philosophical framework of the region, one premised on a feudal society built on overt oppression. Even after being crushed in war, that perspective remained alive and well in a perverse set of harsh sentiments codified into Jim Crow edicts.

In the runup to WWII, pro German sentiments remained strong. The American Bund, the Silver Shirts, the KKK and other related groups evinced explicit support for a racial hierarchy and/or ethnic purity while finding many supporters within America’s highly stratified and unequal social structures. If Hitler had not inexplicably declared war on the U.S. three days after Pearl Harbor, I doubt Roosevelt could have pushed this country to defend democratic ideals against the Aryan Supremacy beliefs of the Third Reich. Many Americans rather liked Hitler’s world view. Thank God Hitler was as dumb as Trump appears to be, as proven by his willingness to take on the U.S. absent any thought. Long after this world war fought to save society from its worst impulses, those fighting integration in America oft wore Nazi insignia to define the depths of their hate for a compassionate and inclusive society. Some 50 to 70 million perished world wide, but was the victory largely pyrrhic?

And here we have the central question for our times…what are our core values? Let us now reconsider one other historical point. While Germany was troubled in many ways after losing WWI, it still remained a highly sophisticated and advanced society. It was a leader in science, philosophy, and culture. In addition, the pro-Nazi support in German free elections before the Nazis took control never reached beyond 37 percent. In fact, they were receding in local elections just before an aging Bismark succumbed to pressure and appointed Herr Hitler as Chancellor. But times in Germany were difficult at that moment…a global depression, withdrawal of U.S. investment from their economy, and street violence between left and right. Uncertainty can cloud good judgment even in advanced societies.

In November of 2024, America chose Fascism even though there was no energency to cloud our judgment. I know that articles occasionally surface depicting former Maga devotees saying they had no idea what Trump would do. Perhaps they are sincere. After all, the cognitively impaired are found in any group. However, no one in my cohort were fooled for an instant. His intentions were transparent for all to see … in Project 2025 and in his own statements and behaviors and in the many books and articles written by sensible individuals who worked with him in his first administration. Above all, it simply is all too clear that Trump is a seriously damaged human being … a pathological narcissist and sociopath who succumbs to extreme bouts of paranoia. He is primarily driven by hate and revenge. That is readily apparent to all who care to look. This is a human who needs professional help, not to be placed in charge of a modern nation. Yet, his base adores him, many considering him sent by God to rescue them.

How could our present dysfunctional government retain such high levels of support despite two months of utter chaos. From which wellsprings of darkness does that support originate? First of all, Trump serves the interests of a very small interest group … himself and only himself. After all, he is a pathological narcissist. The traditional Republican Party (which overlaps with but is not identical to the MAGA world) focuses on the interests of a very thin slice of the American electorate … the uber wealthy. Every social problem can be remedied with another tax cut benefitting the ultra rich. It remains a matter of debate where that income and wealth cutoff line is, but it encompasses no one I know even though my acquaintances would be considered comparatively affluent. The MAGA movement addresses a somewhat broader interest group, white Christian nativists. This interest group is broader, perhaps generally encompassing one-third of the electorate in most years. Normally, these groups would not constitute a majority.

Put another way, these interest groups would not be able to control national politics. They could threaten democracy but not subvert it. What is different now? Among the typical explanations are: fractionalized and highly partisan information input venues (i.e., targeted propoganda); digital platforms that reward and direct users toward inflamed and emotional content; the corruption of excessive money in politics; the dynamics leading to hyper inequality of resources and power; an alarming decline in institutional trust; and the enhanced anomie that arises during periods of rapid change and cultural discontinuity. Other sources of uncertainty can be identified, but this will do.

Unlike Germany in 1932, we had no external crisis here. In fact, we had an economy that was the envy of the world. We were respected across the globe, especially among advanced democracies. There was no reason to panic or feel we were threatened at all. Yet, too many did and voted against their self-interest out of pure fear. Many thought their cultural hegemony had been challenged, an illusion that generated deeply felt fears and angst. It was all in their heads, fed by a continous flow of right-wing propoganda.

Several old Peace Corps volunteers from the 60s (not my group) started an email thread suggesting that America will hit rock bottom at some point. The question was posed … How will we know when this happens? There were a number of good ideas. Personally, I thought we should look to several institutional markers to identify the tipping point when this nation officially becomes a dictatorial banana republic:

1. When the courts (including the appellate level) clearly stop functioning as a separate branch of government and merely rubber stamp all acts imposed by the imperial Presidency.

2. When all the major legal institutions (DOJ, FBI, Homeland Security) pledge full allegiance to the President as opposed to the rule of law principle and to defending our Constitution.

3. When the nation’s armed forces are purged to the point that they become an extension of the President’s will and obey all orders (even should Congress object), including baseless foreign adventures and unlawful interventions in domestic matters.

4. When the independent media is threatened into submission or outright censored to the point when all competing perspectives and thought disappear from major platforms.

5. When our educational systems (from grammar school to our universities) are purged and/or battered to the point where independent thought and analysis is prohibited and our national history is whitewashed.

6. When all objection to the Imperial Presidency or its agenda (Project 2025) is deemed treasonous, including attacking any and all organizations daring to voice alternative views (Note: Trump already has started going after law firms he dislikes or which sued him in the past).

7. Ultimately, when the imperial President declares a national emergency to formally acquire dictatorial powers and eliminate Congress as a separate, functioning arm of governance (straight out of the Nazi playbook). This would formally terminate America as a democratic republic operating under the rule of law and the will of the people.

Other institutional markers might be noted but this will do. Initial steps have been taken in each of these areas. Unless stopped, the processes of extending control and unraveling our Constitutional protections will increase in speed and substance. Then, at some point, it will be too late to turn things around.

And yet, there is one critical dimension that is the most fundamental of all. It involves our core values. When public functions are slashed in the patently false claim of eliminating waste and abuse, we either acquiese or stand up. There is no waste and abuse when people start dying, when human suffering becomes intolerable, and when the very science we depend upon to advance civilization has been smashed. No, then all we have is the final destruction of what society needs most of all … empathy. At that point, we will have turned control over to a gang of narcissistic sociopaths. Society, in that moment, will be little more than a horrific Dickensian contest for superiority, a nation marked by the absence of any concern or caring for the vulnerable and the hopeful.

My fondest hope is that I will be dead at that point. I do not want to live in such a society. In short, I value empathy