My sweet friends who come from stable homes, have had happy marriages, never missed a meal, and believe that “life is good,” and “all people are basically good,” have, it seems to me, never before crossed paths with a sociopath who removed their rosy glasses and stomped on them.

This is part of the problem today, as I see it. To my great amazement, many good people choose to believe that the chaos and harm Donald Trump is causing will all blow over like some dark storm, and all will be well in a short while (after the midterms? after the next election?). 

Oh, my dears, I moan to myself, we are not children anymore. Perhaps your parents comforted you with the soothing words, “Everything will be all right, darling. Just close your eyes and fall asleep now. Things will be better in the morning.” But that was then; this is now. We cannot afford such innocent trust today. There’s much too much at stake.

(Stock photo from Pixabay)

Donald Trump is a dangerous and unstable man who’s been placed by misguided and misinformed voters (who were seeking a savior?) in a position of power beyond our fathoming. Trusting him to behave like a benevolent father, or a caring, capable leader, is an incalculable mistake. He is nothing of the kind.

I understand. I was naïve once too. I was a shy, pretty, nineteen-year-old church-going virgin who made the tragic mistake of believing the lies of a wealthy and forceful older man, cut from the same cloth as Donald Trump, who was determined to marry me. “I am a Christian too,” he professed to me, “I believe the same things you do.” For six decades I’ve suffered from his cruelty in abducting our child and poisoning her permanently against me. For six decades I’ve waited and prayed for truth and justice to prevail. I’m still waiting.

I’ve learned this truth, though: deceitful and remorseless individuals – people like Donald Trump — can cause lasting harm and suffering to other people. And they truly don’t care.

My dear, sweet, naïve sisters, I want to shout, not everyone is good! If you were fortunate enough – or wise enough when you were young – to marry a good person, you are among the blessed. But try to look beyond your pretty bubble and see the reality the world faces right now. Trump and his henchmen pose a real and present danger. We all must pay attention – read and watch reliable news sources, think deeply, discuss with friends — and do whatever we can to stop this wrecking ball in its tracks.

Ignorance is not bliss; it is dangerous. Innocence and naivete are for children. We’re not children anymore. We owe it to ourselves and to others to become as smart and as strong as we can be. Because — as we’ve all heard many times before — together we can make a difference.

Of course the quandary is, as my dear friend Maureen in Philadelphia pointed out in an e-mail to me yesterday, “what to do.” As she recounted, “We just came back from a street demonstration outside of one of our senator’s offices, and we’ll be going to another one tomorrow. Somehow, though, it felt beside the point – virtually all senior citizens, chanting slogans reminiscent of the ‘70s. I’m also contacting these senators to urge them to vote against the hideous Cabinet nominees, which I will continue to do. But it all feels a bit futile, given the magnitude of the damage and the threat.”

Yes, yes … but nevertheless! We mustn’t quit. Everybody, which is to say Every Body, counts. Every little (or big) thing each of us does, within our capabilities, counts. Doing nothing counts for nothing. Denial won’t move the dial.

Maureen attached to her e-mail to me a link to a recent Substack essay by Timothy Snyder titled “The Logic of Destruction and How to Resist It.” Here is a relevant portion:

“As for the rest of us: Make sure you are talking to people and doing something. The logic of ‘move fast and break things,’ like the logic of all coups, is to gain quick dramatic successes that deter and demoralize and create the impression of inevitability. Nothing is inevitable. Do not be alone and do not be dismayed. Find someone who is doing something you admire and join them” (https://snyder.substack.com/p/the-logic-of-destruction ).

I am half German. My mother’s parents emigrated to the U.S. from Germany well before the First World War. I was born in 1945, the year the Second World War ended. But ever since high school, when I first learned about the Holocaust, I’ve been ashamed of that half of my heritage. How, I wondered, could the people of Germany – maybe even some distant relatives — have allowed that to happen? Why didn’t they DO something to stop it?!  I’ve since concluded that the “good” German people at that time were either willfully ignorant of what was going on or were aware but afraid of expressing resistance. They feared for their own lives and livelihoods.

I’ve vowed, and I hope you will join me in this, to be neither ignorant nor afraid to stand up and speak out now, at this crucial juncture in history.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

FYI: My daily routine for staying informed includes: reading the New York Times online early every morning in bed (NYTimes.com), watching Democracy Now! (democracynow.org) weekdays on my laptop perched on my kitchen counter while I cook at lunchtime, watching the BBC News on my TV every evening (because it’s the only English-speaking  news channel I receive here in Mexico – and because of its global coverage), and following other writers’ blogs and Substack pieces, such as those by Robert Reich (robertreich.substack.com) and John Pavlovitz (johnpavlovitz.substack.com). 

And what am I doing? I am a writer; I’m writing to you now. I invite you to share in the Comments section what you are reading and doing about this horror. And please share this post with those whom you think might benefit.