Passivity is the enemy — and now is no time to be a 'good German'

I’m watching the first snow in Chicago, fighting an urge to withdraw from national news for a while. Any familiarity with world history makes clear the imperative of resistance before jackboots kick down the door, but watching Republicans’ abrogation of duty in service to a charlatan taxes one’s mental health. I don’t want to give Trump and his unqualified goons that much power.

For me, because the destruction won’t begin in earnest until January, the worst part about the election so far is my own internal dialogue: I don’t want to harbor ill will or feel contemptuous disgust for MAGA. I don’t want to anticipate their remorse, if they ever connect the dots between tariffs, mass deportations, and the price of apples come June. But nor do I want to sugarcoat the cruel catastrophe they have unleashed, not just on immigrants and minorities, but on themselves.

MAGA reminds me of chaining a dog

Hearing a dog bark all night while it’s 20º F outside, I realize I feel the same way about MAGA voters as I feel about people who chain their dog(s) outside 24/7. Anyone who has ever loved a dog knows how barbaric this practice is. Neanderthalic and needlessly cruel, dog chainers and MAGA remind me that humans co-exist on a random continuum of evolution. We aren’t all plotted on the same line of the same graph at the same time; the dots veer off in all directions like electrons in an atom. Some countries and some people are stuck in the fifth century, while others show us the future. America’s choppy pas de deux with itself is a blend of forward steps, then backward, intelligent people dancing alongside morons. (Call this elitist, I don’t care, truth has to matter or what are we doing?)

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When I see a dog living on a chain, an often hidden and too-common cruelty, I feel simultaneous heartbreak for the dog and contempt bordering on hatred for his jailer. After years in animal advocacy, these unwelcome feelings are nothing new. It is new, however, to feel both things at once for the same group of people. Many MAGA voters-- as distinguished from wealthy Trump oligarchs-- voted against their own self-interests just for the opportunity to hurt others.

If Trump ever figures out how to implement his most hairbrained ideas, economically disadvantaged MAGA voters will suffer the most. A more evolved person than I am would pity them, but, like dog chainers, I consider them victims of their own cruelty and ignorance and find compassion for them nearly impossible.

Putting Trump numbers into perspective

Setting aside the self-defeating motivation of MAGA voters, one pervasive lean among pundits and the GOP alike is to overstate Trump’s support. Here’s the math: there are 258.4 million people of voting age in the US.A total of 76,733,150 voted for Trump. That means only twenty-nine percent of adults in the U.S. voted for Trump, and most of them were uneducated. Public education has been underfunded by Republicans for many years and many reasons, none of them altruistic. Meanwhile, voters with a college degree broke hard for Harris.

That malice, division and conspiracy theories won the hearts of 29% of American adults may reflect the shortcomings of public education (as well as humanity), but it isn’t permanent.

It’s an unfortunate but likely temporary marriage between uneducated MAGA voters voting against self-interests and America’s power class motivated only by self-interest. With the help of oligarch-aligned Fox News and hopelessly juvenile Elon Musk, MAGA was convinced that Trump would help them despite four prior years and all evidence to the contrary. They still don’t realize that the deepest pockets in the country are behind Trump due to his recurring promise to make them richer at MAGA voters’ expense.

Don’t be Good Germans

The silver lining, if there is one, in this ungodly marriage of ignorance and greed is that Trump’s hatred and lust for retribution will eventually clash with the profit motives of his donors. Ridding the nation of immigrants will result in higher costs for factories, hospitals, restaurant chains, corporate farms, and construction companies. Corporate owners won’t go along with anything that threatens their bottom line, and increasing labor costs would do just that. Eroding the rule of law also threatens economic stability, and most Fortune 500 companies need legal stability in order to survive.

In the meantime, Trump’s narcissistic antics are exhausting already; we’re going on ten years of it. But tired as we are, we can’t allow ourselves to become Good Germans-- citizens who didn’t like Hitler’s hateful message, but were too exhausted, delusional, or pre-emptively defeated to fight back while there was still time.

To anyone familiar with how authoritarians consolidate power, it's hard to watch Republicans and the media bend the knee in cowardice. Passivity is all Trump needs to plunder the treasury, put people in boxcars, and hand the nation’s assets to its richest oligarchs, both domestic and foreign.

For journalists, critics, and Americans of honor, the price of speaking up will be high and uncomfortable, as high and uncomfortable as looking over the fence at the neighbor’s incessantly barking dog, recognizing his desperation, and resolving to help him. But the price of not speaking up, both for the dog and the nation, will be even higher.

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