Yes, there were lots of decent, kind people who tried to live good lives to the extent that they could. No doubt they were good neighbors, kind to their children and elders, generous and helpful.
But this didn't stop their society from descending into a prolonged fit of xenophobic and racist madness. Their politicians solicited and then encouraged the worst among them to take charge, with the horrific results we all must remember.
I hope, of course, that the next four years won't see that level of depravity here, but at the moment I don't see much by the way of barriers to check our own descent.
The saddest part, to me, is that unlike Germany in the 1930s we aren't in the midst of a widespread depression coming on the heels of hyperinflation, or recovering from the trauma of a lost war in which millions of our citizens died. Ww haven't suffered a "Starvation Blockade." We haven't lost hunks of our country to any foreign foe. No, the USA is, we keep telling ourselves, the richest, most powerful nation on earth. Most Americans are relatively comfortable, certainly far more comfortable than the average German in 1932. And even at the height of their misery, the majority of German voters actually rejected Hitler and his Nazis, who were installed into power after losing an election by a cartel of senile and corrupt politicians.
By contrast, fully half of our voters evidently need targets for their hatred, and are entirely comfortable with an adjudicated rapist as commander in chief. At the very least millions of them have bought into various narratives that are as absurd as they are obscene. Immigrants eating our pets. Schools operating on boys to turn them into girls. Medical scientists who've spent their lives in public service as part of some conspiracy to bring down the nation via a "phony" pandemic.
I'm glad you run into kind people. I have many kind and generous people in my life as well.
To me this doesn't cancel out the fact that our national government is about to embark on an exercise in calculated cruelty in which the most vulnerable among us, and those least deserving of abuse, will be made to suffer.
And for what? Why is it so many "decent" Americans felt compelled to set us on this course?
No doubt there's no simple answer. But then, there's also no way for so many of us to avoid he consequences of this most recent election.
Best wishes to you and yours--
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