Ramping up in DC, Remembering Why I’m Here: It’s Anti-Fascism and Pro-Democracy

After a long and circuitous route (July auto accident in Seattle set me back some), I am finally settling into my digs in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC. It’s an incredibly diverse collective of folks from across the world. Extra fuel — excitement, purpose, new connections — for my education and lobbying mission on behalf of the One Payer States and allies working to pass Rep Ro Khanna’s State-Based Universal Health Care Act (SBUHCA). SBUHCA is congressional legislation designed to give state-based single payer health care programs the federal dollars and legal protections to implement their universal health care systems with greater ease, efficiency, capacity, and more.

So, why work on something seemingly so small, when our global society is spinning on its axis at an alarming rate, due to human-caused dramatic shifts in climate, escalating warfare, mass migration, rising fascism, and declining democracy? Well, from my radically aspirational perspective, SBUHCA is quite Big because it centers on the intersection of everything I hold dear, including pro-democracy, anti-fascism, and a transformational ‘justice for all’ vision for our nation and the nations of the world. (More on this to come.)

So, with that in mind, it was in the wake of two of Donald Trump’s most recent rants and unhinged statements about (1) wanting to execute former JCS head Mark Milley for his “disloyalty” to Trump — notably, not his loyalty to the nation, not commitment to the international order, and certainly not his pledge to uphold the U.S. Constitution, and (2) Trump’s intentional statements about how new immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” — a line straight out of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” — I knew I needed to rewatch my favorite film depiction of Hitler’s final days in his Berlin bunker: “Downfall.” Bruno Ganz’s screen portrayal of Hitler is both mesmerizing and and accurate, based as it is on several eye-witness accounts. (More on “Downfall” to come.)

As a German (and American) history professor of 32 years, my fascination with the psychology of individual and collective authoritarianism — especially the most modern, persistent, and mimicked form: fascism — knows no bounds. Which brings me to the theme I want to explore here over the next several months, concurrent with with what may well be Donald Trump’s downfall: how and why are so many Americans allured with and drawn to the siren song of fascism?