I read It Can’t Happen Here during the first Trump admin. It was over-the-top (at the time), almost ridiculous. It’s certainly more apropos in the second term.
Is America on the brink now? Have we caught up with The Handmaid’s Tale? These are essentially alarmist questions, but here’s something we can at least admit to ourselves: we are certainly closer now to both than we were before MAGA infected our nation.
Here is a short video from historians that I respect, one of which I’ve written about before.
This image captured at an immigration stop sort of sums it up for me. Is this what America is about? Sure, we don’t have the context of the scene. We don’t know the details.
But look at the girl’s face. Status (legality, illegality, criminality, innocence) doesn’t matter so much when someone is terrified. That girl is terrified. She’s absorbing the trauma of the scene. And it will live in her bones the rest of her life.
This is America now. This is what Trump means when he says, “Make America Great.” This is our America.

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