Our certainty in shared values seemed justified in simpler times.
It’s easy to stand against Nazism when it’s an evil of the past. It’s something else when the Nazis have gained control of your own country, when they hold every major lever of power.
When Vice President JD Vance told the Germans that they must make way for a new generation of Nazis, he did so as part of a delegation that included Jack Posobiec, an American Nazi who now wanders the halls of the White House at will, who a year before had lifted a crucifix while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference and declared,
“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on Jan. 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it, and we will replace it with this. That’s right, we will replace it with this, because all glory is not to government. All glory is to God!“
Glory to God in American politics is now shorthand for brutal totalitarian power. Glory to God in American politics has become an enemy to democracy.
When I learned the part that Posobiec played in the Munich conference at which support for Nazis in Germany became part of American foreign policy, I thought back to a sign I had seen lifted at a local protest in Ithaca, New York.
In a mittened hand lifted high, the hand-drawn sign warned, “Never Again Means Now”.
It’s easy to say “never again” when the Never we imagine is a foreign mistake that America fought against in a righteous war in the time of our grandparents. It’s an evil so specific, and so far removed in space and time, that it seems never likely to return.
When Never returns speaking English with an American accent, in the name of the most popular religion in the United States, it’s easier to ignore the stories of new concentration camps riddled with horrific abuse of prisoners.
After all, it doesn’t come with a ridiculous little mustache. It doesn’t present itself in grainy black and white films.
It speaks to our familiar American prejudices, our cozy hatreds.
It’s more difficult to resist the Nazi who stands under the American flag. It’s easier to just go shopping.
Resistance in your own country, in your own time, is not an easy choice. It’s not a glamorous fantasy.
Resistance isn’t resistance if it’s easy and painless. Resistance burns. Resistance aches.
Their power is totalitarian. Our resistance cannot be limited to an occasional thumbs up on social media.
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