Cathy’s Thoughts on the Current Political Landscape

As a woman who is the mother of a bi-sexual man and who is married to a trans woman I am very concerned about the current political landscape in the USA.

I’ve always been interested in history; especially the periods leading up to and during World War I and World War II.  I often wonder how the average citizen in Germany could let what happened during WW2 happen. But as I see it unfold in the USA there is some clarity. 

Hitler took control of power when Germany had extremely high unemployment during the 1920-1930 global economic crisis. This was just after WWI. Using media and propaganda he proceeded to make people feel the country was worse off than it was. And that he alone could make Germany economically strong again. Does this sound familiar ? 

He villainized the Jews (and the gays to a lesser extent) and blamed the loss of WW1 as well as all the counties problems on them. He convinced people that expelling the Jews would solve all of Germany’s problems. Similar to what is happening with immigrants and the trans community in the USA. 

Hitler slowly took the rights away from all citizens but as long as the Jews and gays could be blamed and made to have a worse situation the citizens allowed it to continue. We see this happening now with no real action to reduce food costs and high tariffs set to increase the prices of most goods being shipped in from Mexico, Canada and China. Most of the changes being implemented by the new USA government benefits corporations not the average American citizen. 

Hitler also created a “us vs them” mentality between Germany and the other nearby countries. This allowed for justification of attacks and the war crimes committed against citizens of other countries. We see the same thing happening now with the “jokes” about Greenland, Canada ect. I assure you Canada has no interest in joining the USA. 

Something else that stands out when I read history accounts is how Jewish families struggled with the idea of leaving their homes. They couldn’t believe it could get any worse; that these atrocities they were hearing about could happen in the country they loved. In a country that they were born and raised. Then they were shipped to concentration camps. And I hear stories on TikTok of trans people wondering if they should leave and I’m terrified history will repeat itself. 

Are the American people not concerned Trump will find a way to declare a law that gives him full power in the name of  “protection” of the American people? Would this not be the final step before dictatorship? He is already getting people comfortable with the many executive orders he signing. 

So how do we stop this from happening again? What could citizens of Germany or neighbouring countries have done to stop the horrors that occurred if they knew what was going to happen? What can we learn from history to stop this from happening again. I don’t know the answer but I think we need to figure it out. In some ways things are harder now. We know high tech is heavily involved. Whether it’s them controlling the Orange Man or the other way around I’m not sure, but it’s been made clear to all social media and news platforms that if they don’t play by his rules they will be shut down. And that should scare everyone in the USA.