Smells Like 1933

It used to be that Hitler comparisons were easy and cheap. If you wanted to slam someone in authority or power you just pointed out how similarly they were behaving like the Fuehrer and the Nazis. It is a quick way to get a rise out of anyone, supporter or detracter. This is no longer true: with President Donald Trump the comparisons may be easy to draw, but there is nothing cheap about this man's concerted and obvious attempts to make the Executive Branch of the United States government the only branch. He hates sharing power, yet he seems to have no real goals except gaining more and more of that corrosive stuff, power. Congress is an obstacle—even his own party members can't seem to agree on anything except tax breaks for the rich and the Mueller investigation has gone on too long. The Supreme Court is becoming a 5-4 Yes Man. Our symbols are more important than the rights, ideals and responsibilities for which they stand. Above it all, despite swimming in a sea of suspicion and controversy, stands Donald Trump on his rock, doing and saying one outrageous thing after another, wondering how far he can go, kissing up to dictators and tyrants while spurning democracies—playing with the big boys he admires. They know how to rule, he says. America is changing the spelling of her name to Amerika, and those who protest what we see happening from border to border, from sea to shining sea, will be drowned out in the end by ignorance and apathy. But when the camps are opened up again and American citizens are placed in them, remember you were warned. Yes, I admit, I am sounding hyperbolic, but it smells like 1933 all over again and I do not want to see history repeat itself. This country is supposed to live by the rule of law but the very rule of law is under attack.