Never Again is About to be Tested
Forgive my post based in reality today. As you know, I usually only post fiction/books or fun topics, but today, my heart is heavy with dread.
As we inch closer to January 20th, and the unhinged rhetoric continues from the orange menace, the one who should never have been allowed to even be a candidate for the presidency again according to the 14th Amendment, Section 3 of our revered constitution, I am reminded of a side trip I took while in Berlin in 2010.
I’ll preface this by sharing first that I am not Jewish. I consider myself more of an atheist but with spiritual overtones. Sounds strange, I’m sure, but to simplify, I’m not convinced there is some old, white bearded man sitting on a throne directing this thing we call life, but that we are, somehow, all connected. Better? Okay. Moving on.
As I said, I’m not Jewish, and all I know of the Jewish experience was gleaned from history books, biographies, and movies. I don’t even know if I’ve ever known or worked with anyone Jewish any more than I know if any of them were Catholic, or Baptist, or Muslim. I never asked. Growing up, the only question I had for new kids I met was, “Hey, wanna play?” I just accepted those who accepted me, and as a kid growing up with a physical handicap, that’s all that was important. That pretty much stuck with me into adulthood.
I don’t care what faith people practice or if they practice one at all. I care only if they are good and kind and respectful people. Which brings me to now, in this unexpected, baffling, and frightening new era in American history where we are about to hand this country over to the very type of monster and his supporters that we fought an entire world world—and won!!!—to prevent, all for the sake of decorum.
I don’t get it. I don’t get why we’re not all out in the streets demanding Trump be disqualified as our constitution demands. I don’t understand why we’re not shouting at the top of our lungs, with pitchforks in hand, “Never Again!”
Never Again used to mean something. It meant NEVER AGAIN. No other explanation needed. The slogan itself comes from the Jewish Defense League which was founded the year I was born—1968—by Elie Wiesel. Never Again meant that we would never again repeat the global horror that was the holocaust. It seemed the world community was in agreement with that sentiment…until recently.
We’re on the cusp of a second Trump presidency. The first one was bad enough. The 34-count felon’s ham-handed handling of the pandemic resulted in the needless deaths of over half-a-million Americans. Hitler was responsible for the deaths of over 6 million Jews. A mass murderer by every definition.
Half a million Americans dead… What does that make Trump?
And he’s about to do it again. Calling for the mass round up and deportation of “illegal” immigrants, Texas is already answering the call of the adjudicated rapist by creating one of first Trumpian concentration camps near the southern border. In my state! I’m beyond horrified. Every single Texan should be ashamed for allowing this to happen, for not speaking out, for not taking it to the steps of the governor’s mansion.
So, what happened to ‘Never Again’?
This incoming joke of an administration is already dehumanizing people, labeling “other”, dividing us beyond repair. It’s Hitler’s playbook. Sadly, it works, but only when people let it, only when folks indulge their worst fears and hatreds—the worst in themselves. There are only two ways this can go.
One is back to this: (Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. Photo credits; Michele E. Gwynn)
The other? To once again find our humanity and realize we are all human, all the same, and all deserving of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Only then can we wholly reject Trump, et al, and see justice prevail. Only then can we begin to rebuild what we’ve lost in ourselves. Never again means never again. In every language. In every instance. Here and now.