President QAnon Don & The Trumpification of America: What Would Anne Frank Do?
Anne Frank would be terrified of four more years of President QAnon Don and his “Trump Trains” of Tiki Torchers if she was alive.
She’d warn us that Trump’s excuse that his followers were just “protecting” the Biden/Harris campaign bus sounded eerily familiar to Hitler’s excuse that he was merely “protecting” the countries he invaded.
She’d also warn us that his embrace of the QAnon cult (whose conspiratorial beliefs and propaganda techniques share a similar hue with those of Hitler and the Nazis) forbodes a frightening future for the country.
Wearing a John Lewis tee shirt and chanting “Black Lives Matter,” she’d be “in the streets” too, horrified not only by systemic racism and the State’s targeting of black citizens with Police surveillance, violence and murder but also by what President Trump and Republicans are doing to suppress and disenfranchise black voters.
She’d also be frightened by Trump’s 3am Tweet on Election Day, which even Twitter flagged. He demanded that “Something must be done!” about Pennsylvania being allowed by the Supreme Court to count its ballots for up to three days after Election Day and his warnings of violence. She’d rightly fear it was a call-to-arms to his Nazi-like paramilitary supporters to stop the vote count by force and intimidation as well as a veiled threat to the Court itself — that it better rule in his favor if the final outcome of the election hangs in its balance…or else.
She’d also be using social media, knocking on doors and texting “S.O.S. — SAVE OUR SOUL” — to help BIDEN/HARRIS and DEMS defeat Trump and Trumpism and “save the soul of the nation.” If 18, she’d be voting not only for Joe and Kamala, but for Dems down ticket too, knowing that they need majorities in both Houses of Congress to end the nightmare and bring a brighter future.
She’d also sign up on Protect the Vote and the AFL-CIO websites to help stop Trump, Republicans and their armed gangs from stopping the vote and stealing the election. They’re trying to do so in Michigan now, stormtrooping the ballot counters hours after Trump in the middle of the night (sounding like he’d snorted a cocktail of drugs), announced a veritable coup on national TV.
Anne would have words of wisdom for us too, like her July 15, 1944 reflections on the Nazi nightmare, which are as pertinent now as then:
“It’s utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions.”
Likewise, we “feel the suffering of millions” wrought by Trump and Republican rule.
We’re terrified by how much greater the “chaos, suffering and death” a second Trump term would bring. His “herd immunity” approach to COVID, denial of its destructiveness, politicization of mask wearing and social distancing protocols, reckless sponsoring of super spreader events and scapegoating of Democratic States and Governors, for example, have already wreaked untold havoc and destruction on our lives and economy.
We “hear the approaching thunder” of his Tweetstorms, threats and rants against Black Lives Matter, immigrants, the media, Democrats and his political “enemies,” his dismissal of science and obsession with “domination,” his firing of whistleblowers, competent professionals and inspector generals and his hiring of quacks and toadying loyalists, his endless lies, propaganda, gaslighting and baseless conspiracy theories, his embrace of white supremacy, incitement of far right domestic terrorists, and manufacture of leftwing scapegoats and bogus boogeymen.
We also hear how all of it’s been excused, amplified and in some cases been inspired by Fox News and the rightwing echo chamber, QAnon, MAGA rallies, Republican elected officials, and the rest of Trumpworld “that will one day destroy us too” if we fail to interdict their destructiveness.
The whole world has seen our country “transformed into a wilderness” by the greed and incompetence of a wannabe dictator, such that the United States can no longer be trusted to lead responsibly on the most pressing issues facing humanity, such as the pandemic, global climate change, peace and security.
In truth, it will be “utterly impossible” for us to build a collective democratic life on the foundations of four more years of Trumpification. The rule of law, free and fair elections, the right to freely speak out and protest his government, effective oversight, independence of scientific/health experts, the acknowledgment of even basic facts or a shared sense of reality, to name but a few, would be so severely curtailed as to cease to substantively exist.
His strategic cyber Tweetbullying, incitement of far right violence, and the use of the threat of that violence to terrorize the opposition would further the Trumpification of America and our nightmarish descent.
This is not hard to imagine since Trumpification/Nazification is well under way and would only be sped up by his recent decree, which ended civil service protections for a hundred thousand federal workers and his threatened firings of Fauci and the heads of the FBI and CIA.
“And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”
So said Anne Frank, in lines directly following the ones from her July 15, 1944 diary entry quoted earlier.
It took the Allied victory and defeat of Hitler and Nazism to end the nightmarish cruelty, which ended young Anne’s life in a concentration camp before she could experience the change for the better.
Our change for the better begins not only by voting for BIDEN/HARRIS & DEMS. Over time, we have the power to end the abject cruelty of the Trump regime and transform MAGA into:
MAKE
AMERICA
GOP-free
AT LAST
But we cannot stop. We must continue to protect the vote, make sure all ballots are counted, and defend our victory should we prevail, as I know we will. Change for the better will not come without a fight. We must fight today, tomorrow and every day thereafter and at all levels of society and government with all the resources, ingenuity and energy at our disposal.
De-Trumpification will not be easy, especially in light of the damage wrought by Trump and his Republican enablers these past four years. That includes the domestic terrorist forces he’s helped unleash (e.g. Kyle Rittenhouse, for whom he and his Administration and some Republicans have provided support; the “anti-lock down” movement he supported, which spawned the terrorists who planned to kidnap and execute Governor Whitmer, etc.).
It’s up to us to do the work of creating a truly just and equitable society and protect it from the forces of fascism, represented by Trump, his followers, and the Trumpian Republican Party. Only then will there be a chance to return “peace and tranquility” to our country in ways they’ve never existed before.
Anne Frank would do nothing less.