Discounting history and facts has been one of humanity’s greatest failings. That remains true especially in the bright, glaring hot “now.”

During tonight’s horrifically moderated debate between a sleepwalking President Joe Biden and serial-lying convicted felon and former president, Donald Trump, we saw CNN abdicate all responsibility to moderate by not demanding even a shred of the truth. This event makes this wisdom from past experiences more pressing.

I wrote to a friend right after, “I’ve rarely seen a failure like this ever in presidential debates. I wonder if that’s crossing your mind? The stakes were too high, and CNN allowed this mess to happen. I think history tells us all failures like this are too costly.”

We already know that what has happened before, in a democracy like Weimar Germany 1933, can happen again.

If you’re not familiar with the ease with which a failed coup right-wing plotter, Adolf Hitler, and his Nazi thugs seized power without a majority of the people, I recommend reading this article from Foreign Policy in February 2021, “Weimar’s Lessons for Biden’s America.” There are also dozens of books in your public library. Many will have this story.

We also are dealing with brutal facts about our unfair world.

Authoritarian regimes thrive—in China, Russia, North Korea, etc.—and crush civilian democratic systems without many consequences once public movements are quashed. Who now remembers the brutal crushing of democracy in Hong Kong in between 2019 and 2021. It’s rarely talked about, ever, by media observers or international bodies that promote democratic values.

Minutes after the Biden-Trump debate ended, I sent an email to another older and long-time friend, whose wife is a Belgian citizen, if moving is on their minds. They have a home in Belgium already, and he likely can retire early as a minister.

He probably will mock me as being alarmist, as he normally like to use jokes and insults to deflect hard topics he doesn’t like to address. Also, he is a German American, who never really came to grips with the heritage of his ancestor’s home country, Germany, home of the Nazis and birthplace of what later became some of the greatest crimes against humanity.

I also think that many “smart” and “clever” liberal people, who think their wits and societal standing will endure a society that rips down civil society, will not be able to process past historic facts. In fact, most of us can’t because they are too hard to contemplate.

I believe we are now entering the chapter of historic events, where years later we’ll ask, why did that person see it coming and why did most of the people just allow it to happen and get sucked into the abyss, like the Nazi-sympathizing typical German citizen who was not a criminal or subhuman by Nazi standards. No, this is a new chapter of U.S. history. It’s a chapter where likely violent and also street-smart people will rise to the occasion.

I have already begun planning for what happens next in my country accordingly. I want to be very public about this because I know already this can happen, and I’ve been more than two dozen former Nazi camps that the dictatorship there and its racist regime built.

If you have studied history, you know events and mistakes and horrors can and do repeat themselves, all of the time. Denial is a failed strategy that leads to more failures. I now have to implement a plan.

Published June 27, 2024