We Will Not Be Silent
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
In declaring Donald Trump as the presumptive nominee for President of the United States, the Republicans put their party ahead of their country.
Seemingly overnight, Republicans from Paul Ryan to John McCain and Marco Rubio have fallen in line behind him.
They do so because they believe that they will be able to control Donald Trump once he gets to the White House, but if Donald Trump has proven anything throughout the course of his primary campaign-- its that you cannot control him.
It is up those with a conscience to stop Donald Trump in November.
We cannot sit idly by. We cannot be silent. History has shown us what happens when the majority remains silent in fear of an angry mob. People believe that we have learned from our mistakes, but a reality television star is now the Republican candidate for President of the United States of America. If you sincerely believe that what happened in Germany cannot happen in the United States, you are living in a false reality.
Let's first begin by dissecting Donald Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again," sometimes followed by "America First." Do you think that Donald Trump came up with this idea on his own? No. The slogan stems from a group that resisted the war in the 1940s. Its key principles are quite similar to what Donald Trump is arguing:
- The United States must build an impregnable defense for America
- No foreign power, nor group of powers, can successfully attack a prepared America
- America democracy can be preserved only by keeping out of the European war
- "Aid short of war" weakens national defense at home and threatens to involve America
Charles Lindenberg, in a speech promoting the principles of America First, mentioned the persecution of the Jewish people in Germany: “It is not difficult to understand
why Jewish people desire the overthrow of Nazi Germany. The persecution they
have suffered in Germany would be sufficient to make bitter enemies of any
race. No person with a sense of dignity of mankind can condone the persecution
of the Jewish race in Germany. But no person of honesty and vision can look on
their pro-war policy here today without seeing the dangers involved in such a
policy for us and for them.”
In other words, the Jews are on their own. America must come first.
This same logic is being used today by the Donald Trump campaign. The Syrian refugees are on their own. America must come first.
Donald Trump is taking his campaign slogan from a group of people who were unwilling to fight the Nazis.
None of this matters to his already converted supporters. As Donald Trump has said, he could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot someone, and not lose voters.
It should matter to anyone left who has a conscience. It should matter to anyone who was horrified when the Republican Party announced that Donald Trump was their presumptive nominee.
Because if we take even
half of what Donald Trump has said on the campaign trail seriously, if we
believe that he will do even half of what he has promised to do... we are
looking at a candidate for President of the United States who would willingly
suppress protesters and journalists. We are looking at a candidate who has praised
the Chinese response to Tiananmen Square. We are looking at a candidate who has
said there isn’t enough evidence to prove that Vladimir Putin has had
journalists killed for speaking out against him.
If Donald Trump becomes
President of the United States, the one thing that we can count on is that he
will attempt to curtail the freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment to the
United States Constitution. He has not flip-flopped on this issue. Hasn’t he
insisted, over and over again, that we shouldn’t trust the Media? That the
Media is out to get him? That we should only trust who he tells us to trust?
It is, perhaps, the one
issue where he has remained constant--- that free speech can and should be
suppressed, as long as it puts America First.
When a leader asks his
people to give up certain freedoms for the good of their country, he is asking
them to put their conscience aside.
When people put their
conscience aside in favor of fear, then it doesn’t take much to persuade them
to give up even more.
Albert Einstein once
famously said, “never do anything against
conscience, even if the state demands it.”
And so we continue in the
spirit of the White Rose, whose founding members risked their lives to persuade
fellow citizens to resist the regime of Nazi Germany, because their conscience
would not allow them to give into fear.
They may say we are
overreacting. They may call us irrational. But when the time comes to face our
judgement, whether it be in this life or the next, at least we will be able to
hold our heads high. We will be able to say that we saw him as a threat to
everything about America we hold dear, and we tried to stop it.
Our conscience will be
clear.
Will yours?
“The real damage is done
by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be
left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything
bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who don’t like
to make waves—or enemies.”
-
Sophie Scholl –
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