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 – 

"How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause?"

-- Sophie Scholl--

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