The early 20th-century novelist (“Babbitt,” “Main Street” and “Arrowsmith”) and social observer Sinclair Lewis reportedly predicted, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” That train has now arrived at the station.
Unfortunately, bigots and bullies have always been part of our political life, but their voices had become muted as racial, ethnic and religious minorities began to gain their constitutional rights. How ephemeral those gains now seem as we see “nice” people surrender publicly to their baser, their faces contorted with hatred. Marching through our streets chanting Nazi slogans, they desecrate the American flags they carry alongside swastikas, that outrageously evil emblem that has flown over the greatest atrocities in human history.
That those marchers should be emboldened by the dissembling, inflammatory rhetoric of a president of the United States betrays every ideal upon which this nation was founded. Whether we attribute his unprecedented malfeasance in office to simple ignorance, buffoonery, mental illness, cynical opportunism and/or collusion with foreign kleptocracies, he is plainly unfit for any government office.
Rodney Johnson
Farmington