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Reality through rose-colored glasses [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-05-03
You’re probably all sick of me and what you may see as my naiveté, but this site is exhausting with its intensely negative focus.
A diary about the vote of the Judiciary Committee to allow federal funds to be used to deport U.S. citizens is a case in point. Yes, it’s a frightening development, but so is almost everything these days. The comments devolved into our usual “Dems aren’t doing anything,” “Dems suck at messaging,” and, perhaps most alarmingly, “This is the prelude to mass murder.”
I responded, saying I agreed with the murder sentiment, with a couple of caveats. First, the vote is so monstrous it may wake up even more people in addition to those already in the streets, and second, all bets are off once/if they shoot a protestor.
With that in mind, I decided to do a little research about German resistance to the Nazis. I read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” as well as “Inside the Third Reich” by Albert Speer. But that was decades ago, and I don’t have time to dig them out now.
So I turned to that unimpeachable source, Wikipedia, and asked “Did ordinary Germans resist the Nazis?” The answer is enlightening and shows us a way forward.
First, it seems to many that all Germans rolled over and played dead, but that’s not true. There was a resistance, but it did not have a label, like the French Resistance. However, it was weak, and there’s a reason for that:
“The German resistance consisted of small, isolated groups that were unable to mobilize mass political opposition.[4]”
The quote is from this work: Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah (2010). Hitler's willing executioners: ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Vintage eBooks. ISBN 978-0-307-42623-9. OCLC 681527358.
And there’s our answer: we continue to protest en masse, across the country, as we have been. The more people protest, the more people join them, until we get rid of Trump and his enablers. We work with groups like 50501 and Indivisible to make sure we are creating a national movement. And I believe we are.
Unfortunately, this requires a lot of stamina because they are relentless. I missed the last two protests because I was too sick to go to the Tesla Takedown, and just too exhausted for May Day. But I’ll be out there again as soon as I can, and I refuse to feel guilty because I’m not marching every day.
We must keep it up, and at the same time, realize we’re not superhuman, and may sometimes have to take a break. We need to stop reacting with despair and outrage to everything they do because there will be another illegal or unconstitutional BS action tomorrow. Take a breath and rejoin the fight as soon as possible.
A quote attributed to Churchill (as almost all quotes are, unless they’re Shakespearean) is simple to say but hard to do, but we must follow his advice: “Never, never, never, never, never give up.”
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