Embarking on the Titanic

Not a day goes by, sometimes not many hours, before the Trump administration commits yet another atrocity against an alleged foreign adversary or against its own American people. We appear to be headed inexorably toward our own destruction without a clue of what awaits us. As citizens of a nation heralded for its unprecedented wealth and virtually unlimited personal freedoms, we remain blind to Trump’s machinations. The sailing of the Titanic in 1911 provides an apt metaphor for the United States today; the band of American optimism plays on as we unwittingly let our guard down.

Increasingly, during these “Trump” years I’ve gained a better understanding of Germany in the 1930s and a window into how the average German probably reacted to the Nazis. Historians have long questioned how Germany with its world class universities and rich culture could succumb to the personality of Hitler and his repeated atrocities – the burning of the Reichstag, Kristallnacht, the Beer Hall Putsch and his use of the Brownshirts to disrupt political opponents and terrorize the public. I’m afraid that what is happening here today helps us answer that question; MAGA = NAZI, and Americans are no different in their reactions than were the Germans. While the circumstances facing Germany in the 1930s may have been significantly different, the very human reactions of its people foreordained those of the current U. S. electorate. We have experienced our own coup attempt in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, the sending of ICE and the army troops to cities on trumped up charges of violence and insurrection, the equally spurious legal attacks on political opponents and intimidation of American citizens, including some whom have been jailed and even deported illegally.

There are, of course, in both the cases of Germany and the United States, countless examples of the MAGA NAZI comparison that reveal what is happening today in the United States. While there are too many to catalogue here, we should all be cognizant of the magnitude and intent of Trump’s policies. For more on this, read Ben Rhodes, “The Thread Tying Together Everything Trump Does,” in The New York Times, Sunday, October 26, 2025.