What is happening to America, known since its founding as “The Shining City On A Hill,” a term derived from Jesus’s teaching in the Sermon on the Mount, making this country a model of Christian charity, a beacon of hope for the world and a place where all could be free?
By contrast this is a quote from Donald Trumps campaign speech on November 11, 2023: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections”.... Hitler and Mussolini often used the word “vermin” to denigrate Jews and their political enemies.”
So who is vermin? Me? You? I could be vermin because I’m a Democrat, making me part of the “radical left?” But I’m a loyal Texas grandmother bom in Houston in the late 1930s with a master’s degree in my field from an Ivy League College. Does my education make me vermin because I’m a free thinker? You could be vermin too if you don’t agree with Trump’s plans to build unassailable power in the presidency by “increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White H o u s e . . T h a t wipes out the balance of power in the U.S. between the 3 branches of government.
If you disagree with this “sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government,” you could be vermin. You could be vermin too if you believe America shouldn’t put immigrants in what amounts to concentration camps until they can be deported like Trump will do if he’s reelected.
Maybe I’m a “snowflake.” You could be too. Life for snowflakes could be pretty scary if Trump is reelected In 2024. Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesman told The Washington Post on November 13, 2023, that snowflakes “will be crushed when President Trump returns to the White House.” He’s talking about people who recognize Trump’s Nazi comments.
So who’s a snowflake? People in their 80s and 90s - today’s grandparents and great grandparents - people who know Trump used Nazi language in his recent Truth Social posts and campaign speeches just like Hitler and Mussolini did when they were the dictators of Germany and Italy.
The next generations of Americans were horrified too when they learned Hitler killed 6 million Jews during World War II, gassing and starving them to death in concentration camps. Many students today are horrified when they find out about it. So that makes for lots of snowflakes in America.
More thoughts for all of us No Democratic candidate has ever called Bepublicans vermin. What does it say when Americans, led by a presidential candidate, see fellow Americans as vermin? Beferencing humans as vermin is endemic to Nazism. The term was created by the father of Nazism and is embraced today by the grandson of a German immigrant who is running again to be President of the United States of America.
Jodie Sinclair is an award-winning writer who holds a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and resides in Bandera, Texas.
