Listening to President Donald Trump’s latest rant about the brown menace “invading” our country, I remember the number of times some demagogue has rallied the people against someone who is not “us.” Each time they have assured the people that the end of America is on the doorstep. Every time the demon hordes have somehow metamorphosed into the people who built America.

Once again, we are asked to believe that another group of people are bringing crime and disease, and aren’t our problem anyway. Someday we’ll look back (again!) and understand we were hoodwinked into taking part in someone else’s evil doings. Once again people who only want the dream that is America will need to starve and die while we huddle in fear.

The last time millions of people asked for our protection we turned away. Holocaust memorials all over our country will not let us forget that we turned our backs on millions of Jews who were headed to gas chambers. Those despicable people who opposed Jewish emigration said many of the same things being said today, and many of us believed them.

How many more times are we going to allow ourselves to be the playthings of demagogues who would use us for evil? Can we really throw a blanket over the Statue of Liberty and deny its place in our national conscience? I am surprised Trump hasn’t tried to sell it for scrape.

Our future as a nation is in extending our hand to allow another group of people the American dream. These people will become the builders of America that most of us became. I hope we’ll tell the demagogues that we found our conscience and to take their foolishness on down the road.

 

Dean Crocker
Estero, Florida, and Manchester