Standing Up to Trump’s Un-American Nightmare

The first weekend in August, the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe showed up in Concord, New Hampshire to intimidate us in front of our capitol. They chased families out of the park, barked hate into a megaphone, and conducted an organized and choreographed march, complete with Nazi flags and repugnant chants.

I am Jewish, for the record. I have a family portrait on my wall, and two of the people in it died in the camps. I’m also disabled. I was once an able-bodied EMT, and even a state legislator. But I got sick. And like far too many in chronic pain, I now spend my days fighting for the healthcare I need, while greedy insurance company CEOs and the corrupt politicians they’ve bought and paid for live high on the hog.

I’m not afraid of Nazis. You can punch a Nazi in the mouth. But I am afraid of Nazi policies. The idea of a “master race” is antithetical to American values. Yet, eugenics are increasingly popular. The same tech bro billionaires who bankrolled Donald Trump’s presidency and the MAGA majorities in the House and Senate are paying to gene-edit babies to make them “smarter,” and “athletically better.” American Eagle’s advertising campaign with Sydney Sweeney, and Dunkin’s advertising campaign with Gavin Casalegno reference genetics to put neurotypical, white, Christian actors on pedestal. This, in a time when Trump’s border czar admits that Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains people based on “physical appearance,” and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has called for data registries of autistic Americans, doing away with vaccines he claims cause neurodiversity, and firing anyone who isn’t willing to toe the line. This is the same RFK Jr. who made antisemitic claims about Covid-19 immunity, and stated vaccine mandates were worse than Anne Frank’s persecution.

These ideas are dangerous, not because they feed outrage algorithms on social media, but because they seek to remove millions of people from our democracy and replace economic mobility with a caste system void of economic opportunity. The Constitution’s preamble reads, “We the People” because our Founders knew that G-d given rights preceded citizenship in any nation. These words were written before our own Constitution’s ratification. America is America because Americans sought to make a living as workers and entrepreneurs before we had a federal government. We were promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness before the American Revolution was won. And that has remained the promise of the American Dream ever since. There have never been any asterisks applied. And every past effort to deny someone the rewards of their work because of race, gender, ability, nationality, or religion has been met with resistance, because ours is a country that believes effort, not pedigree, should be rewarded.

Or at least we did until Trump.

The right to petition our government for grievances has been replaced with a version of democratic governance that mirrors the frustrations of automated touch-tone customer service and the unhelpfulness of scripted chatbots.

After passing his “Big Bill” to gut Medicaid, Medicare, and more to give tax cuts to billionaires and corporations, Trump called for a 2025 census that only counts the people he wishes to be counted, days after signing an executive order to lock up anyone experiencing homelessness. And in so doing he is overtly telling us that noncitizens and those experiencing hardship have no claim to the American Dream. Imagine saying that to people who fled their countries of birth like Albert Einstein, Desi Arnaz, Gloria Estefan, and Madeline Albright. Imagine saying that to Suze Orman, Halle Berry, James Cameron, or Jim Carrey, who once lived in their cars. Again, as you begin to add in the layers of genetic modification, and the further expansion of economic inequality through a trillion dollar AI arms race that is hyperfocused on eliminating middle class and working class jobs, and you are left with an unmistakable picture of an unrecognizable America. One in which class mobility exists only in fables. And the right to petition our government for grievances has been replaced with a version of democratic governance that mirrors the frustrations of automated touch-tone customer service and the unhelpfulness of scripted chatbots designed to increase your frustration level, so you just give up.

Everyone deserves to earn a living wage working one job instead of three. We deserve affordable childcare and education for our kids without mountains of debt. We deserve comprehensive healthcare from the day we’re born to the day we die. We deserve a planet that is living and breathing for generations to come. And we deserve a retirement with security and dignity. Anyone who says that we cannot afford this vision of America is lying. Our country is not suffering from scarcity. We are suffering from greed. There’s plenty to go around to make sure that every American can thrive, not just survive if the billionaires and corporations don’t steal it.

The call to Make America Great Again has been fundamentally un-American. It has given us a government that turns its back on democracy. And an economy that proactively prevents millions of people from meeting their basic needs. It’s time to reject every un-American thing Trump and MAGA are doing. No more eugenics. No more denying anyone the promise of the American Dream because of where they were born or the circumstances they live in. No more billionaires and corporations that don’t pay taxes. No more politicians who don’t understand that they work for us, regardless of whether we can or did vote for them. Because in this country, we stand up to bullies, we punch Nazis, and we don’t care where you’re from or what you have, as long as you’re willing to roll up your sleeves.