Kurt Vonnegut as described by Jon Stewart, was a "broken hopeful man". A man who witnessed the horror of the bombing of Dresden and World War II. Yet, in his writing, thought often what people could be -- their capacity to be good and to do remarkable things.
My dad and I don't talk about what happened during the Vietnam War, but when I was studying it in college, I got a small understanding of the cruelty of it. I tried to imagine my father as a young boy and then teenager witnessing death, chaos, and violence on a scale no one person can fully understand. Imagine young girls, their skin burned off by napalm. Young men, blown to pieces and unrecognizable in their remains. I think it's not too different from a Palestinian in Gaza in 2024. He, luckily, fled to States in 1972, escaping that harrowing nightmare.
My dad came to the States with a sense of optimism. Here, there was no war, and there were no spontaneous bombs dropping from clear skies. There were no late-night air sirens, whispering impending doom to sleeping children. There were no minefields to blow off legs and arms. That kind of violence was far away. With nothing but abundance, cocaine and champagne, and 70's rock, my dad must have felt really good about the future. Maybe his dreams, his ambitions could be founded here. Maybe everything is going to be okay.
My dad's dreams and ambitions did not work out as he had imagined. He is now very much the shadow of himself today. Unemployed for years, treated less than by his white bosses, looked down upon by others in his community, seen as a man past his prime whenever he applied for senior-level jobs, his inability to provide for his family -- what that does to a man is an unrelenting sense of despair. And what that does to a young man is radicalization.
Donald Trump won and won decisively. He won big with young men across race, income, and geography. He won young Hispanic men in a significant way. Senator Bernie Sanders offered this to say about the election:
It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them. First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well. While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change. And they're right.
How did Nazi Germany recruit young men to join the Brown Shirts? There is an idea that you will not find happy joyful men becoming Nazis. Fascism requires certain discontent, loneliness, disaffection, and humiliation in young men to radicalize them with propaganda. The country made a choice to elect America's Hitler -- a statement by Vice President-Elect JD Vance in respects to President-Elect Donald Trump.
I am a heartbroken hopeful man. Yes, indeed, even after the election results made it clear, the country has elected a king. The work to serve our democracy starts today. I aim to gather, organize, and lift up other heartbroken hopeful people. We should not cede any uncontested and unchallenged ground. We must reach out to young men and build relationships with them. The cure for loneliness is not power and domination, but community and service. There is a faith I have in believing these unremarkable young boys can transform into remarkable men, with character and integrity. We cannot give up on them. We cannot let them be lost by the air sirens of fascism, whispering their problems can be solved by one man.
You can say that you don't like the result of election, find solace in knowing that you are not alone. Don't cooperate and definitely say no. Make it hard for fascists to make you do what they want you to do. Make it clear that you're not afraid. Their thuggery relies on others being scared and alone. Make them work for their rule. And lastly, don't obey in advance.
I've revisited Rick Steves's Story of Fascism to understand its power in capturing the minds of people. History is an instructive teacher. We would do well to learn from those who went through it.