This is Not Your Father’s Authoritarianism…

… but he’d recognize it. In 2015, my dad (who lost his entire family in the Holocaust before joining the Partisans and spending years fighting the Nazis) said of Trump’s speeches. “You know, they remind me of Hitler’s early speeches when I vas a kid. Everyone laughed at those speeches, too.” Over the next few years, he went on to accurately predict just about all of Trump’s moves, including the efforts to steal the 2020 election. He knew what authoritarianism looks like because he’d seen it before. Those voices are becoming fewer and fainter as the years pass. I’d argue that’s directly related the rise of authoritarianism and increased antisemitism we’re seeing worldwide. That’s not exactly what Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s piece in NYT Mag (Gift Article) is about. It’s about a lot of things. But for me it’s a story about that and an explanation about why I’m still passing along my dad’s warnings. This Is the Holocaust Story I Said I Wouldn’t Write. “All the Holocaust survivors were dying, and at home in New York, spray-painted swastikas had been showing up all over town, and my nephews had stopped wearing their yarmulkes. Yes, all the Holocaust survivors were dying, and we were locked in debates over whether a salute given by a newly installed government official was a Nazi dog-whistle or a Nazi Nazi-whistle or maybe just an awkward wave or a weird shout-out to his buds. What would become of stories like Mr. Lindenblatt’s if the generation of mine that was supposed to inherit them had taken the privilege that came with another generation’s survival and decided not to listen? What would happen to these stories when there was no one left to tell them?”

+ Here’s another headline wouldn’t surprise my dad: Trump Plans $92 Million Military Parade—Honoring Himself.