Written By Jerry Elman

Introduction

Our parents survived what most could not. Holocaust survivors carried scars that never faded, but they also carried lessons — about freedom, humanity, and the danger of silence.

Those lessons became the inheritance of their children — the second generation — who grew up surrounded by unspoken pain and unending resilience. We learned that democracy, with all its noise and flaws, allowed Jews to live without fear, to belong, and to rebuild.

Now, decades later, both survivors and their children face a world that feels eerily divided and uncertain. Some see danger in the rise of authoritarian thinking; others find comfort in strong leadership and the promise of order.

This article explores that painful divide — between those who seek safety through freedom and those who seek it through control — and asks what happens if we forget what our parents’ survival was meant to teach us.

Inherited fear and divergent reactions

For many children of survivors, safety was never guaranteed—it was earned, guarded, and fragile. Our parents built lives in America with one eye always watching for the next threat. That vigilance became part of our DNA.

When some of us see leaders using scapegoats, mocking institutions, or normalizing cruelty, it triggers an ancestral alarm. We remember how propaganda, silence, and fear paved the road to Auschwitz. We see democracy’s guardrails bending and hear our parents’ warning: “It can happen anywhere.”

But others in our generation experience that same fear differently. Growing up in homes filled with anxiety and distrust, they crave order, authority, and simplicity. They long for someone strong enough to protect what they love, to say what others are afraid to say, to bring back a sense of control.

In that search for strength, some find reassurance in political forces that promise to “restore” safety and pride—even when those movements echo patterns our parents once fled. It isn’t hypocrisy; it’s a survival reflex. For those who inherited their parents’ terror, the instinct to find a protector can overpower the instinct to question him.

The weight of silence and the need for belonging

These differences don’t come from politics—they come from how we were raised to survive in a world that once turned its back on our parents.

Silence was the first language of many survivor households. We grew up in homes where the air carried the weight of what was never said. Some of us learned compassion from that silence; others learned distrust.

Those who internalized compassion often became educators, activists, and bridge-builders—determined to make the world hear what their parents could not say. They see warning signs everywhere because they were trained to.

Those who internalized distrust learned that nobody comes to save you. They see government, media, and authority not as protectors, but as potential oppressors. When they hear slogans about taking back control, it resonates with the deep suspicion their parents carried toward systems that once abandoned them.

Both reactions come from the same root: survival. One seeks safety through empathy; the other seeks it through control.

Echoes of the past, mirrors of the present

Our trauma doesn’t only live in memory—it lives in how we see danger, safety, and even leadership.

The Holocaust taught survivors that democracy is fragile and that evil often disguises itself as patriotism. Their children learned that too—but not in the same way.

Those who fear history repeating itself see a pattern in the erosion of truth, the dehumanization of minorities, and the glorification of strongmen. They see how quickly the ordinary can turn monstrous.

Those who fear chaos see something else: disorder, moral decay, and cultural division. To them, a forceful leader represents order, not oppression.

Both groups carry the scars of inherited trauma. Both are trying to prevent the next catastrophe. They just disagree on what that catastrophe looks like—and who is causing it.

A generation torn between memory and identity

What makes this divide so painful is that it happens within families. I’ve met children of survivors who won’t speak to their siblings because of politics. Parents and children who stopped sharing holiday tables. People who survived their parents’ silence now drowning in another kind of silence—this one self-imposed.

That fracture cuts deep—it’s not just political, it’s personal, and it echoes the same silence many of us grew up in.

We forget that the trauma we inherited also includes the inability to listen without fear. When every disagreement feels like betrayal, when every election feels like survival, we are still living in the shadow of our parents’ terror.

To heal, we must first acknowledge that both reactions—alarm and allegiance—come from the same wound. Our parents survived persecution. We inherited the echo of that fear, but without the same clarity of who the enemy is. So we search for one, sometimes in the wrong places.

How the survivors might see their children’s divide

If the survivors were alive to watch these arguments unfold around our dinner tables, most would recognize something achingly familiar: the tension between wanting safety and wanting justice. They lived it every day after liberation.

Many of them might look at their children—the second generation—and understand the roots of both fear and faith. They would see that those who sound the alarm are repeating their own early warnings from the 1930s, when neighbors shrugged off danger until it was too late. They would also recognize, in the children who cling to order and strength, the exhaustion they once felt after years of chaos, when any promise of stability sounded like salvation.

Survivors knew the language of propaganda, but they also knew the ache of insecurity. Some might gently remind their children that tyranny does not always wear a foreign uniform; it can come draped in flags and familiar slogans. Others, hardened by what they endured, might simply sigh and say, “We just wanted you to feel safe.”

They would likely grieve that trauma has divided their descendants. They suffered so their children could live free—not to be consumed by new hatreds or new fears. Watching the second generation fracture along political lines, they would see echoes of the world that once betrayed them: a world where people stopped listening, stopped questioning, stopped seeing each other as human.

When survivors themselves diverge

Even among the few survivor alive today, the responses are not uniform. Some have become the fiercest defenders of democracy, warning that the rhetoric and methods of authoritarianism feel painfully familiar. They carry living memories of what happens when truth becomes optional and power goes unchecked.

But others, scarred by chaos and lifelong fear, are drawn to authority that promises safety. After a lifetime of instability, the appeal of a strong, decisive leader can feel like relief, not threat. It doesn’t mean they’ve forgotten what happened—it means they still live with the terror of losing control. For some, “never again” means never again to disorder, uncertainty, or weakness.

Both kinds of survivors are responding to the same experience through different emotional doors: one guarded by vigilance, the other by exhaustion. The lesson they share is not about politics, but about human fragility—the way trauma reshapes what safety looks like long after the danger is gone.

Democracy, fear, and the search for safety

Survivors learned that democracy—imperfect and noisy as it is—gave Jews the space to breathe again. It gave us a voice, a vote, and the right to live as equals among our neighbors. For the first time in centuries, we could belong without hiding. Democracy allowed us to assimilate, to build communities, to feel safe enough to dream.

History shows what happens when that freedom disappears. Our worst times have never come under democracy; they came when power was absolute—when dictators decided who was pure and who was expendable. From Pharaoh to the Czars, from fascists to communists, Jewish life has always withered under authoritarian rule.

And yet, democracy is not comfort. It is messy, loud, and full of contradiction. It is chaos precisely because power is not absolute. No one voice rules. Checks and balances collide. Compromise is required to move even one step forward. Progress is slow, and justice is never perfect. But that friction—the constant push and pull—is what keeps tyranny from taking root.

Those who crave order often mistake that friction for weakness. But survivors knew better. They understood that the confusion of democracy is far safer than the silence of dictatorship. In a democracy, people argue. They protest. They disagree. But they are still free to speak, to vote, to dissent. Under authoritarianism, there is order—but it is the order of fear, of obedience, of vanished voices.

And so we return to the divide: between those who equate safety with control and those who see safety in freedom. Who is right? Perhaps neither fully. The real danger comes when we forget that democracy’s noise—the very thing that exhausts us—is what protects us.

Would the past majority of survivors who longed for order and security truly choose authoritarianism if they stood here now? I doubt it. They knew what happens when one man’s voice becomes the law. They sought peace, not submission. They wanted safety, not servitude. What they truly wanted was a world where power had limits, where justice could be challenged, and where no government could decide who deserves to live in fear.

The lesson they left us is clear: democracy is chaos, but it is sacred chaos. It demands patience, humility, and courage. And when we grow tired of its noise, that is the moment we must defend it most.

The responsibility of memory

Our parents taught us to speak out against injustice, but also to understand suffering in others. If we truly honor them, our role is not to weaponize their memory for any political cause, but to apply its moral weight with honesty and empathy.

We must call out authoritarianism when it rises, but also reach out to those in our own community who see things differently—not as enemies, but as fellow inheritors of a shared trauma trying to find meaning in a disordered world.

The test of our generation is not whether we agree politically, but whether we can still recognize each other as family—as children of the same survivors, bound by the same history.

How we move forward without repeating the past

History warns us that democracy does not collapse overnight—it erodes slowly, through silence, fear, and indifference. The 1930s remind us how easily ordinary people can be swept along when truth becomes inconvenient and hate becomes acceptable.

Preventing that pattern here is not a matter of party or ideology—it’s a matter of conscience. We deal with this divide not by trying to win every argument, but by refusing to abandon each other.

We keep the past from repeating when we:

• Defend truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
• Refuse to dehumanize, even those we disagree with.
• Stand up for the vulnerable, because silence helped destroy our families once before.

Our parents survived because they held on to humanity in the midst of horror.
We honor them by doing the same—by standing guard against the corrosion of truth and compassion, wherever it appears, and by ensuring that fear never again silences moral courage.

Reflection

Our parents survived the darkest chapter in history, but survival alone wasn’t the end of their story—it was the beginning of ours.

As their children and grandchildren, we carry their strength and their fear.

The question now isn’t just what we remember, but how we use those memories—to build bridges or to deepen divides. How do we honor their survival? By listening, learning, and refusing to let fear decide who we become.

Author’s Note

Jerry Elman is a second-generation Holocaust survivor, educator, and author of Miracles Through Hell: A True Story of Holocaust Survival and Intergenerational Healing.
He writes about inherited trauma, Jewish historical identity, and the lessons of history for today’s divided world.

What the Attack Revealed About the World—and About Ourselves

“The mirror does not lie; it only reflects what we refuse to see.”
— Author’s Reflection

Written by Jerry Elman, October 7, 2025

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Intro

The state of the world today—and the bullshit I see every day from people on the right, the left, and even the middle—has convinced me to remove my filters when I write. Especially when I focus on Jew-hate and our modern failure to address it. We as Jews are not victims. We are as much of the problem as anyone else—especially American Jews.

On October 7, 2023, Israel faced unimaginable horror—but what followed exposed something deeper about us as Jews and about the world we live in. This piece isn’t filtered or polite. It’s a reflection on what that day revealed: our blindness, our failures, and the courage we now owe to truth.

Preface

October 7, 2023, was not only an assault on Israel—it was a moment of reckoning for Jews everywhere.

The brutality of that day shattered illusions that history had moved on from Jew-hate, and it exposed how little we have learned about confronting it.

But it also forced us to look inward—to ask why, generation after generation, we continue to rely on the same failed responses: political lobbying, victimhood narratives, and hollow slogans.

What we saw on October 7 was not only what the world thinks of Jews, but what Jews have come to expect of ourselves.

What Broke, What Was Revealed, and What We Must Remember

I have spent years writing about how Jew-hate mutates—it changes its costume to fit the era while keeping the same bones. I’ve traced how a century of British promises and reversals planted landmines across the Middle East and then walked away, leaving everyone else to step on them.

I’ve written about my parents’ survival, the silence that followed, and the way that silence settled on the children who came after.

But nothing prepared me for October 7, 2023—how quickly the past stood up inside the present and spoke in a voice I knew.

“October 7 didn’t begin a story—it revealed one we’ve refused to finish.”

That day ripped away the illusion that Jews are safe if we behave—that if we speak softly enough and apologize often enough, the mob will choose another target.

It also exposed another lie: that Palestinian dignity can be built on the destruction of Israel, or that the world’s betrayals can somehow be repaid by killing families in their homes.

October 7 made clear what my book manuscript argues from its first page: when promises are broken and maps are drawn to please empires rather than safeguard people, the bill eventually comes due—always in human lives.

I carry this not only as a writer but as a second-generation survivor. Trauma is a strange archivist; it files sounds and images in our bodies.

The footage from that day—the panic, the smoke, the screaming—pulled old files:

• my father’s memories of flight to the forest and fighting back,
• my mother’s unspoken dread and fear,
• and my own lifetime of bracing for a blow you can’t see but always feel coming.

If you are a child of survivors, you know what I mean: the way your muscles read danger before your mind does. October 7 activated that alarm. It still rings.

But this reflection isn’t about fear. It’s about clarity—four truths that sit at the core of my work.

1. Jew-hate did not pause for progress

It adapted. It traded armbands for hashtags and declared itself “anti-oppression.”

The speed with which some people celebrated the massacre—or rushed to justify it—wasn’t spontaneous. It was the result of years of excusing rhetoric that paints Jews as colonial interlopers, Israel as uniquely monstrous, and Jewish pain as negotiable.

When a culture normalizes the dehumanization of Jews, slaughter becomes a think piece.

Old hatred. New grammar. Same disease.

2. Leadership matters—and the world’s failures are not evenly distributed

In my book manuscript, (I still have not decided to publish it) I show how the British drew lines, made promises, and then reneged—leaving both Jews and Arabs with incompatible expectations and a matchbox of grievances.

That imperial habit—rule, split, abandon—set patterns that Arab leaders and the international community too often repeated: choosing conflict narratives over state-building, proxy wars over compromise, spectacle over dignity.

October 7 was not just the work of terrorists; it was the harvest of decades of leadership that preferred rage to responsibility.

And yet, even when we name those failures, we must keep our moral compass steady:

No cause, no grievance, and no history can ever justify the deliberate killing of civilians through terrorism.

3. Compassion cannot be rationed, but accountability must be precise

I hold two truths at once:

• My heart breaks for Palestinian civilians trapped in cycles they did not design.
• My heart also breaks for Jewish families hunted for being alive.

Compassion does not mean erasing accountability.
Those who slaughter families make that decision.
Those who teach their children that martyrdom is a future are not victims of circumstance—they are authors of tragedy.
And the world powers that fund, arm, and excuse terror while pretending to “manage” the conflict are complicit, not helpless.

If we want a future worthy of our children, we must start telling the truth about responsibility.

4. The hostages must remain at the center

From the first hours of that day until this very moment, people are being held—mothers, brothers, grandparents, children.

Hostages are not talking points; they are lives interrupted mid-breath.

Every rally, every negotiation, every headline should begin with their names.

When the world grows bored—and it always does—we must grow louder. Bring them home.

The Failure of Jewish Leadership After October 7

If October 7 revealed the persistence of Jew-hate, it also exposed something deeply uncomfortable within us—our failure as a Jewish people to confront it honestly.

For all our talk of Never Again, most of our established organizations still act as if that phrase is a fundraising slogan rather than a moral command.

They respond to every attack the same way: issue a press release, send out donation letters, lobby Washington.

The result? Nothing changes—except the bank accounts of those who build careers around managing Jewish fear.

Changing laws doesn’t change hearts. Punishing people doesn’t transform beliefs.

Real change begins where laws end—in the human heart. Yet our institutions no longer invest in human connection. They prefer press conferences to conversations, outrage to outreach.

I’ve spoken in places where Jews rarely go—small towns, rural areas, conservative circles that many Jewish leaders dismiss as hostile. When I do, people listen. They ask questions. They begin to see Jews as human again.

Yet for doing exactly that, many Jewish leaders, especially in my hometown, now see me as reckless or even crazy. Most refuse to talk to me at all. They never reply to suggestions. They feel talking to Jewish audiences or students is the answer—the safe places where they’ll be applauded, not challenged. But their silence and avoidance only prove my point: they’re more comfortable preaching to the choir than engaging with the people who most need to hear us.

That’s the work that changes culture—not a bill in Congress, not another meme shared to other Jews.

Our leadership has become trapped in mourning and moral superiority. Victimhood has become identity.

When you define yourself by suffering, you stop leading. You stop teaching. You start expecting pity instead of partnership—and pity never changes perception; it deepens separation.

When Allies Fail: American Jewry, Evangelical Support, and the Illusion of Safety

Israel fights the physical and moral battle for Jewish survival. Israeli fathers and mothers stand watch while the rest of the world debates semantics.

Meanwhile, many American Jews—living comfortably, distanced by oceans and institutions—fight a war of appearances. They post memes, sign statements, attend fundraisers. They bitch about what “others” are not doing. But they won’t take any personal risk. Many try to hide the fact they are Jews. And today is nowhere near the days when Jews were forced to put stars on their clothing. Those who perished and survived the holocaust would be so disappointed at the choices we are making today to hide out existence. But then again we do keep saying “never forget.” We forgot long ago.

Perhaps they feel secure because leaders in Washington pat them on the head and because evangelical megachurches shout “Israel!” with fervor.

But this is illusion.

Too many American Jewish leaders and ordinary Jews accept the bargain without reading the small print: transactional political support is not friendship.

Much evangelical backing of Israel is tied to a theology that envisions Israel’s role in a cosmic drama culminating in the conversion—or annihilation—of the Jews.

For some of our loudest allies, Israel’s existence is not an affirmation of Jewish life but a step toward an apocalyptic end.

As long as their donations and political leverage help in the present, we look the other way. That is dangerous denial.

Support for Israel is not the same as support for Jews.

A Personal Note on Endurance

When I speak to rural audiences with little contact with Jews, I don’t start with geopolitics.

I start with my father’s work-scarred hands, my mother’s eyes when certain subjects came up, and the years I lived believing my pain was my fault.

October 7 reopened that wound, but it also clarified my purpose.

I can’t stop every lie. But I can keep telling the whole story—ancient, colonial, modern, and intimate—until someone who never thought about Jews beyond a caricature recognizes a human face.

Closing Reflection

October 7 didn’t begin a new story for the Jewish people—it revealed how much of the old one still lives within us.

From the broken promises of empires to the silence of survivors and now the complacency of modern leadership, our struggle has always been about more than survival—it has been about moral clarity and courage.

The mirror of October 7 showed us both our endurance and our blindness. It reminded us that strength without self-examination is arrogance, and remembrance without change is theater.

Until we face that truth and stop hiding behind platitudes, the cycle will never end.

The real test for Jews everywhere is not whether we can survive another wave of hatred, but whether we can finally build the kind of understanding, unity, and integrity that make survival mean something more than endurance.

Only then will Never Again become more than words—it will become who we are.

Written by Jerry Elman, September 22, 2025

The Jewish New Year is supposed to be about new beginnings—looking back, taking stock, and hoping for renewal. Yet this year, as I prepare for Rosh Hashanah, I feel a heaviness I can’t shake. To face the year honestly means keeping my eyes open to what is happening around us: the rising tide of Jew-hatred, the hollow promises of peace, the endless cycles of suffering, and even the emptiness I see in some of our own rituals of repentance. This year, more than ever, I feel called not just to pray, but to see things clearly.

False Promises of Peace

Everywhere I look, I hear governments recognizing a Palestinian state. But I wonder: what exactly is being recognized? There have been no gestures toward peace, no moves to build a government that could actually govern, no vision for coexistence. Hamas has shown us again and again that killing hostages takes precedence over freeing them. The Palestinian Authority stays silent, preferring to let suffering continue rather than take responsibility.

In Gaza, rebuilding tunnels is always prioritized over rebuilding homes. War is always chosen over compromise. Hamas keeps preparing for the next fight with Israel, not the next chance for peace. And in the middle of all this, ordinary people—Palestinians and Jews alike—are the ones who continue to suffer. They suffer economically, living with shattered infrastructure and wasted opportunity. They suffer emotionally, with families torn apart by grief and uncertainty. They suffer the lasting trauma of war, terrorism, and hate that never seems to end.

I know something about inherited trauma. My parents carried it from the Holocaust, and I carry it as their child. Trauma doesn’t end when the violence stops—it lingers, shaping lives for generations. That is what I see repeating now: not just destroyed cities, but destroyed spirits. And leaders who should know better let it continue.

Yet the world rewards this refusal by calling it a state. To keep our eyes open is to recognize that gestures of recognition mean nothing when they are not matched by gestures of peace.

Forgiveness Without Apology

As Jews, this season is about teshuvah—repentance, forgiveness, and starting anew. But I struggle deeply with how it is practiced. I cannot accept the hollow gestures I see in synagogue every year: the pounding of chests, the chants of confession, the dramatic looks of pain on faces. I can still picture my former rabbi and others pounding their chests with a strained expression, begging God for forgiveness. And yet, when the hurt so many people, they rarely said the words that mattered most: “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I apologize.”

Forgiveness should never be performance. Real repentance is not pounding your chest—it is knocking on your neighbor’s door. It is saying, “I hurt you, and I want to make it right.” Until we open our eyes to the people in front of us, prayers to God ring hollow.

Facing the New Year

So as this New Year begins, I find myself less focused on rituals and more on truth.

The truth that Jew-hatred is rising again, from both the far right and the far left.
The truth that Palestinian leaders have done nothing to pursue peace, even as the world pretends otherwise.

The truth that countless ordinary people suffer economically, emotionally, and in the lasting trauma of conflict that is handed down like an inheritance.
And the truth that forgiveness—real forgiveness—cannot come from God until we face the people we’ve wronged.

Yesterday, here in America, we heard echoes of old hatred in new disguises. At Charlie Kirk’s memorial, Tucker Carlson told a story about the crucifixion of Jesus, describing a room of “men eating hummus” plotting to silence truth. To many, it was a thinly veiled antisemitic trope—casting Jews again as conspirators and Christ-killers. Startling words, met with applause, reminding us that these ancient lies are never far away.

The tragic, uncalled-for death of anyone—Charlie Kirk or anyone else—should not be memorialized by preaching collective hate and blame. One person is responsible. To broaden that blame onto Jews as a people is not only false but dangerous. It revives wounds that never truly healed and hands hatred new life.

Maybe that is what the New Year is really about: not perfect resolutions, but choosing honesty over illusion. Choosing to look at hard truths, even when they hurt. And choosing to begin again, this time with open eyes.

We cannot control the hatred that others carry, or the failures of leaders who refuse peace. But we can choose how we live as Jews. We can choose to be honest in our repentance, real in our forgiveness, and steadfast in our hope.

This year, may we find the strength to see clearly, to forgive honestly, and to keep believing that renewal—even after centuries of suffering—is still possible.
May this be a year not of hollow prayers, but of honest hearts. Not of blindness, but of open eyes.

Shanah Tovah — may it truly be a good and sweet year for us all.

Written by Jerry Elman, August 27, 2025

America has crossed a line. What people once insisted could never happen here is now real: federalized police in Washington, D.C., National Guard troops in American neighborhoods, and executive orders normalizing military-style crackdowns as the “new norm.”

When George Washington stepped away from the presidency after two terms, he could have claimed permanent authority as the victorious general who founded a nation. Instead, he refused the path of kingship. That act of restraint defined American democracy more than any speech or law. Washington’s legacy is not power, but the willingness to give it up.

A century later, Abraham Lincoln faced the greatest crisis in our nation’s history. He did expand presidential authority—suspending habeas corpus, curbing dissent, and deploying federal troops domestically. But Lincoln’s goal was never personal glory. It was the preservation of the Union. Crucially, even in the middle of civil war, he submitted himself to the voters in 1864. For Lincoln, democracy was not suspended. It was tested, and preserved.

Across the ocean, Adolf Hitler chose a different path. He created fake crises. He insisted Germany was collapsing from within, betrayed by Jews, Communists, and intellectuals. He built the Gestapo and the SS, secret police and paramilitary forces that spread terror and enforced obedience. Hitler’s “emergencies” were not about saving democracy. They were about destroying it.

And now, in 2025, America finds itself staring at a question most of us thought we would never have to ask: Could a U.S. president construct something resembling a Gestapo?

Dictators Create Crises

There is a pattern. Dictators and strongmen always manufacture or exaggerate crises. Hitler pointed to shadowy “plots” and enemies everywhere. Stalin staged show trials to prove traitors were lurking in every corner. Even today, leaders like Vladimir Putin and Nayib Bukele justify extraordinary crackdowns with inflated claims of crime, corruption, or foreign threat.

Trump has followed this script. He declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C. this summer and federalized the local police department. Nearly 2,000 National Guard troops and federal agents poured into the city—even though violent crime is at a thirty-year low. Residents of D.C. overwhelmingly oppose it. Yet Trump calls it a model for the nation, already threatening to expand it to Chicago, New York, Baltimore, San Francisco, and Oakland.

The facts don’t justify the “emergency.” But that’s the point. Crises don’t have to be real. They just have to be convincing enough to let power grow unchecked.

The Reichstag Fire and Trump’s Manufactured Crises

History offers us a warning from February 1933. The German Reichstag building went up in flames, set by a Dutch communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. The fire itself was real—but Hitler and the Nazis seized it as the perfect excuse to declare that Germany was under attack from within. Overnight, they claimed a national emergency. Civil liberties were suspended. Opposition newspapers were shut down. Thousands of political opponents were arrested. Out of one fire, Hitler created the justification for dismantling democracy itself.

That is how dictators work. Crises don’t need to match reality. They only need to be convincing enough to make people surrender freedom in the name of safety.

Trump’s “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C. follows the same script. Violent crime is at a thirty-year low. Carjackings and robberies have already been declining for months. Yet Trump stood before cameras and declared the capital unsafe, federalized the police, and flooded the streets with troops. He then pointed to selective statistics and cherry-picked anecdotes as “proof” that his extraordinary measures were necessary.

Just like Hitler’s Reichstag Fire, the point isn’t the facts. The point is the fear. Once the public accepts that emergency powers are needed, the president can use them again, in more places, for more reasons. Chicago. New York. San Francisco. One “fire” after another, one “emergency” after another. Each step erodes the boundary between a democracy that protects rights and an authoritarian state that controls them.

The Reichstag Fire turned out to be the moment Germans lost their republic. Trump’s fake “crime surge” may not be America’s Reichstag Fire—but it shows how close we are to living in a nation where crises are invented, rights are suspended, and power is never returned to the people.

America Doesn’t Have a Gestapo—Yet

The United States does not have a Gestapo. There is no secret police force with unchecked power to eliminate political opponents. But look closely, and you can see the architecture being tested.

• Masked federal agents have conducted traffic stops.
• Immigrants have been detained in unmarked vans.
• National Guard units have been restructured into rapid-response forces to “quell disturbances anywhere in the U.S.”
• Trump has openly admired authoritarian leaders who rule through fear and control, praising them as “smart” and “tough.”

This is not yet Nazi Germany. But history shows that authoritarian policing does not arrive all at once. It creeps forward, normalized crisis by crisis, until people accept it as part of daily life.

The danger is not in some distant future. The line has already been crossed. What we once said could never happen in America is happening now.

ICE and the Shadow of the Gestapo

It is worth asking: what makes ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) different from the Gestapo or the SS?

On the surface, there are crucial differences. ICE operates under U.S. law. Its actions are still subject to court review, congressional oversight, and public criticism. Its mission is officially limited to immigration enforcement, not silencing political opponents. The Gestapo and SS, by contrast, were instruments of pure terror. They answered only to Hitler. They were designed not to enforce laws, but to erase them.

Yet on the ground, the experiences of those targeted by ICE often look disturbingly familiar. Families awakened in the night by pounding on the door. People taken away in handcuffs without warning. Detainees held in harsh conditions, cut off from families and lawyers. To those on the receiving end, the difference between “law enforcement” and “political terror” feels razor thin.

The line separating ICE from something darker is not moral—it’s structural. Courts, laws, and independent media still exist to keep ICE from becoming a political police force. But if those institutions are undermined, if crises are manufactured to justify permanent emergency powers, then the distinction can vanish quickly.

The Playbook of Power

Trump has shown us the playbook:

• Declare a crisis (whether real or fake).
• Deploy force beyond normal boundaries.
• Claim success with selective statistics or staged victories.
• Normalize the tactic until the public no longer questions it.
• Expand the scope—from immigrants to protesters, from “violent criminals” to political opponents.

Every authoritarian regime has followed this arc. What begins as “emergency policing” becomes permanent. What begins as targeting outsiders extends to insiders. What begins as “restoring order” ends with crushing dissent.

The Silence of Opposition

So far, Americans who disagree with what Trump and the Republicans are doing have remained largely passive. Unlike the 1960s, there are no mass marches filling the streets, no widespread protests challenging the erosion of democratic norms. A line has already been crossed where such action may now be too late.

The National Guard is already deployed in American cities. Any mass protest would almost certainly be met with military force and ICE-like tactics to end it quickly. Any dissent will become a declared crisis to crush. And doing so is now a tested new norm. The line has been crossed. What people once said could never happen in America is now real.

The people have given up their power. Too many Americans think posting on Facebook or shouting into the void of social media is a form of protest or civil disobedience. The truth is harsher: these are passive, ineffective acts that may make people feel better but accomplish nothing. Real protest is in the streets, in the public square, in acts of courage that force power to listen. That spirit has been missing. And when silence becomes the dominant response, authoritarianism grows stronger.

I once had a rabbi who lived his life and performed his job as a rabbi avoiding conflict. He would openly say, “I don’t like conflict,” and just walk away from any issue he perceived as conflict. He thought doing nothing would keep everyone happy. But what he really did was always choose who he was going to throw under the bus by walking away. And when confronted with this, he never had any regrets. Americans have become too much like him. We don’t like conflict. We don’t like making choices. We want to keep everyone happy. But all of this is impossible. It only makes us feel better while making the world around us worse.

A Divided Opposition

The tragedy is that Democrats and other opposition forces are too busy fighting each other to see the bigger danger. They argue endlessly about ideology—progressives versus moderates, left versus center—while the republic itself hangs in the balance.

This refusal to face reality opened the door to Trump, the extreme conservative movement, and the evangelicals who have now united to seize power. Instead of presenting a united front to defend democracy, Democrats remain locked in an endless battle over purity tests and cultural debates.

I say this as a liberal Democrat: things have become ridiculous. Americans have grown weary of the endless demands that everyone must get a trophy, that no one should ever feel hurt, offended, or uncomfortable, and all the other unrealistic expectations that extreme progressives keep forcing into the national conversation. Life is not fair. It never has been and it never will be. We should be teaching our children how to cope with this unfair world, how to grow strong and resilient, to stand up —not how to live as powerless victims entitled to exist in fragile bubbles.

Republicans seized on this weakness. They turned the cultural backlash into a weapon, rallying their movement and giving Trump the momentum to reshape the political landscape. Meanwhile, Democrats still fight among themselves, blind to the fact that these internal divisions are helping authoritarianism grow stronger.

A Media That Mirrors, Not Informs

Today even the media has sold out. Too many outlets don’t cover the news or the facts; they cover what people want to hear. They chase what will generate clicks and profits—not truth or even what will save our democracy. Unlike the 1960s—when Americans watched the civil-rights struggle and the Vietnam War on their evening news—we don’t consistently see what is actually happening today. We see what the media believes we want to see.

And what many want to see is, at best, mild criticism of Trump and the Republicans—followed by silence. We don’t get the sustained, unflinching details from behind the scenes. We get horse-race chatter, both-sides performance, and algorithm-tested outrage. The result is a nation lulled by spectacle and deprived of substance—exactly the environment where authoritarian power thrives.

Conclusion: The Choice Is Still Ours

Democracies rarely fall all at once. They erode, crisis by crisis, emergency by emergency, until one day the people wake up and realize their freedom is gone. Washington warned us against factions. Lincoln risked everything to keep the republic alive. Hitler showed us how fragile democracy can be when a nation is convinced to trade liberty for order.

Trump doesn’t have a Gestapo. But if Americans continue to accept fake crises as justification for authoritarian power—and continue to answer with silence and division—history suggests the future could bring one.

And that is the real danger: not just Trump’s actions, but our inaction. Too many of us mistake Facebook posts, angry tweets, and social media rants for protest. They are not protest. They are noise that makes us feel better while accomplishing nothing. Real protest is in the streets. Real resistance means risking comfort to defend freedom.

The truth is hard to face: the people have surrendered their power by staying quiet, the opposition has wasted its strength fighting itself, and the media too often rewards distraction over truth. If that does not change, authoritarianism will not just knock on the door—it will move in permanently.

The line has been crossed. What people once said could never happen in America is now real. The republic was never guaranteed, and it will not save itself. It depends on us—on whether we continue to remain passive spectators or whether we find the courage to act. If we choose silence, history will not just judge Trump. It will judge us. But if we choose action over apathy, courage over comfort, and unity over division, then this story does not have to end in dictatorship. It can end in renewal.

Why I Keep Writing

I keep writing my blogs to take stands on important issues. And to do so requires substance. It requires details. It requires taking the time to read. I receive a lot of pushback to my blogs. Many say they are too long: Why can’t you cover the topic in a tweet—or X, or whatever we call it now? Why can’t you sum it up with a meme? I don’t have the time to read anything more than a paragraph or two.

And here lies the core problem. While our republic falls further and further into dictatorship, people view doing anything about it—or even reading to become educated about it—as an inconvenience. Democracies don’t survive on soundbites. They survive on substance, understanding, and action. If we don’t take the time to think, to read, and to act, then we will continue to lose what so many before us risked everything to protect.

For those who want the quick read:

By Jerry Elman, July 30, 2025

On June 16th, I shared an article talking about my darkest times as a second-generation Holocaust survivor. For the first time, I opened up publicly about the depression, emotional weight, suicidal thoughts and trauma that had silently shaped my entire life. The response was powerful—deeply human. I heard from others like me, carrying inherited pain they had no words for. That first article was about acknowledging the truth. This time, I’m writing about what I live with and what I’m doing about it.

I’ve started something I never thought I’d be able to do: the journey to find out who I really am.

I’ve begun trauma-informed therapy at age 71. It’s terrifying. It’s freeing. It’s long overdue. And even if I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me, I want those years to finally be mine—to live as my real self, whoever that turns out to be.

The Symptoms That Lived in Me Since I Was a Teen

I can trace it back to around the age of 13, though I think the roots go even deeper. That was when my physical symptoms began to make themselves known, quietly at first, then more insistently:

• An almost constant headache that didn’t respond to anything
• A strange nerve pain in my scalp and hair that no doctor could explain
• Mental fog, like I was always slightly underwater
• Trouble processing conversations and thoughts quickly
• Feeling tired even when I hadn’t done anything
• A heaviness in my chest, like I couldn’t take a full breath
• Difficulty focusing—being scolded for not paying attention or seeming like I didn’t care
• An inability to be “present” in a conversation—people thought I was rude or aloof
• A sense of detachment from my body, like I was living on autopilot

Every single morning, I still wake up with all of these symptoms. Before I do anything else, I lie in bed—not because I’m avoiding the day, but because I need that time to prepare myself. I mentally walk through what I need to do just to get up and start moving. I work to silence the symptoms the best I can. It takes a tremendous amount of energy just to do that first thing in the morning. But I’ve learned how to do it—how to quiet the pain enough to function. It’s a bit like people who live near railroad tracks and eventually stop hearing the trains. The pain never goes away. I’ve just gotten used to ignoring the noise.

But there was something even deeper happening. My emotions—especially sadness, shame, and a constant questioning of my own self-worth—didn’t just sit quietly. They pressed against me like a weight I couldn’t lift. I felt small, undeserving, and often invisible. It didn’t matter how much I achieved or how hard I worked; there was always a part of me that didn’t believe I was enough. At times, I would “check out” mentally, just to survive the moment. People around me thought I was being defiant, disinterested, or difficult. But I wasn’t. I was trying not to drown.

Even in the moments when I seemed okay—when I functioned well at school, when I played the role of the responsible kid or later the dependable adult—there was a part of me hiding. A part that never felt whole. A part that was terrified to come out.

How I Survived the Pain

For most of my life, I didn’t seek help. I didn’t know how. I didn’t even know I needed to. In the world I grew up in, you didn’t talk about your feelings—especially not as a boy, and certainly not as the child of Holocaust survivors. Our job was to survive, to be grateful, to not make trouble.

So I did what I had to do. I numbed myself. I powered through. I performed roles I thought people expected of me. I worked. I built a life. I pushed the pain down. And I smiled when I was supposed to. Just like Holocaust survivors did. I wasn’t trying to deceive anyone—I was trying to function. Trying to make it through. And like so many of them, I believed that if I could keep going, keep moving, keep building, maybe the pain would stay buried.

My biggest coping mechanism—what helped me survive more than anything else—was tuning things out. That was how I protected myself. That was how I stayed focused, how I blocked out triggers. When people said things or behaved in ways that reminded me—consciously or not—of pain, control, rejection, or danger, I shut them out. I withdrew internally. I didn’t choose to do that. It just happened. It was instinct. And it worked.

But it came at a cost. To this day, I get criticized—especially by those closest to me—for seeming detached or distracted. For not listening. For not reacting. They don’t understand that it’s not deliberate. I’m not ignoring them to be rude or uncaring. It’s a survival tool I’ve leaned on my entire life. It was either tune things out—or be overwhelmed by them.

At the same time, there’s another deeply rooted trigger that has followed me into adulthood: bullying. People who were bullies—or who behave with arrogance, cruelty, or domination—have always shaken me to my core. It doesn’t even have to be directed at me. If I see someone else being treated unfairly, belittled, or manipulated, I feel a surge of something that won’t let me stay silent. I fight back. I speak out. I defend. Even when it costs me. Even when it creates conflict. Because in those moments, I’m not just seeing a situation—I’m seeing every injustice I never got to name. I’m standing up not only for the person in front of me, but for the child inside me who never felt protected. And yes, I’ve been called too intense. Too sensitive. Too reactive. But I know what it’s like when cruelty goes unchallenged. I can’t unsee it. I won’t let it happen without a voice.

I’ve dealt with bullies in my career many times—often in the form of bosses. I pushed back. I challenged them. I knew bosses almost always win, but I made sure they were called out. That mattered to me. Once, a bullying temple president—who was also my boss—crossed a line I couldn’t tolerate. I stopped pushing. I walked out of the building and never returned. She won that battle—on paper, and at the cost of my reputation there. But I’ve never regretted it. At least I stood up and made it clear I saw exactly what she was doing—while most others looked the other way. Standing up to bullies hurt my career, and it destroyed my faith in organized religion. But I never sold myself out. Selling myself out was never part of my survival.

Even now, knowing all this about myself, it’s still hard to undo. But I’m starting to notice. I’m starting to feel what’s underneath. And maybe, for the first time, I’m learning I don’t have to disappear—or be silent—to survive.

My Clinical Assessment

Only recently—after years of struggling in silence—did I seek a full clinical assessment. The findings were both validating and heartbreaking. I have complex PTSD (C-PTSD), rooted in developmental trauma and compounded by intergenerational trauma inherited from my parents’ Holocaust experiences.

My symptoms are classic for second-generation survivors. They include:

• Chronic anxiety and hypervigilance
• Emotional numbing
• A persistent sense of shame and guilt
• Difficulties with identity and self-worth
• Nightmares and disrupted sleep
• Physical symptoms linked to trauma (including the mysterious pain I’ve had for decades)

The assessment also confirmed what I’ve always suspected: I didn’t just have episodes of depression. I was living inside a depressive state for most of my life. And it wasn’t due to weakness or negativity—it was a normal human response to abnormal, unspoken pain.

The Path Forward

The recommendation was clear: trauma-informed therapy—not just to “treat” symptoms, but to finally understand the story I’ve been living. To learn how my nervous system adapted to survive. To process the grief of a stolen childhood and a hidden self.

I’ve just started. I don’t know yet what it will bring up, or how deep it will go. But I’ve committed to being open—to finally walking into the parts of myself I’ve avoided for decades. I’ve started noticing when I disappear emotionally—and slowly, I’m trying to come back.

Every morning still starts the same: with all the symptoms. The pain, the fog, the weight. I lie in bed and gather myself before I move. I do the mental work I’ve done for decades to quiet the noise and push through the pain, just to get to the first step of the day. For years, that was my only goal—just to function. To go unnoticed. To make it through. To do the things I had to do.

But now, I want something more than just survival. I want to stop silencing everything and start listening—to my body, my memories, my emotions, and the parts of myself I buried long ago. I want to live without constantly managing the noise inside me. I want to know who I really am, not just who I became in order to cope.

My therapist has reminded me: healing doesn’t mean forgetting or pretending. It means reclaiming. Naming what hurt. Understanding what it did to me. And giving myself permission to grow into the person I was never allowed to be.

A New Chapter

Since publishing Miracles Through Hell—my parents’ Holocaust survival story—many people have encouraged me to follow it with a memoir about me: how I developed, how I coped, and how I’ve survived in a different way than my parents. I resisted for a long time. But I’ve come to realize they were right.

So I’ve started creating an outline of a new book. A deeply personal one. I’ve begun the writing process. I don’t know exactly where it will take me—whether it will be viable or even a story worth sharing. We will see.

To anyone who has suffered from trauma, in any form: you are not broken. You are not alone. Your story matters—even the parts you’ve never been able to say out loud. Healing doesn’t come from fixing yourself—it begins when you finally see yourself. All of you. Even the parts that had to hide.

People can be cruel—especially to people like us. The ones who live with pain. The ones who fight just to make it through each day. The ones still trying to figure out who we really are. The truth is, most people don’t even know who they are. Maybe that’s why they’re mean. Why they lack empathy.

But there are people who care. They’re just harder to find. Sometimes, it only takes one. One person who sees us, hears us, and doesn’t turn away. One real friend can change everything. The many bad ones? They just tear us down.

Let’s start living—not just surviving. Together.

And if you see yourself in my story, I hope you’ll reach out. I’d love to hear from others who’ve walked this path too. You’re not alone. Neither am I.

If you’re in the Rochester, NY area, I’d love to get a small group together—just to meet, talk, and share. Nothing formal. Just real conversation with people who understand.
You can reach me directly at: jerry.elman@jerry-elman.com

Written by Jerry Elman, July 7, 2025

History does not move forward in a straight, triumphant line. It loops, curls back, and confronts us with ghosts we thought long buried. Few Americans realize — or are willing to confront — that when Adolf Hitler and the architects of Nazi terror sought models for their racial state and police apparatus, they looked across the Atlantic to the United States. America was not merely a distant land of “freedom and democracy” but, in their eyes, the most advanced laboratory for racial hierarchy, social control, and state violence.

America’s Original Sin: Slavery and the Erasure of Native Peoples

Long before Nazi ideologues put pen to paper to craft the Nuremberg Laws, America had perfected systems of dehumanization and exclusion. The foundation was laid with the enslavement of millions of Africans — a brutal enterprise justified by racial pseudo-science and sanctified by law. Black Americans were property under the Constitution itself, their bodies and lives owned, exploited, and violently policed.

At the same time, Native American nations were systematically stripped of land, culture, and life. Under doctrines like Manifest Destiny, indigenous peoples were removed from their ancestral lands, forced onto reservations, and subjected to policies intended to erase them entirely — culturally and physically. Massacres, forced marches such as the Trail of Tears, and boarding schools designed to “kill the Indian, save the man” created a legacy of trauma and dispossession that reverberates to this day.

The Jim Crow Blueprint: Law, Terror, and the Klan

After the Civil War, freedom for Black Americans existed only on paper. Jim Crow laws — a meticulously designed web of statutes, ordinances, and unofficial customs — ensured that Black Americans would remain second-class citizens. They were denied the right to vote through poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses, and outright violence. Their movement was restricted, their economic opportunities strangled, and their humanity constantly degraded in both public and private life.

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) became the violent enforcement arm of white supremacy. Formed during Reconstruction and resurging in the early 20th century, the Klan carried out lynchings, beatings, arson, and public torture with impunity. Lynchings were not only acts of murder but gruesome public spectacles — bodies mutilated, burned, and left hanging as warnings. These acts were legitimized under Jim Crow as instruments of “community justice” and “social order,” often conducted in broad daylight, sometimes even advertised in advance, with crowds gathering as if at a carnival.

Torture and terror were not hidden; they were community-sanctioned. Law enforcement, local officials, and entire white communities often participated directly or turned a blind eye. Newspapers published photos of these atrocities, turning Black death into grotesque postcards of power. This terror campaign was designed to keep Black Americans “in their place” — to ensure silence, compliance, and the maintenance of a racial caste system.

The “One-Drop Rule”: Codifying Racial Purity

An especially sinister legal tool in this system was the “one-drop rule.” Under this rule, any person with even a single ancestor of African descent — one drop of “Black blood” — was legally and socially classified as Black. It did not matter how they looked, how they identified, or how distant that ancestry was; this single drop defined their entire legal and social status.

The one-drop rule was not about science but about power. It served to keep the category of “whiteness” pure and exclusive, while ensuring that as many people as possible fell under the category of “Black,” subjecting them to segregation, disenfranchisement, and terror.

This rule was enforced through vital records, marriage laws, and social surveillance. States could annul marriages, schools could expel children, and entire families could be reclassified overnight. The system relied on rumor, community policing, and violence — leaving people constantly vulnerable and stripped of agency over their identity.

Nazi legal scholars admired this approach. In debates leading up to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, they discussed the American one-drop rule as a model of “clarity” in racial definitions. Although they ultimately used a different formula for defining “Jewishness,” the principle was the same: reduce a person’s humanity to bloodline, and weaponize ancestry as a tool of total social control.

How Nazis Defined “Jewish Blood” in Comparison

When the Nazis implemented the Nuremberg Laws, they classified people meticulously by ancestry:

• A “full Jew” was someone with three or four Jewish grandparents.
• People with two Jewish grandparents were classified as “Mischling of the first degree” (mixed race, first degree).
• Those with one Jewish grandparent were “Mischling of the second degree.”

While less rigid than the American one-drop rule, the Nazis admired its brutal clarity. Ultimately, both systems aimed at the same goal: stripping individuals of rights and humanity based solely on lineage, laying the legal groundwork for persecution, violence, and annihilation.

From Tulsa to Kristallnacht: The Pogrom at Home

The Nazis’ methods did not emerge from a vacuum. They were shaped by global and American histories of racial terror.

In 1921, white mobs descended on the prosperous Black neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as “Black Wall Street.” Over two days, they burned 35 city blocks to the ground, murdered as many as 300 people, and left thousands homeless. Official records were suppressed, insurance claims denied, and the violence quietly erased from mainstream historical memory.

Tulsa was not alone. Similar pogrom-like “race riots” took place in Rosewood, Florida (1923), East St. Louis (1917), Wilmington, North Carolina (1898), and many other cities. These massacres sent a clear message: Black success and self-sufficiency would not be tolerated; white supremacy would be maintained by any means necessary.

Kristallnacht in 1938 — the “Night of Broken Glass” — was a horrifying echo of these American pogroms. Nazi leadership learned from the impunity granted to American white mobs. In Germany, they escalated to state-orchestrated terror: synagogues set ablaze, Jewish businesses smashed, homes looted, and nearly 30,000 Jews arrested and vanished into camps. It marked the shift from social exclusion to open, orchestrated violence — just as in America, when intimidation alone gave way to mass destruction and mass murder.

Legal Dispossession and Terror by Law

America showed the Nazis that oppression did not always require a dictator’s fist — it could be woven into the law itself, appearing almost invisible to those not targeted. Voter suppression today echoes these same mechanisms, cloaked in “integrity” rhetoric but functioning to disenfranchise people of color, just as they did a century ago.

Meanwhile, new laws criminalize poverty and homelessness, sweeping entire populations off public streets into jails and detention centers without due process. People vanish, often reemerging with lifelong criminal records — or sometimes not at all. We have built a society where people can be quietly disappeared, their stories erased as if they never existed.

ICE and the Modern Secret Police

Today, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operates in ways disturbingly reminiscent of the Nazi secret police. ICE agents conduct street raids and workplace sweeps, targeting not only undocumented immigrants but sometimes citizens and legal residents who “look” foreign or lack immediate proof of status.

ICE is step by step testing how far it can expand its tactics without pushback. The failure of agents to wear uniforms, present identification, or even clearly identify themselves — combined with the wearing of masks — is no accident. It is a deliberate strategy designed to maximize fear and terror, to erase any sense of lawful process or public accountability.

When masked men can grab someone off the street with no explanation, no warrant, no badge, and no record, they create a climate of absolute uncertainty. People begin to believe that no one can be trusted, that no one will help them, and that at any moment they, too, could vanish. This strategy also ensures deniability: if no one is officially identified, the state can claim nothing happened. “No arrest was made,” they say — because no records exist. It is the ultimate tool for breaking communities and destroying the rule of law.

ICE today has become America’s modern secret police force — operating with extraordinary reach, minimal oversight, and a frightening ability to operate beyond public accountability. The message it sends is unmistakable: “You could be next. No one can protect you. No one will even know where you’ve gone.”

The New American Reign of Terror: Disappearing People — and Erasing History

As part of this new American reign of terror, it is not only people who disappear — it is history itself. Across the country, we see a sweeping campaign to ban books, silence educators, and erase uncomfortable truths from classrooms and public memory. Under the guise of fighting “wokeness” or protecting children from feeling “upset,” entire chapters of American history are being scrubbed: slavery, Jim Crow, lynchings, the achievements of women, and the contributions of Black, Indigenous, Asian, and other non-white communities.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are dismantled; lessons about systemic racism and sexism are framed as “discriminatory against whites”; entire curricula are rewritten to omit or sanitize the brutal realities that shaped — and still shape — this nation.

This cultural purge is no different in spirit from the Nazi book burnings and censorship. It is an effort to create an artificial, mythologized past that supports authoritarian power, silences dissent, and erases the humanity of anyone who does not fit the dominant narrative. It is a repeat performance of what America taught Germany nearly a century ago — and now has brought home again, with devastating precision.

The MAGA Movement: Intimidation as Political Weapon

Today’s MAGA movement has perfected the use of intimidation and fear to silence critics, pressure lawmakers, and manipulate the courts. These tactics mirror historical patterns of terror and mob control — a modern echo of past chapters of American and European authoritarianism.

Their intimidation arsenal includes:

• Threatening and harassing election officials, judges, and public servants to force compliance or resignations.
• Death threats and doxing of political opponents, journalists, and private citizens who dare to speak out.
  • Doxing means publicly revealing someone’s private personal information — such as home addresses, phone numbers, family details, workplaces, and even details about their children and grandchildren — to encourage threats, harassment, and violence against them. It is a targeted form of terror designed to make people fear for their safety and silence their voices. The Nazis used a strikingly similar tactic: they published names, addresses, and identifying information of Jewish families and community leaders in newspapers and posters, inciting mobs to harass, vandalize, boycott, and physically attack them. The purpose was the same then as now: to isolate people, make them vulnerable, and weaponize the public into an enforcement arm of terror.
• Armed demonstrations and “patriot militias” used to physically intimidate lawmakers, such as surrounding state capitols or marching through cities with military-style weapons.
• Public shaming and social media harassment, driving critics into hiding or silence.
• Coordinated misinformation campaigns to discredit legal institutions and erode public trust in democratic processes.
• Chants and slogans designed to dehumanize opponents, turning citizens into “enemies of the state” who can be targeted without moral consequence.
• Organizing violent mobs, as seen on January 6th, to physically attack the heart of democratic governance.

These tactics are not fringe — they are central strategies designed to force judges and legislators into submission, to terrify everyday citizens into silence, and to transform political power into an unchallenged cult of personality. By making dissent dangerous, they ensure obedience not through persuasion but through raw fear.

The Choice Ahead

Comfort is a lie. Silence is surrender. You will not be spared.

You think you can hide? You think if you stay quiet, keep your head down, and “mind your own business,” you’ll be safe? History has already answered you: no one stays safe in the end.

You will not keep your comfort. You will not keep your safety. You will not keep your children untouched when the mob comes to your door. The neighbor you abandon today will become the test run for your own disappearance tomorrow. The book they ban today is the warm-up for erasing your story tomorrow.

When they come for books, they come for people. When they erase history, they erase your life. When they threaten your children and grandchildren, they are announcing that no line exists they will not cross.

If you think playing it safe will protect you, you are already lost. You are exactly what they are counting on: passive, afraid, obedient.

There is only one weapon strong enough to break this circle: defiance. Unapologetic, uncompromising, collective defiance.

Stand up now. Speak so loudly they can’t drown you out. Protect each other so fiercely they can’t break through. Fight so relentlessly they learn you will never bow.

Break the circle — or be devoured by it. The choice is yours. Make it now.

By Jerry Elman, July 3, 2025

As We Approach July 4th: A Dark Reflection on America

As we approach July 4th, nothing could send a worse message about America — and about what the Revolutionary War was truly fought for — than the proud laughter surrounding the opening of Alligator Alcatraz.

To be proud of cruelty, to joke about snakes and alligators serving as prison guards, violates every foundational American value. These prisoners will never be heard from again. They may be killed, tortured, forced into slave labor, or quietly deported. We will never truly know.

They will never be given due process — the very principle our founders fought to establish, the very principle meant to protect lives and freedom above all else.

And at the same time, people laugh across America. They celebrate this cruelty as if it were a sport. Life is great for white Evangelical Americans today — their lives and freedom are not at risk. Even other Christians are now viewed as enemies by this group.

They are just like the German equivalent of the 1930s: those who called themselves Aryans, the self-declared “perfect human race.”

Today, this dark ideal has mutated into a new standard: a combination of race and religious belief that the extreme fringes now call “the perfect human.” It is a dangerous and violent fantasy, disguised as patriotism and faith.

Yes, illegal immigrants need to be dealt with. But they must be dealt with as humans — not with cruelty and evil. The measure of a society is not how it treats its strongest and safest, but how it treats its most vulnerable.

The real character of people is always revealed when they hold power over others. Wearing a cross necklace does not make anyone just or moral. Many wear it thinking it masks their true selves, but history always unmasks us in the end.

The German Parallel We Dare Not Ignore

Germany did not start with killing.

In 1933, they started by putting political opponents and some Jews into camps. There was laughter then, too.

In 1935, they passed the Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews of all rights and property.

In 1938 came Kristallnacht — violent pogroms, mass arrests, and the beginning of forced labor and Jewish camps.

In 1939, the death camps appeared. Then world war.

It all started with cruelty and laughter. And because the masses did not care, each step went further, and further, until there was no return.

Today, we see the same pattern: cruelty celebrated, leaders laughing, and crowds — especially among white Christian evangelical America — cheering along without shame. And they claim its not the same as Germany! BULLSHIT!

A Reflection from My Family’s Shadows

My parents were Holocaust survivors. I grew up with their silence and their scars. They didn’t just fear death — they feared a world that could be manipulated into applauding cruelty, where neighbors vanished, and dignity was stripped away piece by piece.

If they saw Alligator Alcatraz today, they would recognize the echoes immediately. The jokes, the justifications, the crowds delighting in suffering. They would ask: How can you not see where this road leads?

History is not just a lesson in a book. It is a warning siren.

The Moment of Choice

As we raise flags and celebrate freedom this July 4th, we must ask ourselves: freedom for whom? Dignity for whom?

The line has been crossed. We can no longer pretend we don’t see it.

The question now is: What will we do? Will we stand silent and watch, or will we finally act?

A Final Plea

Speak out. Share this message. Support organizations defending human dignity. Challenge cruelty — no matter who it targets.

Silence does not make you safe. It only makes you complicit. And at some point they will come for you also! Just like the 1930’s. It is exactly the same.

In America today, we are witnessing a quiet but deadly transformation. A nation that once aspired to provide dignity and care for all now marches toward a future where healthcare — and even basic survival — belong only to the wealthy. This shift is no accident. It is the result of a long, calculated political strategy, decades in the making, designed to benefit the few and abandon the many.

The Long March Toward Oligarchy

This did not begin with Donald Trump. The seeds were planted over forty years ago, when Ronald Reagan launched a new era of American politics built on a seductive but dangerous promise: that government is the problem, not the solution.

Reagan’s rhetoric was carefully crafted to demonize social programs, shrink public investment, and convince working Americans that the wealthy deserved more — and that helping the poor was a moral failing rather than a collective responsibility. Tax cuts for the rich became the centerpiece of Republican identity. Meanwhile, safety nets began to fray: public housing support, nutrition assistance, and mental health funding were slashed.

This strategy was never just about economics; it was about rewriting the moral fabric of the country. Reagan’s vision glorified wealth and individualism while quietly laying the groundwork to dismantle protections for ordinary Americans.

In the decades since, each Republican administration has doubled down. George W. Bush’s tax cuts and corporate deregulation, paired with wars that drained public coffers, weakened public institutions further.

When Trump arrived, he didn’t invent this approach — he supercharged it. He weaponized fear, scapegoated immigrants and the poor, and accelerated the country’s transformation into a place where billionaires thrive and everyone else is disposable.

The Big, Beautiful Bill: A Proposed Historic Wealth Transfer

Trump and his allies now boast about what they call the “big beautiful bill” — a sweeping package of proposed tax cuts and economic policies designed to serve corporate interests and the ultra-wealthy. But behind the branding, this bill represents what would become the largest transfer of wealth from workers to the rich in American history if passed.

While billionaires and corporations stand ready to rake in record profits under this proposal, working Americans would be left with an even more shredded safety net. Social programs would be gutted, public health systems further decimated, and hospitals forced to close.

If enacted, record numbers of Americans will die because they would be denied care and treatments that only the wealthy could then access. Even before formal passage, the threat of this bill is already shaping budget priorities and advancing an agenda that starves public systems to feed private profit.

America’s Vanishing Leadership in Health

America has long been the world’s leader in health research and the development of breakthrough treatments. Cancer breakthroughs are an American achievement — the result of decades of tireless research and robust public investment.

But today, the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has been slashed by 40% overnight. No transition. No phase-in. Just a devastating, immediate cut designed to collapse the very system that brought us these life-saving breakthroughs.

The NIH workforce has been reduced by an estimated 25,000 positions, leaving critical research programs stalled and patients stranded. Funding for vaccines has been drastically cut.

Diseases we had nearly eradicated — measles, polio, whooping cough — are quickly rebounding. Communities that relied on vaccination outreach and public health infrastructure are now left vulnerable, and children will suffer first.

Perhaps most alarming, all work on a vaccine for bird flu — a virus with the potential to cause a catastrophic global pandemic if it jumps fully to humans — has been halted. If there is an outbreak, the consequences will be devastating. We will have no protective shield ready. We will face mass illness and death, not because we lack scientific knowledge, but because we chose to defund and dismantle our own defenses.

The “Pro-Life” Movement: Cruelty as Policy

At the heart of this assault on public health is the so-called “pro-life” movement. Despite its name, this movement does not fight for life — it fights for control. It imposes a moral order that celebrates punishment and suffering rather than compassion and care.

When they overturned Roe v. Wade, they did not simply attack abortion rights; they legitimized a broader agenda: denying healthcare altogether to those they deem unworthy. This extends beyond women to children, immigrants, and low-income families — anyone who needs support to live.

They do not stop there. They deny food to the hungry, force more people into homelessness, and have made the United States the number one developed country in child poverty — an “achievement” they perversely celebrate as proof that dependency has been crushed and “personal responsibility” reigns.

In reality, this is not personal responsibility. It is institutionalized cruelty. It is the intentional design of a system where the most vulnerable are punished simply for existing.

The Supreme Court’s Role: From Citizens United to Gerrymandering

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling destroyed a century of campaign finance protections, unleashing unlimited billionaire and corporate money to buy elections and control policy.

Then the Court took it even further. By declaring that gerrymandering — the manipulation of election districts so one party will always win — is constitutional, they effectively cemented one-party rule in much of the country. Since most of these gerrymandered districts are Republican, we now have de facto one-party rule in most red states.

This ensures that even when the majority of voters support change, the system is rigged to prevent it. The most vulnerable are left voiceless, locked into cycles of poverty, hunger, and preventable illness — with no democratic recourse.

A Young Mother’s Story: The Human Cost

Consider the young mother of two battling gastrointestinal cancer. She was accepted into a promising NIH experimental treatment program — her prognosis was remission.

Because of funding cuts and NIH staff reductions, her treatment was delayed. While the therapy existed, there was no one left to administer it. As she waited, her cancer spread to her brain. She was disqualified from the trial. Her prognosis changed from remission to death.

Two children will now grow up without their mother — not because of medical failure, but because of policy decisions designed to starve public health and funnel wealth upward.

Health, Hunger, Housing: The True Test of Life

Healthcare is inseparable from hunger and housing. A mother cannot fight cancer if she is rationing meals for her children. A diabetic cannot manage insulin if they sleep on the street. A child cannot learn or thrive if constantly sick or hungry.

To be truly “pro-life” is to value every life, every day — not just before birth, but in every moment after. It means investing in healthcare, food, housing, education, and mental health. It means rejecting a system that treats suffering as deserved and life as a luxury for the rich.

A Moral Reckoning for America

Former President Biden constantly reminded us that Americans must decide what kind of country we want to be — what the moral fabric of America should represent. And Americans clearly made that decision in the election of 2024.

But here’s the tragedy: most have no clue that they themselves will become victims of that decision. They voted to say their own lives don’t matter. They voted to dismantle their own protections, to destroy their own safety nets, to undercut their own healthcare.

Most who cast those votes will suffer the consequences of what is happening. They were duped. And they still don’t know it.

The “big beautiful bill,” if passed, will not strengthen America — it will break her promise. It would cement the largest wealth transfer from workers to the wealthy in our history and ensure that millions will die preventable deaths simply because they cannot afford care.

This is not just a policy debate. It is a moral reckoning. We must confront the hypocrisy of those who preach life but practice cruelty. We must decide: will we stand by as America becomes a playground for oligarchs and one-party rulers — or will we fight to reclaim a nation that truly protects and uplifts every life?

It may already be too late if this bill passes. The damage cannot be undone.

By Jerry Elman

June 16, 2025

This is one of the hardest things I’ve ever written—but also one of the most necessary. It’s important for me—to finally give voice to what’s lived silently inside me for so long. It’s important for others like me to know they’re not alone. And it’s important for those around us who misunderstand what we’re going through to begin to see it clearly.

I wrote this because I’ve spent a lifetime trying to understand my demons—especially since writing Miracles Through Hell. That book opened a door I didn’t know needed opening. At first, it was meant to tell my parents’ Holocaust survival story—the terror, the courage, the impossible odds they endured. But somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t just telling their story. I was uncovering my own. What began as a journey into their past became a journey into my own survival. And with that discovery came an unexpected unraveling—of beliefs I held about myself, of stories I had buried, and of pain I didn’t know I was still carrying. I began to see that their survival had shaped mine in ways I had never acknowledged. And that story needed to be told, too.

Since then, writing has become something I enjoy. But it’s taken me three years to write this one article—because it’s been personal, risky, vulnerable, and self-revealing. Over that same time I’ve poured myself into blog articles, presentations, and work on a second book. But lately, I’ve started to wonder if it’s also become a kind of crutch—a way to stay busy without confronting the deeper healing I still need. Writing helps me process—but it can also be a form of hiding. A way to channel the pain without truly facing it. Maybe writing has become a safer substitute for doing—the same way silence once was.

After years of telling the historical truths of my family’s past, I’ve realized it’s time to bring that same honesty to the present—not just to memory, but to the ongoing work of recovery and connection. Because I am not alone.

Not alone as a second-generation Holocaust survivor. Not alone in living with depression and the weight it brings. If you’re reading this and nodding quietly to yourself, you’re not alone either.

A Childhood That Shifted

In early childhood, I was a normal kid. That often gets lost. I loved school. I was curious. I had friends. I raised my hand constantly and thrived on attention. I was outgoing and bright. But something changed.

My mother—once nurturing and affectionate—grew bitter. The life she had dreamed of as a child, a life stolen from her during the Holocaust, twisted into resentment. She had survived by hiding with her family, moving from one barn or attic to the next, through winters so brutal they still haunt the imagination. But she never got to be a teenager. Never got to dream. And when she looked at me, enjoying my childhood, she saw everything she had lost.

She was angry that I had it “too good.” That I could smile, or laugh, or have fun. Her trauma turned into blame. And I changed too—from a bright, extroverted boy into a guilt-ridden, withdrawn, confused introvert. I didn’t understand why. I just knew something inside me broke.

My father was different. He had lived through hell as a partisan fighter in the forests of Belarus, yet carried himself with quiet strength. He didn’t lash out. He didn’t burden me with his pain. But he didn’t talk either. Neither of them did. Like so many survivors, they locked their trauma deep inside and tried to build a new life around it.

The Legacy of Silence

And this isn’t just personal—it’s documented. Studies show that second-generation Holocaust survivors are at significantly higher risk for anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Some studies show nearly double the national average. And researchers have even found changes in stress-regulation genes like FKBP5 and NR3C1, suggesting trauma can leave a biological imprint—passed silently from one generation to the next.

My mother had classic PTSD—but no one used that word then. What we saw instead were her triggers: the sudden shifts, the cold silence, the sharp outbursts. Holidays were hard. Crowds made her anxious. If we were too happy or too loud, something in her would snap.

She had lived like prey for years. And that trauma never left her body. It seeped into our home like gas—colorless, odorless, deadly.

Love was tangled up with fear. Joy felt dangerous. Relaxing felt selfish. Her unspoken pain became the background noise of my life.

It wasn’t just our home. Her behavior pushed away what little family we had left. Relationships splintered. The isolation deepened. It didn’t just affect my childhood—it shaped how I experienced closeness, relationships, trust. It became my blueprint.

I didn’t know the names of the people we lost. I didn’t know their stories. There were no heirlooms, no rituals, no photographs—just fragments. Just silence.

Rejection by Your Own People

Here’s something that’s hard to admit: some of the deepest pain didn’t come from strangers—it came from fellow Jews.

As a child, I never felt like I belonged in the synagogue we attended. Instead of community, I found judgment. Kids mocked my family for being different—for our accents, our clothing, our background. My mother was humiliated when she participated in the temple sisterhood. My father, a Holocaust survivor who worked with his hands as a junk dealer, was dismissed and ridiculed. In Hebrew school, kids mocked me, calling me the son of a “junkman”—a label that carried more scorn than anyone seemed to realize. The teachers did nothing. Their parents obviously thought it was acceptable too.

My mother developed a bitterness toward American Jews, seeing their treatment not as acceptance—but as quiet segregation of survivors. They treated her as different—and damaged. She had no higher education. She had an accent. She represented a generation of Jews that didn’t fit the narrative of upwardly mobile American Jewish success. Survivors had to create their own Jewish communities among themselves. They became known as the Greena—Yiddish for “new,” just starting out.

I viewed fellow Jews as cruel. I found non-Jews far more accepting. All of my friends were non-Jews. I was accepted and welcomed at my friends’ Christmas dinners—but not with Jewish kids for Jewish holidays. It was a strange kind of exile—feeling more at home at a Christmas dinner than at a Passover seder.

And while the Jewish community often said Never Forget, many survivors were viewed more as obstacles to assimilation than people in need of support. Holocaust survivors were seen as reminders of a past that many American Jews were trying to distance themselves from. Second-generation survivors like me were caught in the middle—different, and treated differently, without understanding why. We grew up absorbing pain we didn’t yet have words for, sensing that we didn’t quite belong even among our own.

The Jewish community wanted the stories of Holocaust survivors—as proof, as defense, as a way to fight antisemitism. But they often didn’t want the survivors themselves, or the emotional aftermath we carried. Those stories were collected late, often only after they became culturally acceptable, even trendy. It made the community feel better. But did it help the survivors? Did it help their children? I’m not so sure.

Even as an adult, that wound never fully healed. I found a synagogue community later in life that I believed, for many years, embraced me. But in the end, when I needed emotional support the most, I received judgment and rejection. I left the synagogue in November 2018. The synagogue experience brought me to the edge. It was the closest I ever came to taking my life. And it’s a time I still struggle to let go of. The hurt never goes away—especially remembering how close the consequences came. Instead of asking if I was okay, they chose judgment. And punishment. To this day, people walk away from me when they see me in public.

Becoming Myself—and the Cost of It

But becoming myself took a toll.

After restarting therapy in 2000—a turning point that helped me begin shedding the mask—I started speaking up with my true thoughts and opinions. That therapy helped me reconnect with parts of myself I had long buried, especially the quiet strength I had seen in my father. I began to realize that the part of him I had admired—the steady, grounded presence—was also inside me, just hidden beneath layers of fear and self-doubt. That realization helped me shift how I showed up in the world.

I did less to please others. And that got me in trouble—at work and in other places. I was no longer the pleaser. I pushed back. I disagreed. And people didn’t like that. In many ways, I began to embody the quiet resilience my father had modeled, rather than the anxious people-pleasing that had defined so much of my earlier life. It hurt the remainder of my career. And it too was exhausting.

I started to take risks—some that I’m proud of, some that nearly broke me. I began sharing my truth with others—through writing, public speaking, and conversations I never would have had before. But with each step forward came new consequences. Some people didn’t want to hear it. Some walked away. Some acted like I had betrayed them—simply by refusing to keep hiding.

Depression doesn’t go away just because you’ve learned its roots. If anything, the more you understand it, the more it reveals how deep it goes. Therapy helped. Writing helped. But the weight remained. There are good days and bad days. Times I feel strong, and times I feel like I’m barely hanging on. The darkness still visits. The triggers still return. The scars don’t vanish just because you’ve stopped hiding them.

And healing is not linear. It comes in waves. Sometimes you feel like you’ve moved past it—and then it crashes over you again, just as hard.

What I’ve learned is this: being yourself, fully and unapologetically, often comes at a cost. You lose people. You face judgment. You see who really listens—and who only stayed close when you stayed silent.

But you also find something else. You find truth. You find clarity. You find others who see you—not just the version you performed, but the person you actually are. And slowly, painfully, that becomes enough.

A Culture That Punishes Vulnerability

We live in a culture that doesn’t know what to do with vulnerability. It talks about mental health in headlines and hashtags, but when someone actually speaks up—really speaks up—most people get uncomfortable. They look away. They offer clichés. They blame. Or worse, they go silent.

When I’ve opened up about my depression, or about inherited trauma, some people pull closer—but most back away. They don’t want the weight. They don’t want the responsibility of caring. Or maybe they’re afraid of seeing themselves in my story. Either way, vulnerability is punished. Subtly. Quietly. But punished all the same.

This isn’t just a personal pattern. It’s everywhere. We reward people for strength, for performance, for hiding their pain behind achievement. But if you falter—if you grieve too loudly, if you speak of things too real—people scatter. They call it drama. Or weakness. Or attention-seeking. The truth is, we are a society that would rather applaud someone for surviving silently than support someone who is breaking openly.

And here’s something else: don’t be the person who’s always focused on being right—on proving others wrong, on needing to win instead of connect. Especially when it comes to depression, don’t assume your approach is the fix. It’s not as simple as telling someone to be more active, take on a hobby, exercise, or just “do something.” And don’t scold someone for “checking out”—you’ll only make them feel worse, and retreat even deeper. Depression is not a debate. It’s not a contest of opinions, or a war over personal theories about laziness or willpower. It’s not about not wanting to be okay. It’s a human condition. It lives in the space where empathy should be—but too often isn’t.

If someone had a broken leg, you wouldn’t tell them to get up and run a mile to feel better. You wouldn’t tell them that moving around or getting out more would fix it. You’d recognize they’re in pain. You’d help. You’d show understanding.

But that same basic compassion often disappears when the pain is emotional. When someone is suffering from depression, people say things they would never say to someone with a physical injury. “Just push through it.” “Be stronger.” “Stop being so dramatic.” Instead of comfort, they get judgment. Instead of support, they get silence—or worse, blame.

And here’s the truth: people understand severe physical pain. When someone is seriously injured or dying and the pain becomes unbearable, most people understand the desire to end that pain. But they don’t understand that emotional pain can be just as excruciating. Just as real. Just as unbearable. The only difference is—it’s invisible.

Every person has a threshold. A red line. A breaking point where the pain inside becomes so intense that ending life feels like the only way to stop it. It happens quickly. Quietly. Without warning. Without drama.

Everyone who suffers from depression thinks about suicide. Not just once. All the time. Some create a plan, just in case. Some reach that line and back away. And some—heartbreakingly—cross it, because the pain has overtaken everything else.

People have said to me, “How could you, the child of Holocaust survivors, ever think about ending your life?” As if survival were some kind of shield. As if being born from trauma should make me stronger, not more vulnerable. But they don’t understand—I live with my parents’ strength and their survival every day. And I also live with their pain. Inherited pain. Silent pain. Pain that shaped my wiring before I even had words. Sometimes, that pain becomes so heavy it crushes everything else. And when it does, even legacy and love can feel too far away to hold onto.

And to those who call it selfish—think about it. We put animals down when they’re suffering, when their pain becomes too much to bear. But when a human being is in that kind of pain—mental or physical—we don’t offer mercy. We offer shame. We call them weak or selfish. We abandon them. When in reality, they’ve just been holding on longer than most people ever will.

Children, teenagers, adults, veterans. Suicide is at record levels. And people act surprised. Even the experts claim they don’t know why. But anyone suffering from depression knows why. It’s about pain. It’s about the weight you carry. And when the pain is worse than life itself, there is only one way out.

Society today is cruel. Empathy is seen as weakness. Cruelty is rewarded as strength. People are demonized for the smallest reasons. And social media—where everyone is watching and judging—just magnifies it all. The emotional explosion we see online is not some mystery. It’s the echo of real people breaking under the pressure of isolation, judgment, and shame.

And the answer? It’s clear. But no one wants to accept it. Because that would mean accepting their role in someone else’s despair. Their silence. Their abandonment. Their inability—or refusal—to simply ask, “Are you okay?”

Finding My Way Back to Myself

It took decades before I started to feel like I could live as myself—not just function, but actually be who I am. That didn’t come from success or validation. It came from collapse. From hitting a point where hiding was no longer sustainable.

I spent so much of my life trying to be what others wanted—especially in the Jewish world I thought would embrace me. I played the part. I followed the rules. I smiled when I was supposed to. But inside, I was crumbling. And eventually, my body and mind stopped cooperating with the act.

Only then did I begin to understand that healing doesn’t happen through pleasing others. It happens through truth. And truth isn’t always pretty. It’s messy. It’s painful. It burns things down. But what’s left—if you’re lucky—is real.

For me, that truth began to take shape in therapy, in deep reflection, and in writing. Writing gave me back my voice. It gave shape to pain that had long been formless. It allowed me to say what had been unspeakable for years—even decades. It let me scream in a way that didn’t scare people. It let me be heard, even by those who weren’t listening.

But writing alone isn’t healing. Healing requires connection. And connection requires risk. I’ve taken that risk in recent years—in public talks, in conversations, in this very article. And while it’s brought more rejection than I’d like to admit, it’s also brought moments of real, human connection—people who have pulled me aside after a talk, or written to say: “I thought I was the only one.”

That’s what keeps me going. That’s what makes the pain worth writing through. Knowing that someone else might feel less alone.

I’m still learning how to live with the shadows. I don’t pretend they’re gone. I’ve stopped expecting to be “cured.” That’s not how this works. Depression, trauma, inherited pain—they don’t just vanish. But they can be named. They can be shared. And in doing that, they lose some of their power.

And I’ve found something else, too: underneath the weight, there is still light. Still life. Still laughter. Still love. It may not be easy. It may not come often. But when it does, it’s real. And that—maybe more than anything—is what I hold onto now.

What I Want You to Know

If you’ve made it this far, thank you. I didn’t write this for attention. I didn’t write it for pity. I wrote it because silence almost destroyed me. And I know I’m not the only one carrying that weight.

I wrote this for the children of survivors who still can’t explain why they feel broken, even though they didn’t live through the war. I wrote it for anyone who grew up in a house filled with ghosts—where the walls were quiet, but nothing felt safe.
I wrote it for the people who’ve been told they’re too sensitive, too much, too emotional, too angry, or that they “check out” too often—when really, they’ve been carrying generations of unspoken pain in silence.
And I wrote it for the people who have hurt others without meaning to, simply because they didn’t understand. Maybe now you will.

I know I’m not easy. I know I’ve said things that made people uncomfortable. I’ve made mistakes.

But I’m still here.

And maybe, so are you.

How Language, Power, and Religion Are Fueling America’s Moral Collapse from Within

Written by Jerry Elman, May 31, 2025

Donald Trump is president again.

His return to the White House is not some shocking plot twist. It’s the logical conclusion of a nation that has steadily abandoned empathy, civility, and truth. Trump didn’t cause the collapse—he revealed it, channeled it, and now leads it. His second term is a monument to the normalization of cruelty in American life.

What makes Trump different is that he knows exactly what he’s doing. His words are not gaffes. His outbursts are not accidental. He is deliberate. He has a vision—though it’s not one written in law or policy, but in culture: a nation fueled by jealousy, blame, hate, and selfishness. A nation where the powerful excuse corruption as success, where truth is transactional, and where empathy is weakness. A nation driven not by shared purpose, but by spectacle and grievance. And above all, a nation that the rest of the world no longer trusts—because it can’t even trust itself.

But here’s the deeper truth: Trump didn’t invent this America—he recognized it. When he descended that golden escalator in 2015, he wasn’t just launching a campaign; he was holding up a mirror. He saw what others missed. He understood the American psyche—not the one described in civics class, but the one shaped by resentment, celebrity worship, and zero-sum thinking. He read the room better than anyone in either party. And as a reality TV genius, he knew exactly what to give them: ratings over relationships, fame over substance, conflict over compromise.

He didn’t corrupt the culture—he cashed in on it. And more than that, he legitimized it. He made cruelty respectable, made grievance a brand, and turned entertainment into ideology. Trump knows he can do whatever he wants—as long as he performs it with vengeance, victimhood, and spectacle. That’s the deal he struck with America. And the country keeps showing up for the next episode.

In this new America, goodness is ridiculed. Selflessness is mocked. Working for the common good is seen as naïve—something for suckers and losers. The very idea that we might owe something to one another has become almost laughable. The backbone of the nation—everyday Americans who once believed in duty, decency, and sacrifice—has been pushed into the shadows of history.

We used to call ourselves “the land of opportunity.” But today, we are better described as the land of “take all you can get.” Our new national ethos is not unity or community—but conquest. And those who care, those who give, those who serve—they are left behind in a country that rewards cruelty and punishes compassion.

We are not witnessing a temporary political swing. We are living through the moral erosion of a nation from the inside out. Empires, when they fall, don’t just lose wars. They lose their soul first. And language—how we speak to and about each other—is the first thing to rot.

Language as the First Casualty

America now speaks in a tongue sharpened for battle. Words once considered too shameful to utter in public are no longer whispered in the shadows—they’re shouted from rallies, blasted on podcasts, and monetized across social media.

Under Trump’s second term, the gloves are off. Slurs once banished from public discourse—racial, religious, homophobic, misogynistic, and ableist—have returned with force. Terms like “retard,” “nigger,” “faggot,” “kike,” “spic,” “chink,” “towelhead,” “wetback,” “bitch,” “cunt,” “groomer,” and “illegal” are wielded not just to offend, but to dehumanize—and to rally crowds eager to hear them.

We’ve seen this pattern before. In every society preparing to commit unthinkable things, language is the first weapon drawn. From Nazi Germany to Rwanda, the process always begins the same way: people are redefined as threats, as parasites, as monsters—until violence feels like justice. That’s where America stands now.

But just as insidious are the coded slurs and weaponized labels: calling immigrants “invaders,” political opponents “traitors,” Black men “thugs,” Muslims “terrorists,” asylum seekers “rapists,” and civil servants “deep state operatives.” Even the term “alien”—once largely phased out for its dehumanizing tone—has returned as the official label for non-citizens, resurrected to reinforce the idea that these people don’t belong here and never will.

These words are meant to strip people of their humanity and assign them danger—so that cruelty feels justified. They’re used to incite, to divide, and to dominate. In MAGA culture, compassion is weakness, cruelty is strategy, and dehumanization is policy.

These aren’t just words. They’re weaapons. And they’re the oldest signs of a nation preparing to do something unthinkable and once viewed as “could never happen here.”

And it’s already begun. Mass deportations are underway. Protesters are surveilled. Journalists are targeted. Books are banned. People are being rounded up, detained, and cast out—not because of what they’ve done, but because of who they are.

Colleges are vilified as enemy breeding grounds. Businesses are boycotted for supporting diversity or speaking out. Political opponents are labeled traitors and threatened with prosecution or violence. Convicted felons from January 6th have been pardoned and paraded as patriots.

This isn’t a warning anymore. It’s a reckoning. The machinery of state violence is no longer theoretical—it’s operational. The tactics are being tested. And a nation that once claimed moral leadership now exports only fear, rage, and spectacle.

Steve Bannon regularly talks about “purging the system” and “retribution.” Conservative pundits like Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson now flirt openly with white nationalist talking points. Even GOP lawmakers in Congress echo Trump’s language—calling political opponents “enemies,” immigrants “invaders,” and civil servants part of a “deep state.”

Just yesterday, Senator Joni Ernst justified cutting Medicaid by declaring, “We’re all going to die”—a grotesque rationale for stripping healthcare from the most vulnerable. In the same breath, she implied that many poor and elderly Americans are defrauding the system by being on Medicare. Social Security is next. Those who need help the most are now painted as leeches, freeloaders, and criminals—not to fix the system, but to justify dismantling it.

That same day, Donald Trump was asked whether he felt sympathy for Joe Biden following the announcement of Biden’s stage 4 prostate cancer diagnosis. Trump shrugged off the moment, saying:

“If you feel sorry for him, don’t feel so sorry—because he’s vicious.”
He went on to claim Biden had “hurt a lot of people” and that he didn’t feel sorry for him at all.

This wasn’t just personal bitterness—it was a national signal. The cruelty wasn’t hidden. It was on display, deliberate. Mocking the sick. Dismissing the suffering. Justifying the abandonment of the vulnerable. These aren’t gaffes or outbursts. They’re the message. They’re code. They’re permission for everyone else to stop caring too.

And the people cheer.

Trump himself no longer pretends to unite. He speaks to his base in terms of conquest, revenge, and dominance. Protesters are “scum.” Journalists are “the enemy of the people.” LGBTQ+ Americans are “destroying the country.” Black activists are “thugs.” Arabs, and immigrants? Barely human. “Shithole countries,” as he once said—and never walked back.

This isn’t locker-room talk. It’s statecraft now.

And while the culture mocks the sick and demonizes the poor, government policy does the same with cold precision. Over the last four decades, America has witnessed the largest wealth transfer in modern history—not from the rich to the struggling, but from the working and middle classes to the top 1%. Billionaires added trillions to their net worth. Corporations bought back their own stock instead of raising wages. Hedge funds bought housing, while families were evicted.

The government didn’t just watch—it engineered it. This didn’t start with Trump. It began with Reagan. Reaganomics—the blueprint of tax cuts for the rich, corporate deregulation, union-busting, and trickle-down mythology—set the foundation. It was sold as economic freedom. In reality, it was the beginning of systemic financial cruelty, where the rich were rewarded, and everyone else was told to wait patiently for crumbs that never came.

Decades later, the results are in. Tax codes were rewritten to reward wealth, not work. Trade agreements and tax incentives deliberately encouraged corporations to ship jobs overseas, hollowing out entire towns and communities. The factories closed, the stores shuttered, the families uprooted—not because business failed, but because it was more profitable to eliminate American jobs, pocket the difference, and then either reward shareholders or buy back stock to inflate executive bonuses and share prices.

Today, the top 1% of Americans control over 30% of the nation’s total wealth, while the bottom 50% hold just 2.5%. That isn’t a market failure—it’s a policy design. What once was a system built around productivity, wages, and the supply and demand of goods and services has become a system focused almost entirely on the transfer of money—through tax loopholes, asset bubbles, and legalized Wall Street control.

The economy no longer serves people. It serves portfolios. And empathy, even in economics, is now considered weakness. Those who fall behind are seen not as casualties of a rigged system, but as failures undeserving of help.

This is what financial cruelty looks like. It’s not just about money. It’s about stripping people of dignity and hope—and then telling them to applaud their own betrayal.

The Left’s Empathy Test

But the death of empathy is not confined to the right. On the far left, compassion has been consumed by moral absolutism. Activism has turned into inquisitions. People are judged not by intentions or growth, but by whether they use the right vocabulary in real time.

Online, an accusation is often as good as a conviction. Misstep, and you’re exiled. Question the orthodoxy, and you’re branded a bigot—even if you’re asking in good faith.

Progressive spaces that once preached inclusion now often practice exclusion. Those deemed not sufficiently “woke” are discarded, not educated. There is little patience for difference, no room for learning, and even less for forgiveness.

In both camps—MAGA rage and progressive rigidity—empathy has become conditional. You are either with us or you are the problem.

The Evangelical Embrace of Hate

Evangelical America has twisted religious freedom into a license to hate. The same pulpits that once preached love, grace, and humility now thunder with sermons about conquest, judgment, and purging the “godless.”

What began as a faith is now a movement of power. Religious freedom is redefined to mean the right to discriminate, the right to demonize others in the name of God, the right to say, “My religion allows me to treat you as subhuman.”

Ministers like Greg Locke scream about “witches” in their congregations. Franklin Graham has called Islam “evil and wicked” and said Jews who don’t accept Christ are “doomed.” Robert Jeffress, one of Trump’s most loyal spiritual advisors, once said Jews, Muslims, Mormons, and Catholics are all going to hell. The Pope himself has been called a “globalist puppet” and “the Anti-Christ” by pastors whose churches now double as political campaign hubs.

And it doesn’t stop at words. These same figures glorify violence—or at least, make peace with it. On January 6, 2021, Jesus banners waved over mobs that crushed police and stormed the Capitol. “Righteous violence” is preached from pulpits. “Second Amendment solutions” are cheered in the pews.

The cross has been weaponized. Not for mercy, but for vengeance.

Mainstreaming Hate from the Top Down

This isn’t just fringe anymore. Tech billionaires, presidential candidates, and cultural influencers now echo slurs and conspiracy theories with impunity. Elon Musk, owner of X (formerly Twitter), publicly endorsed a post accusing Jews of orchestrating “dialectical hatred against whites.” His response?

“You have said the actual truth.”

With that one line, the world’s richest man put his stamp of approval on an antisemitic lie straight out of white nationalist propaganda. Musk didn’t walk it back. Instead, the platform he owns has become a haven for hate speech—restoring banned accounts, promoting QAnon-adjacent content, and monetizing outrage.

And Musk has made his stance on compassion just as clear. In a leaked Tesla email, he reportedly told employees:

“Empathy is not a priority.”

Not only is hate normalized—it’s now efficient. It’s scalable. Empathy is dismissed as a distraction, even a weakness, by the very people shaping our online discourse, AI models, hiring systems, and speech platforms. When men with this much power treat dehumanization as truth and empathy as irrelevant, the cultural collapse becomes systemic.

They aren’t just normalizing cruelty—they’re engineering it. And the silence from those who know better is deafening.

From Criminals to Patriots: The Inversion of Morality

Nowhere is this rot clearer than in the way January 6th rioters have been reframed. In Trump’s second term, those convicted for attacking the Capitol—men and women who assaulted police officers, smashed windows, and called for the execution of elected officials—are not only being pardoned. They are being celebrated.

Trump has called them “hostages.” His allies call them “patriots.” Rallies now open with tributes to January 6th defendants. Fundraisers are held for their families. Commemorative coins and apparel honor them. Some are running for office. Others are getting book deals.

Meanwhile, the people they beat, maimed, and nearly killed—Capitol Police officers and staffers—are mocked as “crisis actors” or “government pawns.” The ones who died? Forgotten. The ones who survived? Labeled traitors for testifying to the truth.

This moral inversion is staggering: The criminals are heroes. The defenders of democracy are enemies. Violence is patriotism. Law is tyranny. And empathy? Nowhere to be found.

Enemies of the People: How Government Workers Became Villains

Once viewed as public servants, government employees are now regularly treated as enemies. In today’s America, being a civil servant—especially in election offices, public health, education, or the judiciary—means being targeted with threats, slander, and sometimes violence. They’re called “deep state rats,” “traitors,” “tyrants,” and “pedo groomers” by politicians and media figures with massive platforms. Even school librarians and IRS clerks are branded as agents of some vast conspiracy.

Election workers have faced death threats for simply counting ballots. Teachers have been doxxed and fired for using inclusive language or teaching history accurately. Public health officials were harassed out of their jobs for issuing COVID guidelines. Judges and prosecutors are stalked online and offline for doing their jobs—especially if their work touches on Trump, January 6th, or any right-wing cause.

These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re symptoms of a movement that has openly declared war on the very concept of impartial governance.

Celebrating Violence in God’s Name

It’s not just abstract hate—it’s real, physical, dangerous.

Trump himself said he would “pay the legal fees” of anyone who beat up a protester at one of his rallies. That kind of behavior is now celebrated. When Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted for killing two people with an AR-15, far-right media turned him into a hero. Congress members invited him to Washington. Evangelical leaders prayed over him.

Political figures joke about “executing traitors.” Militias train in the woods with Bible verses on their rifles. Violent threats against judges, teachers, librarians, and election workers have skyrocketed—and the response is often: “Good.”

We’ve become a country where threats are jokes, jokes are slogans, and slogans are orders.

A Nation Coming Apart

What makes America exceptional is not its power. It’s supposed to be its promise: that dignity belongs to everyone. That the country is not built for the strong to trample the weak, but to protect the weak from the strong.

That idea is dying. You can hear it in the applause when protestors are punched. In the silence when slurs go unchecked. In the glee of cancel culture. In the chants of “lock them up” and “go back where you came from.”

You can hear it in the cruelty we no longer flinch at—and sometimes find funny.

Empathy isn’t a political position. It’s a human one. And when a nation loses its capacity for empathy, it becomes a nation that cannot mourn its dead, cannot shelter its poor, cannot heal its wounds. It becomes a place where humiliation replaces honor, and power replaces principle.

History’s Warnings—Ignored Again

History does not forgive nations that forget their humanity.

The Roman Empire fell not when it lost a war, but when it lost its unity and its virtue. The German republic collapsed into fascism not with tanks, but with propaganda—when its people were taught to see fellow citizens as rats, degenerates, parasites. When slurs became slogans.

In Rwanda, radio hosts called their neighbors “cockroaches” before machetes ever swung.

In every case, the first step toward atrocity is linguistic. When you strip someone’s humanity with a word, what follows is just logistics.

Today in America, we are back to speaking in those ancient, brutal tongues. And we have a president who relishes it.

Jimmy Carter Was Right

We didn’t want to hear it when President Jimmy Carter spoke in 1979 about America’s “crisis of confidence.” He said the danger was not external—it was in our soul. He was ridiculed for sounding too bleak, too introspective, too real.

But he was right. And now it may be too late.

We are a nation armed to the teeth and emotionally bankrupt. We still have nuclear missiles, but no shared morality. We have laws, but no shared trust. We have freedom of speech, but no sense of responsibility for what we say.

When Meme Activism Becomes Cowardice

What’s most tragic isn’t just that empathy is dead—but that when people do try to revive it, they do so cowardly.

A Facebook meme here. A quote card there. An Instagram story with a rainbow overlay. Expressions of compassion carefully crafted for their own echo chambers—never for real risk, never for real confrontation. Just enough to feel righteous, but never enough to make waves.

No one is brave when their entire audience already agrees. Few take public stances that cost them something. Fewer still put their names, their reputations, or their safety on the line to speak up for what’s right.

Real courage is not a meme. It’s standing up in the face of cruelty, not whispering “be kind” from behind a wall of likes. It’s risking something. But too many have decided it’s better to keep their head down, post in private groups, or hide behind anonymous handles than say, “This is wrong,” in public, with a face and a name.

Suburban moms post MLK quotes on Facebook, then vote for candidates who ban books about racism. Self-proclaimed moderates quietly express concern but won’t risk a friendship or job to confront hate out loud. Brave men and women once marched across bridges. Now, they post on threads they know no one will challenge.

Empathy needs defenders. Not spectators.

What We’ve Become, and What’s Next

Empathy can’t be legislated, but it can be chosen. It must be spoken—not hinted at. It must be risked—not retweeted or posted via Facebook memes.

We are a country where slurs are policy, where cruelty wins elections, and where silence is safe. But that silence is complicity. Trump didn’t kill empathy. We did. By cheering, by laughing, by staying silent. By confusing safety with courage and memes with morality.

Every empire thinks it’s immune. But the truth is simple:

No nation survives the death of its soul.