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[solarpsychedelic]

If we make it through this time, the U.S. needs to make a reckoning with its history.

It’s convenient to blame the man with the mustache and yes there are parallels. Authoritarians tend to make the same moves, whatever their political party is named.

But ultimately, our call is coming from inside the house.

Genocide, slavery, sedition, Civil War, segregation, eugenics ideology, exploitation of labor, harassment of targeted groups: it happened here. Until we as a whole society face and metabolize this part of American history of white supremacy, greed, and xenophobia, we will repeat it.

If we make it through, we need to re-embrace what made us great: the ingenuity and innovation that come from diversity, education, and a mindset that looks to the future instead of living in the past.

Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and American authoritarianism have similarities, yet they are also their own products of time, place, and culture. 

We need to understand and acknowledge our own American history of genocide, slavery, segregation, and religious fanaticism. 

The people enslaving others, banning books, and screaming slurs at Black students during the Civil Rights era weren’t Nazis. They were Americans. That’s the difficult truth we must admit.

The Germans did the hard work of confronting their past. Can Americans do the same?