The Storm Clouds Gather

Democracy Dies in Real Time

This is long so bear with me. I needed to write this so I could get it out of my head where it is performing the world’s longest steel drum solo.

I've been thinking about democracy lately, usually around that 3 AM wake up call when I can't sleep another moment and my mind wanders to all the things I should be worried about but aren't worried enough about. You know that feeling? Like when you realize you haven't called your mother in weeks, or that weird freckle might actually be concerning, or that maybe – just maybe – we're watching democracy slip away while scrolling through TikTok recipes for butter boards and thinking about whether to finally start that Pilates class everyone's been talking about. But let me tell you about a time before phones, before instant news, before the world became a 24/7/365 livestream of its own undoing.

Six days. That's what we have left until Trump takes power again. I keep muttering this number to myself while making coffee, while checking email, while pretending everything is normal – as if repetition might somehow make it less real, like when you say a word so many times it loses all meaning. Except this isn't losing meaning – it's gaining it, hour by hour, like watching storm clouds gather while everyone else plans their beach vacation.

Let me tell you about another time, another place, where people were also just living their lives, probably thinking about dinner plans and whether they needed new curtains. Picture Berlin, February 27, 1933. The night is cold – the kind of cold that makes your bones ache, the kind that makes you want to stay inside with a good book and pretend the world isn't changing outside your window. The Reichstag stands there, massive and proud, a symbol of German democracy. Then someone spots it: a flicker of orange in a window. Then another. And another. No phones to record it. No Twitter to spread the news. Just people, standing in the streets, watching flames eat through one of the most important buildings in their country.

The fire spreads like a living thing, the way uncomfortable truths tend to do. The glass dome becomes a furnace. Imagine the sound – the roar of the flames, the crash of falling debris, the murmur of the growing crowd. Nobody's livestreaming this. Nobody's posting updates. They're just watching, helpless, as their democracy burns in real time. The smoke turns the night sky into a black canvas, lit from below by the inferno. People are asking each other: "Who did this? What's happening to our country?"

Hitler had his answer ready: "The Communists!" How perfect that they caught a young Communist named Marinus van der Lubbe right there at the scene. Perfect timing, right? Except historians now know the truth – the Nazis almost certainly started that fire themselves. They created the crisis they needed. By morning, Hitler had his decree. Freedom of speech? Gone. Freedom of press? Dead. Right to protest? Vanished. Police could arrest anyone, anytime, no questions asked.

You know what's funny – not ha-ha funny, but strange-funny? How history has this way of rhyming, like a poem you can't quite remember but keeps coming back to haunt you. Take January 6, 2021. There we all were, probably thinking about what to make for dinner or whether to finally start that Peloton subscription, when suddenly the whole world watches in real-time as the U.S. Capitol is breached. Cellphones everywhere capture every moment. Confederate flags in the halls of democracy. Men with zip ties moving with military precision. A gallows erected outside. Trump stands at his rally, lighting the match: "We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore." Then he tells them to march on the Capitol. They do. Some are hunting for specific targets – we all heard them chanting for Mike Pence, for Nancy Pelosi. The entire world watches it unfold on their screens, between TikTok videos and Instagram stories. Same story, different century. But this time, we're all witnesses.

I've been reading this book, "They Thought They Were Free" – you know, the kind of light bedtime reading that guarantees you'll be up at 3 AM again. Here's what keeps me awake: "What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand." Then, this German teacher described watching his colleagues change: "Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted.' Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion of conformity made it easier for the next... Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing)."

It reminds me of "The Garden of Beasts" – another cheerful addition to my nightmare reading list. We see how the American ambassador's family watched Berlin transform. At first, they rationalized everything. The violence was just temporary. The threats were just rhetoric. The Jews were overreacting. By the time they understood what was happening, it was too late. Sound familiar? It's like watching our own State Department issue carefully worded statements while democracy burns.

And then there's "German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler" – because apparently, I'm determined to never sleep again. We learn how corporations convinced themselves they could control Hitler. They thought they were using him. They thought their money bought them protection. They thought wrong.

Speaking of corporate delusions, let's talk about IBM – yes, that IBM, the American company that probably made your first office computer. There's this devastating book called "IBM and the Holocaust" that lays it all out. While Hitler was building his death camps, IBM was helping him make them more efficient. They knew exactly what their machines were being used for – tracking people, organizing deportations, streamlining genocide. But the money was too good to pass up. Remember that the next time a tech company talks about "ethical AI."

And speaking of tech companies (because apparently, we're determined to repeat every single historical mistake but with better gadgets), let me tell you about Mark Zuckerberg showing up at Mar-a-Lago after Trump's re-election, checkbook in hand, like a tech bro paying protection money. Then, just a few days ago, Meta announces they're shutting down fact-checking. No more warnings about lies. No more barriers to propaganda. It's like watching someone remove all the guardrails from a cliff road and saying, "Trust me, this is fine."

Here's what nobody tells you about how fascism spreads: it's like watching a slow-motion car crash while everyone argues about whether they're actually seeing a crash. The Nazis didn't just take Germany – they marched into Austria, and people threw flowers. They took Czechoslovakia, and the world shrugged. Poland thought they were safe until they weren't. France had the Maginot Line. Ask them how that worked out.

In "The Dressmakers of Auschwitz" (yes, my reading list gets darker), one of the seamstresses, Marta, recalled: "We thought, 'This can't happen here. We're civilized people.'" She survived by sewing ballgowns while her world burned. Another survivor remembered how her neighbor, a professor, said, "Don't worry, the world won't let this happen." That professor died in Dachau.

But here's the terrifying part – and I mean terrifying in the way that makes you want to stress-eat an entire cake, except you know that won't help: In 1945, the Allied powers saved Europe. America was the arsenal of democracy. Today? Trump boasts about his "love letters" with Kim Jong Un. He praises Viktor Orbán's dismantling of Hungarian democracy. He admires Xi Jinping's iron grip on China. Putin? Trump says he trusts him more than American intelligence agencies. These aren't just diplomatic niceties - they're a preview of America's future alliances.

I've been rereading "The Unwomanly Face of War" by Svetlana Alexievich – because apparently, I'm determined to definitely never have a peaceful night's sleep again. She spent decades collecting the forgotten stories of Soviet women who fought against the Nazis. One of these women, a former partisan fighter who began as a schoolteacher, watched her neighbors disappear one by one. "We thought if we stayed quiet, if we didn't make trouble, we would be safe," she said. "But then I realized – the trouble wasn't what we did. The trouble was who we were." Alexievich interviewed hundreds of survivors, women who had been snipers, tank drivers, nurses, pilots. They all said the same thing: By the time they understood what was happening, the only choice was to fight or disappear.

This isn't just about one man's fascination with dictators. It's about a global network of autocrats who've learned to work together. There won't be a mighty United States coming to anyone's rescue this time – because we're the ones who need rescuing, and the world's democracies are too busy fighting their own battles against rising fascism. When the lights go out here, there won't be a D-Day coming to turn them back on.

So what do we do? Because unlike those people in 1933, we've seen this movie before. We know how it ends. And let me tell you, it's not the kind of ending where you get to go home feeling good about yourself.

First, let's be brutally honest about communication – and I mean honest in the way your best friend tells you that yes, those jeans actually do make your butt look big. Yes, start with encrypted messaging apps like Signal. Yes, learn about secure passwords and two-factor authentication. But here's what you need to understand about digital communication: Everything leaves a trace. Everything.

Think about your phone. It's not just recording your conversations - it's tracking your location, your contacts, your habits, your relationships. Even with location services turned off, your phone company knows which cell towers you're connecting to. Every app you open, every link you click, every message you send creates a digital breadcrumb trail. And in a crisis? The government won't need a warrant to follow those breadcrumbs - they'll just need an emergency declaration.

Encryption? It's great until it isn't. Look at what's already happening: Australia's anti-encryption laws force companies to create backdoors. The UK's Online Safety Bill could effectively ban end-to-end encryption. In the U.S., they won't need to break encryption - they'll just demand the keys in the name of national security. And tech companies? They'll comply. They always do. It's like watching someone install a top-of-the-line security system while leaving the back door wide open and a sign saying "Key under mat."

Consider your internet service provider. They can see every website you visit, every email you send, every file you download. VPNs help, until they're banned or compromised. Tor? Same story. And social media? Everything you've ever posted, liked, or shared is already in a database somewhere, waiting to be analyzed, categorized, used. It's like we're all starring in our own surveillance show, except nobody told us we were being cast.

In Myanmar, they shut down the internet to silence protests. In Iran, they created a separate national internet they could control. In China, WeChat is a surveillance tool disguised as a messaging app. Russia has already built the infrastructure to disconnect from the global internet. The technology exists. The precedents exist. The playbook exists. And here we are, still posting our entire lives online like we're auditioning for our own reality show.

That's why the real resistance has to be personal, physical, face-to-face. Think about it - during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Emanuel Ringelblum's resistance network met in soup kitchens, in basements, in plain sight. They passed messages hand to hand. They built trust person by person. Today's apps and encryption are useful tools, but they're not the foundation. The foundation is people. Real people, in real places, who know and trust each other.

Set up meeting spots now. Coffee shops. Libraries. Community centers. Places where people naturally gather. Learn to have conversations without phones present - yes, that means physically removing the batteries if you can, or leaving devices at home. Build networks that can survive a digital blackout. Because when - not if - the internet becomes a weapon of control, these human connections will be all we have.

Remember: The resistance in occupied France didn't use WhatsApp. The Polish Underground didn't have Signal. They used coffee shops, bookstores, church basements. They used ordinary places where people could meet without raising suspicion. They used human networks built on trust, bravery, and the understanding that some things can only be said face to face.

Listen to this passage from "Defying Hitler." Haffner describes watching his fellow law students embrace Nazism: "They had no sense of the abyss into which their daily small cowardices were leading them... All that mattered was the slight relief that came with each new compromise."

Support the resistance. Writers, artists, journalists – they'll need protection. Teachers who keep teaching truth – their lessons are about to become contraband. In "Into That Darkness," Gitta Sereny spent seventy hours interviewing Franz Stangl, the commandant of Treblinka. She asked him how he went from being a normal police officer to running a death camp. His answer? "It was the small steps. Small compromises. You see, if you can get people to stop believing in absolute right and wrong, you can get them to do anything."

Remember those women in the Upper Tailoring Studio at Auschwitz? They stayed alive by sewing beautiful clothes for Nazi officers' wives, but they used their positions to help other prisoners. They shared food. They passed messages. They created a network of resistance right under their oppressors' noses.

Hit them where it hurts – their wallets. Every dollar you spend is a vote. Those companies funding fascism? Make them feel it. Make them regret it. Make them remember that customers have power too.

In "Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto," Emanuel Ringelblum wrote about how people coped with each new restriction, each new humiliation. "They adjust," he wrote. "That's the terrible thing – the human capacity to adjust to anything." He documented everything, buried his archives in milk cans, knowing most of them would die but believing that someday, someone would need to know the truth. Only three of the sixty members of his archive team survived. But their words did.

From "The Nazi Seizure of Power," a shopkeeper in Northeim described watching his town change: "What could I do? It was like being a bird in a magic circle drawn by a snake. You know you should fly away, but you stay, watching, until it's too late." We're all in that magic circle now, except our snake speaks through social media and carries a smartphone instead of a swastika.

I can’t stop thinking about Sebastian Haffner, who wrote "Defying Hitler" in real time, while it was happening. He was just a teenager when it all started, and he wrote: "The main thing was to get rid of the feeling of being persecuted, to live a normal life... to help force the catastrophe into the background... And so we became accomplices in our own destruction."

That's the thing about history – it doesn't ask permission to repeat itself. It just does, while we're trying to live our normal lives. In "The Berlin Shadow," Jonathan Lichtenstein writes about how his father, a Kindertransport survivor, could never shake the feeling that it could all happen again. "The cars still run on time," his father would say, "but that doesn't mean they're not taking people away."

I'm not interested in being an accomplice in my own destruction. History isn't a TikTok trend or an Instagram story that disappears after 24 hours. It's written by people who refuse to let fear win.

When future generations read about this time in history books, what role will you have played? What actions will you wish you had taken? What story will you tell them about where you stood when democracy needed defending?

So here's what you do: You write the next chapter. Make it one worth telling. And yes, maybe start that Pilates class anyway. Because whatever happens, we're going to need our strength – both the kind that helps you stand up straight and the kind that helps you stand up for what's right.

Remember: The Reichstag Fire wasn't just a history lesson. It was a warning. The question isn't "How did they let this happen in 1933?" The question is "What are you going to do about it in 2025?"

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Reading List:

"The Master of Auschwitz: Memoirs of Rudolf Höss, Commandant of Auschwitz" by Rudolf Höss

- Chilling firsthand account of how ordinary people become cogs in a killing machine

- Shows how bureaucracy and "just following orders" enable atrocity

"The Dressmakers of Auschwitz" by Lucy Adlington

- Chronicles the true story of women who sewed to stay alive

- Details how the Upper Tailoring Studio became a haven of resistance

- Shows how Nazi wives exploited prison labor for fashion

"Playing for Time" by Fania Fénelon

- Memoir of a member of the women's orchestra at Auschwitz

- Reveals how music became both salvation and torture

- Shows how art can be weaponized by fascist regimes

"The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany" by Gwen Strauss

- Follows nine women who escaped a death march

- Details their resistance work before capture

- Shows the power of collective resistance

"They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45" by Milton Mayer

- Interviews with ordinary Germans who joined the Nazi Party

- Crucial for understanding how "normal" people accept fascism

- Written in 1955 but terrifyingly relevant today

"In the Garden of Beasts" by Erik Larson

- Chronicles the U.S. Ambassador's family in Hitler's Berlin

- Shows how American society initially normalized Nazi Germany

- Parallels to current political normalization of extremism

"Defying Hitler: A Memoir" by Sebastian Haffner

- Written in real-time during Hitler's rise

- Shows how middle-class professionals rationalized each step

- Particularly relevant for understanding current threats to democracy

"The Berlin Shadow" by Jonathan Lichtenstein

- Story of the Kindertransport through a son's journey with his father

- Shows how trauma passes through generations

- Relevant to understanding long-term impacts of authoritarianism

"The Unwomanly Face of War" by Svetlana Alexievich

- Oral histories of Soviet women who fought Nazis

- Shows how ordinary people become extraordinary resisters

- Demonstrates the vital role of documenting truth under fascism

"Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind" by Sarah Wildman

- Investigation into a lost love story from 1930s Vienna

- Shows how fascism destroys personal relationships

- Relevant to understanding how authoritarianism affects private life

"IBM and the Holocaust" by Edwin Black

- Details how American business enabled Nazi efficiency

- Shows how technology can be weaponized for genocide

- Particularly relevant given current tech industry collaboration with authoritarianism

"German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler" by Henry Ashby Turner

- Analysis of how corporations enabled fascism

- Particularly relevant to understanding current corporate political donations

- Shows how business leaders miscalculate their ability to control authoritarian leaders

"On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century" by Timothy Snyder

- Direct connections between Nazi tactics and current threats

- Practical advice for recognizing and resisting authoritarianism

- Essential guidebook for current moment

"How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them" by Jason Stanley

- Analysis of fascist tactics across history

- Shows how fascist playbook remains consistent

- Particularly relevant for understanding current political rhetoric

"Into That Darkness" by Gitta Sereny

- Based on 70 hours of interviews with Treblinka commandant

- Shows how ordinary people rationalize evil

- Crucial for understanding how "good people" enable atrocity

"The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed" by Wendy Lower

- Investigation of a single photograph of a killing

- Shows importance of documentation

- Relevant to current importance of preserving evidence

"Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust" by Carol Rittner and John K. Roth

- Collection of women's experiences across different roles

- Shows how gender affected both victimization and resistance

- Important for understanding comprehensive nature of fascist control

"Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto" by Emmanuel Ringelblum

- Real-time documentation of ghetto life

- Shows importance of recording truth under fascism

- Relevant to current need for preserving accurate records

"Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age" by Benjamin R. Barber

- Analysis of how to strengthen democratic institutions

- Practical suggestions for civic engagement

- Essential for understanding how to rebuild after authoritarian threats

Remember: These books aren't just history - they're manuals for recognition and resistance. Each story shows how ordinary people either enabled fascism or fought it. The choice they faced then is the choice we face now.