Letter to my friends,
On November 5, 2024, America will make an historic choice.
We can choose to continue forward on our historically unique and epic 2.5 century experiment as an ever more equitable, multicultural democracy or we can decide to take a very hard right turn into the darkness of fascism, division, hatred, chaos, and fear. If we take that right turn, Nov 5, 2024 would assuredly be the last free and fair election in my lifetime.
The right turn will bring us a political climate unlike anything any of us have experienced. It will be like the world our forebears ran from. It will be a political environment pioneered by Hitler—creator of the Big Lie propaganda technique—and updated by numerous contemporary authoritarian, kleptocrats like Putin (Russia), Xi (China), Orbán (Hungary), and Maduro (Venezuela).
If you think I am exaggerating, you should read the political science experts: Anne Applebaum (The Atlantic), Timothy Snyder (Yale), and others.
If you think I am exaggerating, listen to his words and recall his deeds. He has repeatedly told what he’s going to do. He said he is going to be a dictator but only on “Day 1”–this should strike fear into the hearts of everyone who impeded his path to power. He said you will not have to vote after this election. He literally separated children from their mothers and made it impossible reunite them. He has said and done so many immoral and horrible things—too numerous to recount. He has even documented in writing his plans to destroy America in his manifesto Project 2025. If you think he will be just another American President, like all the others before him, you are not listening.
If America chooses this dark path, your children and grandchildren will eventually ask you “Why did America forsake democracy?” Are you prepared to say you did everything you could do?
Our children and grandchildren will live in a world of fear, especially for the majority of the population that are non-white or not Christian or female, or unlike him in any way. America will be consumed by racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, anti-education, and anti-science for decades. And we will literally poison our children’s world, possibly forever.
Some of you may think your money will protect you. You are wrong. Look at how many Russian billionaires have mysteriously died recently. Neither money, power, or status will protect you. Nor will the US Supreme Court.
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left to speak out for me*
Whatever misgivings you may have about Harris or Walz, those misgivings pale in comparison to the irrevocable loss of democracy in America.
It is time to open your wallets wide for the Harris-Waltz campaign. You will only have this one opportunity to give your progeny, and their progeny, the opportunity to live in the light, to live in a democracy, to live in an America as you have known your entire life—a country that all the world wants to immigrate to.
Don’t blow it. You will not get a second chance.
For the record:
- If your assets are ≥$3 million, you are richer than 95% of Americans.
- If you own a vacation home, you have more homes than 95% of Americans.
- If you have not served in the US military or put your life on the line to protect America’s democracy, you certainly owe it to America to forsake some luxuries and bequeath to your kids and grandkids the gift of democracy.
Now is the time to make your maximum donation—$3,300 per person, $6,600 per couple. Contribute whatever you can, but contribute something—give generously.
Hayward Zwerling
8 August 2024
* There are several versions of this poem. The earliest version is attributed to German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) and appears on the Holocaust memorial in Boston.