The pendulum swings toward autocracy

To the editor,

Like the pendulum of a venerable cuckoo clock — an apt metaphor for much of the world, and for this nation today — the rightward political movement edges inexorably toward its autocratic zenith. Constructive, though often controversial, dialogue is shunned in the process, and the autocracy of the 1930s and 1940s is reborn. As for the balancing forces of the legislative and judicial branches, their silence or obedience at the highest levels speaks volumes.

Europe’s amnesia is telling. When Vice President Vance and Defense Secretary Hegseth cautioned that Western European allies of the past — France and Britain — no longer merited the blind support once earned and given, many, including both a docile Democratic leadership and moderate, responsible Republicans, dismissed it as thoughtless rhetoric. Sadly, Vance and Hegseth were all too correct — and prescient.

France, under an “all-things-to-all-men” leadership, looked to Saudi Arabia — an alleged “paymaster of 9/11” — to bolster its historic antipathy toward Israel and the Jewish people. In the dysfunctional halls of meaningless babble that make up the United Nations, France proclaimed appeasement. Forgotten by France’s Vichy-inspired leadership was the warning of the 2015 Charlie Hebdo and Paris massacres: acquiescence only inspires greater violence, particularly from dedicated domestic terrorists. 

In Britain, Jeremy Corbyn’s ultra-left-wing acolytes in Whitehall echoed that charade. The historic virtues of British leadership have eluded today’s leaders, whose surrender to the electoral potential of alien “grooming gangs” and their sexist assaults has led to appeasement of their ideological counterparts. Neville Chamberlain, it seems, is alive and well in Whitehall.

Where, however, are the Émile Zolas to utter “J’accuse?” Where are the John McCains or Joe Liebermans, willing and able to buck the tide of timidity-born silence? Usually, voluble politicians are now stricken with the convenient malady of “appeasement silence.”

The pendulum’s inexorable momentum may once again extinguish the world as some of us have briefly known it — a place where nations and peoples could live securely, practice their religions, and live free of the fear of another Holocaust. The horrors of Oct. 7 in Israel, staged by terrorists thrust into the midst of a people as a “recognized nation” or cabal embraced by uncaring governments and useless politicians, remain as real today as they were in 1934 through 1945.

At the same time, the abiding fear that many in this nation now share — that peaceable dissent or civil disagreement is no longer tolerated, and that masked, black-suited thugs are paraded as representatives of law and order today — presents a frightening reality. These thoughts should command our attention and our action before it is too late.

Indeed, the real question is whether it is not already too late.

Charles G. Moerdler