The commemoration of June 6 as D-Day always feels important to me because of its historical significance and the fact that my father fought against Fascism in World War II. My dad wasn’t part of the Normandy Invasion. He was a young enlistee in the war and by the time he went through flight training and officer candidate school the war in Europe was winding down. He did fly a few missions over Germany as a B-17 pilot before VE Day, but his most harrowing experience ironically came after the war. The B-17 he was flying back to the States lost both engines and had to ditch in the North Atlantic. He was one of only four of the 17 on board who survived.
So I take fascists and dictators very seriously, and what is going on in our government today makes me furious. All those brave men and women who risked and thousands who lost their lives will have sacrificed in vain if the MAGA devotees of Donald Trump are allowed to finish destroying our democracy.
In all my years of studying evil governments from Pharaoh to Putin did I ever dream it could happen here. I’m not naive. I am painfully aware of the ugly chapters in our own history, but in all those episodes the leadership has emerged to return our nation to a course based on the critical values of equality and justice our democracy depends on. In the last 18 months under the dictatorial rule of the Trump administration such leadership has not risen up in numbers significant enough to stop the chaos and corruption.
We need examine our current situation through the famous warning that comes from an 1887 letter Lord Acton wrote to Bishop Creighton regarding the moral standards used to judge historical leaders. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
My fear now is that those with nearly absolute power in the U.S. are so determined to keep it and protect themselves from prosecution for their crimes that they will do anything and everything to rig or cancel the midterm elections. If that happens our experiment with government of the people, by the people, and for the people will be dead for at least a generation. What evil that can happen with absolute power fills volumes of human history, and the last 18 months have shown we are not immune from the dark side of human nature.
And that brings me to a nightmare on this D-Day that I cannot get out of my head. I hope and pray with all my being I am being too pessimistic, but for the first time in my life I can imagine a time when an allied group of nations like those who defeated fascism in 1945 might be necessary to invade the USA and liberate us from our own captivity.
Another famous quote we need to dust off and live into is the one that says “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” While frequently misattributed to Thomas Jefferson, the true origin and evolution of the sentiment are fascinating: The sentiment originated with Irish statesman and orator John Philpot Curran, who stated in an 1790 speech: “The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.
The shorter version is much easier to pay lip service to, but Curran’s warning about the servitude that we risk if we fail to be very vigilant and act on it packs a much more powerful punch.
This whole situation reminds me of Jesus’ words which are so important they are repeated six times in the Gospels: “Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
June 6, 2026
Peacefully Harsh 