Can you say Antifaschistischer Schutzwall? Translation: Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart

                                                                       Antifaschistischer Schutzwall

This past weekend Germans noted the 30th anniversary of the events that led to the reunification of their country.  That celebration notes the end of the Berlin Wall,  the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall.  The literal translation of that German name is the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart.  That name has relevance in our current American time because of Antifa, the leftist movement that has taken up the matter of systemized racism in our country.  Antifa is an acronym for anti-fascism.  Its adherents have given up on the idea that racism can be dealt with through policy changes.

Naziism is having a resurgence in Germany, as it is in the U.S.  While the Soviet Union had control of East Germany, the Nazis were banned and suppressed.  They went underground.  Factions that went clandestine in communist East Germany are now supplying the leadership in the resurgence of Naziism in Germany.  

Democracy has always had to work against, and sometimes with, contending totalitarian political forces:  fascism on the right and communist authoritarianism on the left. The U.S. allied itself  with communist Russia in the war against the Nazis, but then heated up the Cold War in opposition to the Soviet Union.  Dealing with multiple and sometimes opposing viewpoints makes international relations a harrowing business at times.  As America emerged as the world leader after World War II, it developed a policy of being very clear about where our democratic policies stood in relationship to the policies of other countries, but at the same time to extend our friendship to the rest of the world.  But under Trump, even Americans are not sure what the American stance is.  Trump is building a wall along the Mexican border.  He wants to build a rampart to ward off Mexicans.  If Trump expresses what  America is, a lot of people are not sure they want to be Americans anymore.

However, Nazi groups and QAnon nutcases see Trump as a way to advance their causes.  As dictators often do, Trump wants his attorney general to arrest and prosecute his political opponents. He has made up charges which are remarkable for the lack of any evidence for which he wants them locked up.  As news reporters have been forced to point out, the charges are purely products of Trump's malice, as is his wall.  By the end of 1991, the Germans had totally dismantled the Berlin Wall.  Trump's wall is still under construction,  and the pandemic has largely eliminated the opportunities that people crossed the border to take advantage of.  Covid-19 has brought immigration across the southern border to a standstill.  

It is helpful to those of us who realize that America has spent four years going backward to examine Robert Frost's words that

 Something there is that doesn't love a wall...

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down.'