Autocracy or Regeneration?

My great-grandfather grew up in what is now Hungary. At 16, he fled being drafted into the Czar’s army and the violence of pogroms, and went to the “Golden Medina” – the land of opportunity in America. He started peddling until he could buy a horse and cart. He saved enough to bring his large family to the United States where they settled in Cleveland, where my grandfather was born. From a grocery store, the family built a wholesale grocery company and an insurance business and were able to send their children to college. 

Hungary now has an autocratic leader and a Christian nationalist culture.  Most of the remaining Jews left or were slaughtered during the Holocaust. People are afraid to speak freely. The state controls information. The Prime Minister and the ruling party have dismantled the country’s democratic institutions. Will the US go in the same direction?

The recent election shows that the United States is narrowly divided, voting for candidates with strikingly different visions of the future. The incoming administration will claim that their 2% victory is a sweeping mandate for the vicious ejection of the families of undocumented immigrants, whether some are citizens or not. Their agenda includes dismantling environmental, labor, and other protections, persecution of perceived enemies, and spreading fear and hatred. They are not seeking common ground to solve shared challenges for the well-being of the American people and indeed for all people and for the planet.

Accelerating climate impacts mean we need to build resilience and community strength. We need more science, not less. How can we help people understand the costs of climate disruption to food, to insurance, and other systems? We need to address how corporations have structured work to preclude benefits and to make schedules flex for the benefit of the corporations not for workers. Wages are too low. Automation and AI will continue to replace workers, so new ways of earning a living must be invented.

This is not a time to flee. We must mount vigorous resistance to Trump’s worst moves. But we also need to build community, listen to one another, and cultivate joy. We can’t let a dangerous administration stop us from making progress through local, state, and international action toward a regenerative future. Here is an inspiring example of restoration.

 [Photo: Glenville Quality Food Store at 10128 St. Clair Avenue, operated by Leo and Louis Grossman (behind the counter), foreshadowed the changes in size and in food merchandising from the smaller crowded groceries, which were still very much part of the neighborhood scene. ca. 1912 (Fred Grossman)]