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Even if you are not a history buff, you may have heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or of Sophie and Hans Scholl of the White Rose resistance group. When their country descended into an authoritarian hellscape, they stood up for what they believed and paid the ultimate price for it. While very few Germans would have called them “patriots” at the time, we now remember them as heroes. 

What about Jakob Schmid, Irmgard Furchner, or Josef Schütz? Have you ever heard of them?

As for Schmid, try Googling, “Who turned in Sophie and Hans Scholl?” What you will find is that Schmid worked as a janitor at the university where the siblings distributed pamphlets speaking out against Nazi Germany, and he was responsible for their arrest. 

They were executed four days later. 

Schmid, on the other hand, got a nice bonus and a promotion. When the university honored his deed, hundreds of students cheered this “patriot.” 

Of course, while Schmid was celebrated as a hero, others in the Third Reich were “just doing their jobs.” Like Schütz, a guard in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and Furchner, who was still a teenager when World War II ended but had worked as a typist at the Stutthof concentration camp. 

The reason we know their names is because, even 80 years after the fall of the Nazis, present-day Germany continues to prosecute those who participated in the crimes against humanity that Adolf Hitler’s regime committed. 

Schütz, for example, was convicted in 2022 of accessory to murder and attempted murder. He died before he could begin his five-year prison sentence. 

Furchner was convicted a few months later of accessory to murder in 10,505 cases. 

That’s their legacy.

And, of course, even before they faced prosecution, they had to live with themselves for the roles they played in Nazi Germany. 

Just imagine the conversations they might have had over the years. 

“What did you do during the war, Uncle Jakob?”
“Funny that you should ask. Have you heard of the White Rose? Well, I made sure that they were executed.”

“Did you know about what happened in the concentration camps?”
“Know about it? I made sure that they ran efficiently so that we could murder more people.” 

“What did you think of those masked thugs who dragged law-abiding immigrants out of their cars and made them disappear when Donald Trump tried to turn the US into a right-wing autocracy?”
“I was one of those thugs, and I really enjoyed having that power over brown people and making America great again.”

“How did you feel when you found out that the Trump administration was conducting extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean?”
“Well, I double-tapped alleged drug smugglers with a missile when they were helplessly clinging to their wrecked boat, but I was just following orders.”

Ooops, we got ahead of ourselves a bit there. 

But now that the cat is out of the bag, let’s talk about how history will judge what is going on in the United States these days. 

Of course, first we need to issue the obligatory disclaimer that, even though the parallels between the origins and the early days of the Third Reich and MAGAmerica are striking, we are not saying that Trump is Hitler, that his supporters are all a bunch of Nazis, or that the crimes being committed now are comparable to those committed in Germany in the 1930s. 

Well, at least not all of them… yet. But we’re getting there.

The cold-blooded murder of alleged drug smugglers in international waters is a real inflection point, and there will be a “right side of history” here.

And if you think that, without any kind of due process, the US is allowed to execute people it suspects of shipping drugs that may be headed for its shores with what may be deadly fentanyl, simply because the commander in chief declares them to be “terrorists,” then you are not on that right side. 

There is also no reason to believe that, less than a year into Trump’s second term, we have seen the worst yet. The president and his administration are too drunk on power, too intent on drastically remaking the US, too disdainful of the Constitution, too corrupt, too secretive, and too openly lawless. 

There is a lot more to come (or to be uncovered). 

Therefore, we can already say with a high degree of certainty that history will judge Trump and his followers harshly. And we hope that those who commit the most serious crimes during this time will face consequences. (Unfortunately, the US doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to ensuring this kind of accountability, which is why the sins of the antebellum South reverberate to this day and contributed to the rise of MAGA… but that is another story for another day.)

Still, even though the US isn’t good at what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which means coming to terms with the past, now that the wheels are coming off the administration a bit, its crimes are getting more serious, and its actions more un-American, people should start thinking about what they’ll tell their children or grandchildren when asked what they did when Trump tried to turn the United States into a right-wing autocracy.

There are plenty of Americans who will be able to have those conversations with their heads held high.

Millions have marched against the regime and stood up for their neighbors who were dragged out of their homes and cars. 

Some of them have paid a high price for doing what is right, because, make no mistake, going along with an authoritarian regime is easier in the short run than speaking out against it. 

Faithful (to the Constitution) government servants have lost their jobs, many of the president’s “enemies” have found themselves the targets of politically motivated prosecutions, and regular folks demonstrating against or recording the abuses of government agents have been roughed up and arrested.

Others, however, won’t have a good answer. 

We haven’t quite reached the stage where defending Trump has become morally indefensible. But MAGA enthusiasts who actively participate in the administration’s authoritarian excesses — and even regular folks who parrot the propaganda they hear on Fox News — are quickly running out of excuses, and out of time, to end up on the right side of history. 

To be clear, we are not saying that, once democracy and the rule of law have been restored, every enabler should be held liable for their actions or inaction. 

There is nothing criminal about what House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is doing or the way the right-wing justices on the Supreme Court are ruling.

It’s just disgraceful, and their names will live in infamy.

For example, future generations are not going to look kindly on GOP lawmakers who served as a rubberstamp for anything the Trump administration was doing, or a super-political high court that seemed more intent on allowing the president to amass power and letting him violate the law than upholding the Constitution and the nation’s founding principles.

Which means that, now that we have reached the “committing war crimes” and “sending the troops into American cities” stage of this period in American history, all of those who have the opportunity to do something, anything, to curb Trump’s unbridled ambition have a choice to make. 

They can choose the path of least resistance now and be remembered as one of the villains, or they can, at a potential cost to themselves, be one of the heroes.

After having learned some hard truths, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) made her choice last month when she quit Congress over the GOP’s failure to address the cost of living, and, with a heavy heart, (kinda) broke with a man she clearly admires, over her efforts to ensure that the Epstein files see the light of day.

She serves as a great example that there should be no purity test when it comes to the anti-Trump resistance. Greene may continue to hold some views that most people who oppose the president disagree with and even find abhorrent. 

But that doesn’t matter because the overarching goal right now is to slow down this immoral administration.

In Indiana, state Republicans are finding themselves at a crossroads as well.

A majority of GOP lawmakers in the House this week caved to Trump’s demand to gerrymander their state’s congressional districts. However, even in the face of threats from the president’s supporters, several Republican senators have said they won’t participate in this power grab, which leaves its fate up in the air.

Years in the future, those lawmakers, who are pressured and maligned now, will be able to tell their grandchildren that they did the right thing when Trump wanted them to subvert democracy.

Their colleagues who couldn’t muster the same courage will hang their heads in shame. 

As should any member of the Supreme Court that allowed Texas this week to keep its racially gerrymandered map in a desperate bid to prevent a Democratic victory in next year’s midterms (although, to be fair, the court’s most corrupt members, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, have demonstrated time and again that they have no shame).

Or those US senators who watched video of two defenseless men being murdered while clinging to a capsized boat in the Caribbean, and still defended orders that clearly violated the Pentagon’s own rules of war. 

Or those masked ICE thugs terrorizing men, women, and children on the streets of US cities. 

Or the business leaders who cravenly decide to pay off Trump to make a buck and keep him off their back.

Unfortunately, the list of unpatriotic cowards is long and continues to grow. 

However, so does the number of people who are standing up and saying “not on my watch.”

And while they may have to wait to get their due from history, like Sophie and Hans Scholl and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, we applaud all they are doing to protect America from this unprecedented threat right now. 

Thank you for your service and courage. History will look kindly upon you. And you will make your descendants proud.