The Second Coming of the Greatest Generation

As we face the rise of fascism here and around the world, we are fortunate to have history to lead and guide us.

The Greatest Generation is a term developed to describe people born between 1901 and 1927 who dealt with the Great Depression and World War II.

They provided a blueprint for surviving today’s current climate, should we deign to follow it.

They were seemingly common people who were caught up in the twentieth century’s greatest calamities.

As teenagers, they saw the world ravaged by World War I, the so-called “war to end all wars.”

They survived the war only to face the Great Depression in 1929. Unemployment, inflation, and starvation ravaged the world.

The pre-depression and depression years were the perfect environment for the rise of fascism.

Countries that wanted to conquer, and despots who wanted to rule the world.

The Japanese military.

Mussolini in Italy.

Franco in Spain.

Stalin in Russia.

The man in Germany with the funny mustache.

In 1939, fascism converged and we were once again plunged into a World War.

The War to End All Wars was savage, but this was unparalleled.

Seventy to eighty-five million deaths, more than half of them civilians.

Among ashes and ruins, the Greatest Generation rebuilt the world.

Not perfectly, not peacefully, but in many ways better than the world that came before it.

In 2025, we need another Greatest Generation.

We need people like our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

We need people who despise tyranny and despotism.

We need people tired of war and suffering, who will work to end present and prevent future war.

We need people who are kind, compassionate, and empathetic.

We need people wanting to live free and who want their neighbors to live free, free from having the morals and values of others imposed upon them.

We need people who want representative governments, ones that support and protect, not discourage and neglect.

We need leaders who will lead with justice and mercy.

We do not need tinpot, crackpot, would-be dictators and their billionaire backers making a mockery of democracy.

We must start the hard work now by rescuing our country before our current administration permanently descends into diplomatic isolation and exile.

We must repudiate Putin.

We must rise up and rescue our Republic and reclaim our place on the world stage.

We will never know greatness under this administration, but we are becoming acquainted with unprecedented fear, dread, and panic.

We are watching as our nation turns into a Russian satellite.

This is not the legacy that the Generation left us.

This is not what they fought, bled, and struggled for, but what they fought, bled, and struggled against.

We must start now. We must start today.

The world is waiting, watching, and hoping that we act.

And somewhere, beyond our gaze, those who have gone before us are watching, hoping their great and glorious labors were not accomplished in vain.