I woke up yesterday morning with many thoughts racing through my mind. And this was before the shocking ambush of an ally in the Oval Office. That often happens, and it’s what gets me out of bed. Usually the thoughts swirl around whatever I’m writing—a cool plot twist, a key conversation, the realization or solution of a plot hole.

On this morning, it was about the state of this country. A lot has happened in the month-plus since our latest president was inaugurated and his henchman set loose on the government. Efficiency, they call it. It’s efficient, all right. An efficient vacuuming of tax dollars into the pockets of two men. But you can read about that yourself, elsewhere.

What I got thinking about, and maybe others my age have too, is: “So this is what it was like to be a nobody in Germany in the 1930s.”

I know, here comes the inevitable comparison to Nazis. It is and it isn’t. While the current administration is more like organized crime, my comparison has DNA.

My great grandparents came to the U.S. from Austria as young adults. The men to avoid military service—this was the late 1800s and Austria was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A map, curiously available through Walmart, shows their homes on the western edge.

For what I’m sure are many reasons, my grandparents, who were born in the U.S., never talked about family back in Austria in terms of where they were and what they did in the 1930s. My mother went to visit relatives in 1950 in what was then the “U.S., British, French Zone.” She needed a special stamp on her passport. She never talked much about that visit. Perhaps because it was also during a time of personal stress in her life.

My dad, whose family had been in the U.S. since before there was a U.S., served in the Army Air Force during World War II. He took the photo above. He never talked about his time in Europe during the war. He wasn’t in combat (that I know of), but support behind the lines. He had lots of stories about delivering booze for the officers.

My family has a curious pattern of timing. My grandfather should have been of age to serve in World War I, but I have no evidence that he did. My father was kind of old for WWII. My brothers barely dodged Vietnam. Not literally; the draft ended before they had to register.

My point, however, is that right now feels like a metaphorical trainwreck of epic proportions. Depending on what happens in the next four years, whole books or maybe just chapters will be written about this time.

And I have nothing to cling to while trying to wrap my brain around all this. Historians who had been so optimistic before November 2024, saying, we’ve been here before and the American people rose to the challenge and beat back the threat of authoritarians, oligarchs, etc. Now, those optimistic historians can only shake their heads and say they have no idea where this will end up. There are, of course, possible futures—a return to sanity or a dissolution of the Constitution, the courts, even Congress.

We have never been here before.

What do you do when you can see the derailed train coming toward you, cars piling up to the right and the left, but you don’t know which direction to run to avoid getting crushed?

I don’t have family examples of resisters, protesters, opposition party members. I’ve read the books. I understand the assignment. But I don’t know how to implement it. I don’t know what I can do that would make a difference.

I wish I had thought to ask my parents and grandparents how got through tough times, though I’m sure I’d have been rebuffed. My family is notorious for not talking about anything important.

My generation, the Boomers, have been somewhat insulated. At least those of us who are white and in the middle class, especially the men. I didn’t live through the 1918 pandemic, WWI, the Great Depression—my grandmother did tell stories of men coming to the door asking for food in exchange for work—WWII, or Korea. Vietnam was only on TV. My homes have never burned in a wildfire or been demolished in a hurricane. I haven’t even had Covid.

The scariest time for me was the 1980s when the U.S. came very close to nuclear war, though we were assured that we could just dig a hole in our yard, cover it with a door, and cover that with dirt (how to do that while in the hole, I don’t recall). There was a slew of nuclear holocaust films in the 1980s. Memorably, 1983’s Testament and The Day After, gave me nightmares (that my friends said were worse than the films). 9/11 was also terrifying—I worked in Boston at the time. I remember that crystal-clear Tuesday. I lay awake listening to the fighter jets flying overhead every 20 minutes all night long. All other air traffic, the planes braking to land at Logan, canceled. I still shake when a big plane flies low overhead. But I was safe. My loved ones were safe.

“What if it does happen? What do we do?” From The Day After.

I just put myself through a rewatch of the first two Terminator movies and the nuclear films mentioned above. The Terminator movies are surprisingly relevant right now. All scared the crap out of me, again.

A train derailed in a nearby town recently. It was caught on video by a train fanatic—people drive around filming trains going by. The pileup of cars crossed the road he was on, the other end blocked a crossing, so he was trapped for five hours until the train could be moved (though how emergency responders got there and he couldn’t leave, I don’t understand). The train carried dry goods. Nothing hazardous. He was not hit nor was his car.

I’m not doing nothing. I’ve written repeatedly to my members of Congress—all Democrats. I joined a local Indivisible group. I spent my work life trying to communicate the dangers of human-caused environmental degradation, which now feels like a lost cause—lowercase! My nieces and nephews will grow up in a world far different from the one I grew up in. I feel like a failure.

I have purposely not named this administration or the henchman though I know anonymity won’t protect me from the surveillance state. I write under a pen name—this name. But what I say is true. I remember when my girlfriend and I went to city hall to get married and filled out the form for a marriage license. I remember thinking, now I’m on a public list, a list that one day could be used against me.

And here we are. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. I fully expect that within four years my marriage will no longer be federally recognized. That might be the best of what’s coming.