SPECIAL TO THE DAILY NEWS
Saturday, January 28, 2017, 9:59 PM
Barack Obama needs to come back from his vacation. Michelle, too. We need a voice for the majority of Americans who did not vote for Donald Trump.
Democrats and progressives are frantic about Trump's steady stream of executive orders violating the human and civil rights of people firmly established by law and the U.S. Constitution.
Arrogantly some pundits are asking people expressing their outrage "why are you surprised?" "He's doing what he said he would do."
No one is surprised that he is doing what he said he would do. We are surprised he is getting away with it so easily. The checks and balances we've read about since middle school need to kick in and kick in fast. Thankfully, the much-maligned ACLU convinced a federal judge to block Trump's immigration executive orderfor now anyway.
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Normally people hesitate to compare any violator of human and civil rights on a grand scale to Hitler for fear of minimizing what Hitler did.
And, while most Americans can never know what it was like to be Jewish in the time of Hitler, perhaps weafter 10 days of Trumpcan start to imagine, especially if we recall what we know about Germany in Hitler's adolescent days.
In Forward magazine, Andrew Nagorski, who wrote "Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power," described Jews and non-Jews' slow wake-up call to the Nazi danger:
"In the very early 1920s, when Adolf Hitler was still only a local rabble rouser in Munich, two men from Munich's American consulate made a point of observing his rallies: Robert Murphy, the young acting consul, and Paul Drey, a German employee who was a member of a distinguished Bavarian Jewish family.
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"Do you think these agitators will ever get far?" Murphy asked his colleague. "Of course not!" Drey replied. "The German people are much too intelligent to be taken in by such scamps."
Nagorski wrote German Jews and many Americans in Germany thought Hitler would "never act on his most extreme rhetoric, and besides, the donations would keep him reasonable."
Almost 100 years later, we are hearing similar remarks from smart and politically-seasoned Americans. "It's all going to calm down." "He needs to placate his base." "The Republicans won't let him destroy the party."
Meanwhile, Trump's actions could very well result in refugees being murdered when they return to their homelands. Their lives should matter to the President and to all Americans.
Trump, I suppose, argues American lives matter more, but the truth is Americans do not live in daily fear of violence the way some Muslims, Latinos and other people from ethnic groups do in war-torn countries under dictatorial governments. That doesn't mean we don't have economic and societal problems that need solving. We do. But, nothing Trump is doing gets at the real pocketbook issues facing the white middle class Americans who put him in office nor does it protect us from a terrorist attack. Time will prove this true.
Until then, somebody with authority and presence needs to go toe-to-toe with Trump.
Someone who isn't delusional about possibly having a relationship with this man after he "calms down." Someone who isn't using Trump to get elected or re-elected. Someone who isn't participating in Democratic Party in-fighting. Someone who will give voice to the millions of Americans watching cable news, as I write this, thinking what can I do, what can I say, so I don't feel so helpless, so afraid. I am one of those Americans.
Is that someone Obama? I don't know. I can't think, though, of anyone else who could synthesize the energy of the Women's March on Washington and bring Democrats, moderate Republicans, progressives, whites and people of color together.
He has a legacy to protect. We have the very soul of our country.
Karen Hinton is Chief Strategy Officer at Fenton and is the former press secretary for NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio.
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Obama, you need to come home - New York Daily News