America could wake up on Wednesday with all three branches of our government — the — Executive, Legislative, and Judicial — Trumpist. With this clip, take five minutes to ponder Germany’s memorials and the price that nation paid for being bamboozled by a bombastic autocrat. Listen to the heartfelt message of my German tour guides, for whom these memorials are like ghosts of mistakes made and evils allowed… ghosts that haunt their society still. These are the same guides who clink glasses in the beer halls and yodel from the hilltops with our American tour members. They admire America. They love America. And they are worried for America. If we vote for fascism, it’ll likely be won by one or two percent (or even less)…and perhaps just a few stadiums of people will tip the balance. And history has taught my European friends that the cost of a course correction is infinitely more heartbreaking after a wannabe dictator wins an election than before. We are all participants, we are all responsible, and we will all bear the consequences of our collective choice.

I miss the Grand Old Party (GOP) and long for the day when we can return to healthy and principled partisan debates. (We idealistic hippies sometimes need to be reined in by practical conservatism.) But this election is different… and much deeper than D versus R and left versus right. It’s a clear choice, and the survival of our democracy is on the line. The world needs not the chaos of Trump but the stability of Kamala Harris. The world needs America.

Many don’t realize that the first people Hitler sent to his concentration camps weren’t everyday Jewish citizens, but his political opponents. So, when Trump rants about retribution, locking up his opponents, and giving them “very long sentences,” I can’t help but take him seriously… because history teaches us that is what fascist dictators do during their “Day One” period to consolidate their power. (After all, if you’re hellbent on staying in power but aren’t likely to win the next election, you can’t have your political opponents running around free.) To keep fascism out of our lives, vote for democracy!