When do you leave?

The latest issue of the New York Review of Books has a review of February 1933:  The Winter of Literature, by Ewe Wittstock.  On Jan. 30 of that year Hindenburg had appointed Hitler as chancellor.  The book burning and restrictions on authors began almost immediately.  The reviewer, Pankaj Mishra, notes that some authors and writers left Germany at once.  Others thought that Hitler would be replaced after a few weeks or months, and felt they could wait it out.  Still others escaped Germany years later, but did escape.  Some remained quiet, got other jobs, and lived through the war.  Many, of course, who stayed were killed in the camps.

Mishra himself, an Indian, notes that some authors are facing the same kind of decisions in Modi’s India.  The question is:  When do you leave?  There are so many issues.  What about your family?  What about your manuscripts, your papers?  How do you live in your new location?  And perhaps the biggest issue–who will take you in?

Trump is now, with the help of people like Stephen Miller, amassing a list of lawyers he can count out to implement his policies.  He no longer trusts the Federalist Society to provide attorneys; it turns out that too many of them believe in the Constitutional order.  Remember that tens of millions of people, a good chunk of members of the House, and a number of Supreme Court justices will do his bidding.  He has media backing him.  He has billionaires backing him.  

And for most Americans, restrictions on books, on television, on social media, on what is taught really isn’t that important.  If libraries are censored, will the average American complain?

I’m old.  I don’t want to leave.  One of the most irritating things to me is that President Biden doesn’t see the danger of running.  Doesn’t he see that stronger candidates are out there?  Doesn’t he see that he is even with Trump in the polls?  I have never been this disheartened.  

That doesn’t mean I am giving up.