We are staring into the abyss

In 1938, Methodist pastor and professor at the Yale Divinity School Halford E. Luccock, made this statement: “When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled ‘made in Germany: it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, ‘Americanism.'”

Eight years later, Martin Niemoller, a Lutheran pastor who’d been sent to a concentration camp for his anti-government pronouncements in Germany, made his oft quoted statement that begins, “First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist …”

Both these men of God realized the danger posed by authoritarians. They also both understood that, as long as the destruction of basic human rights and decency didn’t immediately affect the majority, most citizens were, for all practical purposes, just fine with it.

Today we are staring into the abyss. We have no Joseph Welch, who, at a meeting of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1954, called out Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy saying, "Until this moment, Sen., I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness … You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?"

Many of Iowa's freely elected representatives are Trump sycophants without the courage or decency to call out our current versions of McCarthy. For my grandchildren’s sake, I pray that some miracle will pull us back from the abyss.

Marc McCoy

Cedar Rapids