A Warning to America

My Dearest American Friends,

I write to you from my small flat in Zurich, where the mountains stand sentinel and the air is clear. I’ve always found a certain peace here, a sense of order and stability. For years, I’ve dedicated my life to the study of political history, specifically the insidious rise of authoritarian regimes. My focus has been on Hitler’s Germany, a subject that has consumed me for decades. I’ve walked the streets of Munich, seen the halls of power in Berlin, and read the propaganda that once poisoned a nation’s soul.

And now, I watch your news. I read your papers. And I see it. I see the same patterns, the same dangerous rhetoric, the same slow erosion of democratic norms that I have seen in my history books.

The mainstream media in your country seems paralyzed, caught in a cycle of “both sides” arguments and timid reporting. They are afraid, and I understand why. The press, after all, is one of the first targets of a budding autocrat. But from here, from a place of safety, I am not afraid. I have a duty, as a political historian and a student of humanity, to speak the truth, however uncomfortable it may be. And so, I offer you this new column, “The Aero of Truth,” in the hope that you will listen.

I see the recent actions of your President, Donald Trump, and a chilling echo rings in my ears. I hear him speak of immigrants as “vermin” and “vermin” is a word that I have seen before. It is the language of dehumanization, a prerequisite for atrocity. It is the language Hitler used to turn his countrymen against the Jewish people. It makes a population ripe for the horrors of camps and mass deportations. I see Trump’s new policies, the way he has invoked emergency powers, and I remember how a simple fire, the Reichstag Fire of 1933, became the pretext for Hitler to consolidate power, to suspend civil liberties, and to begin the brutal crackdown on his political opponents. The playbook is the same. The rhetoric is a direct translation.

And what of the courts? I see him and his loyalists attacking judges, calling them biased and illegitimate. I see his administration filling the Department of Justice with sycophants who will do his bidding, and I remember the Nazis’ “People’s Court,” where justice was a charade and loyalty to the Führer was the only law. The rule of law, the very bedrock of a democratic society, is being systematically dismantled. Your Constitution, a document I have long admired for its foresight and wisdom, is being chipped away at daily. I read reports of key sections being deleted from government websites and I am reminded of how swiftly the Weimar Republic’s constitution became a forgotten relic.

My American friends, you are at a crossroads. The future is not set, but the trajectory is clear. If you do not act, if you do not demand more from your leaders and your media, then I fear for you. I fear that the institutions you hold so dear — your free press, your independent judiciary, your right to protest — will become nothing but distant memories.

I am a futurist, but my predictions are not based on crystal balls. They are based on history. If this course continues, I see a future where political opposition is not just a rival to be defeated, but a criminal enterprise to be dismantled. I see a future where mass deportations become a horrifying reality, and where those deemed “enemies of the people” are disappeared into a system without due process. I see a future where the rallies are not just political spectacles but a means to mobilize a populace for the suppression of dissent. I see a future that looks less like the America of its ideals and more like the Germany of the 1930s.

I pray that you do not let this happen. I pray that you find your voice and use it. I will do my part from here, but the true burden of preserving your democracy rests with you. Do not be fooled by the normalization of the unthinkable. The frog does not feel the water boiling until it is too late.

With the gravest concern,

Aero Wyss

Zurich, Switzerland