As twilight descends, some hours later here in EST than in Germany, it is the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of [Broken] Glass, in Nazi Germany, or what older Germans still call the Hitlerzeit–the Time of Hitler. In Louisville, Kentucky we also commemorated “Veterans’ Day”–which was and should still be Armistice Day–which has its origins at the end of what we now know as the First World War. In 1918, however, it was known as The Great War, or more optimistically, the War to End All Wars. The two events, Kristallnacht and Armistice Day, by a perverse irony. Veterans, especially British veterans, marched in the first commemoration of the day behind a banner that said Never Again.

Kristallnacht, of course, was a bloody pogrom against the Jews of greater Germany, largely perpetrated by the SA and the Hitler Youth, but out of uniform, to add to the illusion that this was a “spontaneous uprising” against the Jews. Thousands of Jewish businesses and homes were vandalized, 267 synagogues burned, and hundreds of Jews killed by hateful “mobs.” In the aftermath, some 30 thousand Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps–marking the beginnings of the antisemitic genocide that we now know as the Holocaust.

As with the slogan that British soldiers brought home from the trenches in 1918, we say of the Holocaust: Never Again. Apparently, based on subsequent episodes in every part of the world, we mean (irony alert) “never again will Europeans fight in useless trench warfare in the nineteen-teens” and “never again will Germans massacre Jews in the 1930s and 1940s”–because useless, evil wars and genocides–Korea, Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution, Vietnam, Rwanda, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Afghanistan again, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and too many more–continue.

In the U.S. we see the increasing influence of outright White nationalism–an ideology that demonizes Jews understands Muslims primarily as terrorists, immigrants as criminals and infiltrators, and African Americans as violent parasites–in the halls of power.

Note that I differentiate between “white supremacy”–which is the default system in the U.S. that depends on white rule (using white privilege as a carrot and the criminal “justice” system as means of enforcement)–and White nationalism, which wants to eliminate “non-whites” from the country (or from access to the benefits of citizenship however meager) through whatever means are convenient.

Again, we count the dead, two Black elders at a grocery store in Louisville, Kentucky, eleven Jews, most of them elders, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, two women at a Yoga studio in Tallahassee, Florida. Then the bombs mailed to prominent critics of the President–starting with iconic “liberal Jew” George Soros. The claim that Soros is sponsoring the “caravan” from Central America, which is–per Trump–filled with Brown criminals and Islamic terrorists. No one not consumed by ideological desperation and schadenfreude can believe such calculated idiocy, but those who are meant to hear–will hear. Trump’s elected and appointed lapdogs repeat the message. The organized White nationalists hear it and gleefully amplify the message. Do we even need a fancy academic theory to guess what will happen when long-stigmatized populations are further demonized by demagogues in power? When those messages are endlessly echoed in the darkest corners of the internet?

And it’s not just the political violence from the “fringe.” It’s the policies. In his outgoing blow-off to the world, Jeff Sessions has limited the use of “consent decrees“–formal procedural devices that have been used by the Justice Department to curtail the worst abuses of out-of-control police departments. Is there anyone, anywhere, who doesn’t understand this as his giving the finger to those working for Black liberation? For those who understand the current system of policing and incarceration as the basis of racialized social control? Yes, there are such people–but they are not paying attention.

Where now? The Democrats have re-taken control of the House of Representatives, and there are some genuinely small-“d” democrats in that mix. What the Dem’s must do with that majority is to try to limit the abuses of the Justice Department as currently configured–even if this means defunding it. What they must do is limit the war machine that has continued to expand under every administration for decades. What they must do is put the breaks on the President’s White nationalist immigration agenda, and insist on justice for the detained, children and adults, respecting international law. What they must do is insist on real, comprehensive policies to address the emergency that is climate change. What they must do is support justice for workers, women, trans folk, and the most vulnerable. What they must do is support healthcare for all.

That’s just a sampling.

There is so much for, and the stakes are so high. What we must do is take the midterm results as an opportunity to organize and agitate, to keep up the pressure, to increase it.

If nothing else, can we at least prosecute cops who shoot Black folk in the back and stop dropping bombs on people?

It’s an open question.