Vox Populi

A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 6,000,000 visitors since 2014 and over 9,000 archived posts.

Chris Hedges: Grand Illusion

All empires, when they are dying, worship the idol of war. War will save the empire. War will resurrect past glory. War will teach an unruly world to obey.

January 12, 2026 · 8 Comments

Eva-Maria Simms: An Ordinary Christmas

My family has lived in Siegen, an old town in Germany, for generations. My grandfather, a small business owner, bought a townhouse with three apartments in 1936. My father was … Continue reading

December 24, 2025 · 19 Comments

Holocaust Encyclopedia: How Hitler Came to Power

Hitler transformed Germany by manipulating the democratic political system. Hitler and other Nazi leaders used existing laws to destroy German democracy and create a dictatorship.

December 14, 2025 · 7 Comments

Charles Davidson: Are We Prepared for the Knock on the Door?

Brutality has become ICE’s signature policy. Trump’s “barbed-wire” signature has dictated the ungodly means and ungodly ends of what rapidly has become the Trumpian version of the Nazi Gestapo and the Communist NKVD.

November 2, 2025 · 11 Comments

Steve Nolan: Destroying America, The Brand

A malignant narcissist has come to power. 

October 27, 2025 · 7 Comments

Kyle Schmidlin: Republicans Are Trying to Make Fascism Edgy and Hip

By declaring all opposition to themselves anti-fascism, MAGA isn’t leaving much mystery about their leanings.

October 25, 2025 · 5 Comments

Abby Zimet: The Smell of Fascism | What the Absolute Flying​ Fuck

“Trump is threatening to go to war with an American city,” notes Gov. Pritzer “This is not normal.”

September 9, 2025 · 6 Comments

Mike Schneider: Appreciating Charles Simic (1938-2023)

In the distance our great leader
Crowed like a rooster from a balcony, 
Or was it a great actor
Impersonating our great leader?

August 22, 2025 · 15 Comments

Langston Hughes | Beaumont to Detroit: 1943

You tell me that hitler
Is a mighty bad man.
I guess he took lessons
from the ku klux klan.

July 4, 2025 · 22 Comments

Charles Davidson: Reflections on “Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin.” (the Movie and the Man)

Despite the film’s deficiencies, excesses, and flagrant exploitation by those willing to corrupt Bonhoeffer to their own sinister purposes, there is something to be said for the film’s implied warning about the rising tide of authoritarianism in America. 

December 29, 2024 · 15 Comments

Eva-Maria Simms: The Playbook of Dictatorship Redux

From my family stories and my readings of political philosophy and history, the following picture emerges, which shows the building blocks of a totalitarian dictatorship. I offer it here as a warning from a German immigrant to my fellow citizens in the United States.

November 24, 2024 · 15 Comments

JULIA CONLEY: THE RESISTANCE STARTS NOW

“We’re more prepared than ever to block the disastrous Trump policies we know are coming,” said one climate group. As voters across the United States grappled on Wednesday with the … Continue reading

November 7, 2024 · 9 Comments

Charles Davidson | A Call to Confess: Christians on the Eve of the 2024 U.S. Election

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the 1930s German “Confessing Church” Speak to Us

November 3, 2024 · 15 Comments

Steven Rosenfeld: Leading Civil Rights Lawyer Shows 20 Ways Trump Is Copying Hitler’s Early Rhetoric and Policies

Watching Trump work his crowds, I see a dangerously manipulative narcissist unleashing the demagogic spells that he learned from studying Hitler’s speeches–spells that he cannot control and that are capable of eroding the fabric of American democracy

October 30, 2024 · 22 Comments

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