The Golden Rule

On January 20, 2025, I had the day off because it was MLK Day. It also happened to be the day Donald Trump took office for the second time. I stayed far away from the television and all social media that day, choosing to stay curled up in an armchair in my room reading Rush vocalist Geddy Lee’s autobiography My Effin’ Life instead. It turned out to be an interesting choice to read on that specific day since he begins by providing some background on his parents and their experiences during World War II. Both were Polish Jews; they met as young teens in a Nazi work camp. They would later be transferred to Auschwitz but were separated late in the war and relocated to different camps. Geddy’s father searched for his mother after their liberation, finding her in a displacement camp, and they remained together until his father died at the age of 44. While it can be read as an inspiring story of how faith and love can bloom and grow in the darkest of circumstances, I read it in the framing of that particular day, and it seemed to be a more ominous cautionary tale of how ordinary lives can be so easily and indiscriminately destroyed by others. I prayed that their story, and all the stories that Holocaust survivors had set down in recorded testimony and books of their own, would serve as reminders to all of us as we entered this period in history so we would not repeat that horrible chapter in world history. I was worried that we had the capacity, based on the first term, to go down that path.

The sad reality is that genocidal-level atrocities happen every day across the globe, with Gaza being one such example, which Genocide Watch has listed as being in an emergency status currently^[1]. However, are America’s hands clean? Have they ever been? The answer sadly is no. Most of us know this, but before 2016 I would have told you with all sincerity that I believed that the country was working toward addressing and correcting the sins of its racist, homophobic and misogynistic past. It was slow and imperfect progress, but progress, nonetheless. I reveled in the election of Barack Obama as concrete proof that we were learning and growing as a nation. I believe, and I talk about this more extensively in my book, MAGA to a degree was born out of that same moment that so many of us celebrated. It just took Donald Trump to give the movement its name and a face. Individuals who had secretly been chafing at what they believed was a suppression of their rights by an increasingly “woke” culture began to coalesce as the Obamas took the stage at Grant Park.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not apologizing for being white. I have no more control over my race than anyone else does. Nor do I apologize for my sexual orientation for the same reason. But I simply cannot imagine thinking that I’m better or more “right” than anyone else because of my color or partner preference. Therefore, it’s been with some alarm that I’ve been witness to the abuses that have gone on in my own country since I sat in that chair reading about two young people caught up in the fire of hatred in Poland decades before.

I’m more sympathetic to the common citizens who did not do more to protest the abuses of the Nazi Party than I was growing up as I was learning about the war. I can now understand the desire to protect one’s own family by keeping your head down and your mouth shut, and how complicated moral choices can sometimes be in the real world. Yet, with that said, we are not Nazi Germany. Not yet. I believe there is a moral imperative to make sure we don’t get there. And we certainly need to make sure we don’t raise the next generation to goosestep down that hateful road. Unlike our race or sexual preference, none of us is born a racist; it’s a learned behavior. And while it’s hard to stop the hate speech coming from key members of this administration, such as Pete Hegseth and President Trump himself, we need to counter it, both in public and inside our own homes. But fighting fire with fire only makes a larger fire: counter the negative stereotypes with positivity and spotlighting the beauty of different cultures. Our country has been made better and far more interesting by the diversity all our different ancestors brought to these shores. As an Irish descendant, I love Italian food and Polish pierogies. And who doesn’t love a good St. Patrick’s Day parade? Festivals highlighting different cultures are a great way to celebrate and learn about our diversity and see firsthand how different people are not what we need to fear. Quite the opposite.

Social media is how much of these stereotypes spread. I read different estimates of how many posts are bot-generated, and it differs depending upon the site and the election cycle we are in, but it can average as much as a quarter of the posts we see. Not all that traffic is malicious, but as we get closer to the midterms, the number of posts specifically meant to spread misinformation will increase. We can, of course, log off and refuse to engage, but we can also report any hate speech, bot-generated or not, to the platform administrators, and we can respectfully counter with correct information. I have learned first-hand that letting one’s blood boil over online is not typically productive. I’ve had better luck being kind and calm in any reply I feel is imperative to make. I try to remember that I’m not really talking to the author, whose opinion I’m not likely to change, but to others who may see the post and its replies. Have I ever influenced anyone to be more open-minded? Who can say, but if we don’t use our voices to counter the ugliness of hate speech, then that’s all individuals hear and must grab onto to believe. At least we can nudge social media users to do their own research and make up their own minds if they see valid opposing viewpoints.

Finally, we have to follow the Golden Rule. We must treat everyone – even if we don’t understand them and their choices – as we want to be treated. If we deserve respect, then we have to give it out first. There are more of us than there are Donald Trumps. We can counter the hateful damage his administration is doing. We must.

^[1] Gaza Task Force. 2026, July. “Gaza Report.” Genocide Watch: Alliance Against Genocide. Accessed from: https://www.genocidewatch.com/countries-at-risk