In the second age of Trump, there is a lot to worry about. Not an hour goes by, it seems, without some new Presidential Executive Order, social media post, or outrageous action in defiance of law, the Constitution, ethnics, morality and, at times, even just common human decency.
It is easy to despair. At times like this, a good tonic is to realize that other people, in the not-too-distant past, felt a similar despair. Yet they found the strength to resist. And to hope. Let’s travel back to one such moment.
In 1940, United Artists released “The Great Dictator,” a 125-minute film starring Charles Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, among others. The movie is a satire and critique of Hitler, Mussolini and fascism. When the movie came out, in October, the United States was still neutral. Hitler’s Third Reich bestrode Europe, with only the British Empire still fighting on alone.
The full movie is worth watching, but for the purposes of this diary, I wanted to focus on the famous final speech by Chaplin, in his role as the Great Dictator. In the last scene of the movie, ostensibly rising to give a speech to his fascist followers, Chaplin’s character instead pivots to denounce fascism. The entire speech itself can be found here: www.charliechaplin.com/...
Everyone has their favorite passages. For our purposes, I just want to clip out the ones that spoke most to me, sitting here at the end of January 2025. Quotes are in italics/bold, with my own comments underneath.
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“We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery.”
Trump wants everyone to accept his tainted world view — that humanity is simply an endless, zero-sum, struggle for power and wealth. That is not who humans are. There is within us all a capacity for love not just of ourselves, but of those around us.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
To me, this passage reflects the dominance in the Trump Administration of the billionaire tech overlords, either actively allied like Musk and Thiel, or practicing “anticipatory obedience” like Bezos, Zuckerberg and others. And also, those in the media who, knowing better, chain themselves to business models that feed off “engagement” based on promoting division and falsehoods, using inventions ostensibly created to unite but which are deployed to compartmentalize and isolate.
More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness.
Trump and his Tech Bros believe that ultimate power rests in the accumulation of wealth and the leveraging of information technology to harvest and manipulate data. It is no mistake that Musk’s minions have moved to seize the enormous federal employee database at OPM. To Trump and Musk, that is what counts — power rests in the hands of those who have the data. To have your data is to have YOU. They are wrong. Humans are more. We do things that to men like Trump make no sense — risk ourselves for others, give what we can to those who have less, feel empathy at the suffering of others, and believe there is a common good.
The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people.
Do not despair. This too shall pass.
Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural!
The very fact you are upset at what Trump is doing proves that you remain in touch with your human heart. So long as you remain thus, Trump will fail.
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!
Trump and his “shock and awe” campaign feature many, many Executive Orders. Already, via these orders, he has shot himself in the foot, contradicted his own expressed goals, and been slapped back by judges. Trump is only interested in Trump. The price of these actions, as always, will be borne by others, including his own followers. And this is even before the tariffs hit. People will realize this, especially at the 2026 midterm Congressional elections.
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In sum, a great speech to listen to when you are feeling down. Especially when you realize that when people heard these words in a theater in October 1940 — 85 years ago — they faced a fearsome prospect. In comparison, while we have our work cut out for us, we should be grateful that our own “Great Dictator” is his own worst enemy.
