"Heda Margolius, she was a Czech Jew, who survived the Nazi death camps. She came back to Prague, one of the few survivors in her circle, came back to Prague and became a communist. And she became a communist not because she was necessarily converted to Marxism and Leninism, but because she was desperate for hope.
Their whole country had been destroyed. Her people had been murdered. And the communists were the farthest she could get from the Nazis. She said it really was that simple. We needed hope. And, of course, her husband, who was also a Jew, was also a communist. He became a minister in the first communist government there, and they very quickly turned on him and executed him. And she realized, she discovered the hard way that communism was a lie.
But I think it’s a very important thing, Jake, that we keep in mind that the openness to totalitarianism comes from somewhere. When you have people my age, I’m 53, who are living much more stable lives, if we don’t look and see the kind of economic prospects that millennials and gen Z folks have, and if we don’t do something for them, then we are leaving them as prey to demagogues who promise them the moon."
- Ron Dreher
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