Let me begin by stating that the purpose of this article is not to reach across the aisle. Perhaps, please God, there will be a time for that in the future. But our country is too divided and our people are too angry right now to hear suggestions from the other side. So if you disagree, I understand and I am not offended.

We are at a crossroads in this country. There are two societies emerging. Each one has a completely different vision of what America has been and what it should be. Each is totally convinced that the other side is out of their mind. History is being revised. Current events are being spun. We live in a time when the victims are the criminals and the criminals are the victims. We live in a time when ordering vanilla ice cream at Carvel is a “dog whistle” for white supremacy. We live in a time when burning down cities is OK, as long as it’s for the “right” reason. We are living in a time of madness.

The condemnation of every single conservative as a Nazi and the comparisons of the Capitol incident to Kristallnacht are an insult to the millions of Jews who are descendants of or are themselves Holocaust survivors. It is a clear indication that so many people are completely clueless about the history of the Nazi regime. Nobody seems to know that Nazi was short for National Socialist. This is a system of government in which dissent is met with silencing and murder. A system of government in which the state controls who can own what and how to do what they do. A system of government that discriminates against and oppresses its citizens for not conforming to its ideal and for not towing the line. We have a government, now emerging in this country, which together with its alliances in academia, media and Big Tech is now trying to implement this socialist type of regime on our soil.

I ask you, over the past four years, who has been exemplifying these characteristics? The ones promoting opportunity for all people, opportunity zones, criminal justice reform, religious liberty for all people, opportunity for better education for all people in the form of school choice, government deregulation to allow business owners to own their own property and produce what and how they want? The ones fighting for individual liberty, individual rights, protection of families? The ones calling for peaceful voicing of grievances, saying, “I know you are marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard” (Donald Trump)? Is it the ones calling for all voices to be heard and for people to make up their own minds?

Or is it the ones who call for special treatment of certain groups to the detriment of other groups, decriminalization of criminal activity and criminalization of dissenting discourse, hostility to certain religious groups and certain religious traditions? Those supporting the blockage of school choice in favor of state-run schools, those advocating for intense government regulation of business in order to ultimately control which businesses can operate and which ones cannot, and how they operate? Those favoring the rights of the state-approved collective to the exclusion of individuals and groups who do not share the state’s views? The ones calling for “unrest in the streets as long as there is unrest in our communities” (Ayanna Pressley) or the ones saying, “It’s not going to let up, and it should not let up” (Kamala Harris)? Is it the ones calling for a large swath of people to be silenced, de-platformed and shunned?

Just remove the names and the faces, which have become so divisive, and view the actions and the words on their merits, without the editorials. It seems impossible to do. But that is what is required to make a clear assessment of reality.

I am not a Republican. I am not a Democrat. I am a Jew who is extremely grateful to Hashem for having been given the opportunity to live in a country that, until now, has been perhaps the greatest place for a Jew to live in the Diaspora. My family was lucky enough to see the writing on the wall before the Bolshevik revolution. They foresaw the murder and devastation of the Marxist socialist revolution that was inevitably coming, and they ran. There is no place to run anymore.

I am not a particularly good person. I am not a particularly smart person. However, I was blessed with the ability to see the writing on the wall. For all those with whom this article resonates, and those who understand that our home and our freedom are under assault, and those who want to do something about it, please contact me at the email published in this article. We can figure out together what steps we can take to do our part to save our families, our communities, our cities and our country. It is time to jump out of the pot of water in which the temperature has been slowly rising for the past 100 years.

To those of you who are outraged by this article, we love you; we do not blame you; we do not shun you; we want peace with you. This is not about you. It is about preventing the repetition of history. It is about fighting against a government that is centralizing power behind an immoral ideology cloaked in a facade of kindness and justice. It is about opening our eyes to the true intent behind their proposed policies. It is about taking action to demonstrate that we value our lives and the lives of our fellow citizens of all walks of life and that we will not allow any of them to be carted off.

The author can be reached at [email protected].

By J. Moshe Gelfond