Nightmare

In the pandemic summer of 2020 I watched “The French Village” about the German occupation during WWII. It’s a great series about civilian life during the war with all the horrors combined with the normal banal dramas of daily life. It felt so distant, so unthinkable although it happened not all that long before I was born. My father fought in the war.

Around the same time I also watched “The Plot Against America” based on Philip Roth’s alternate history of America in which the “America First” hero Charles Lindburgh had become president and turned the country toward fascism. That seemed distant and unthinkable too.

I’m going to watch them again. They don’t seem so unthinkable anymore.

This is right out of “The French Village”. In 2022…

Clutching a mobile phone number of a woman she had never met, Nataliya Ableyeva crossed the border from Ukraine into Hungary today, entrusted with a precious cargo – a stranger's children | More: https://t.co/Jjrmyd9GTg pic.twitter.com/Er5BAxHqyr

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) February 26, 2022

Ukrainian YouTuber Olena Gnes’s plea from a bomb shelter in Kyiv is heartbreaking.

Watch her full video: https://t.co/Ce7rf9sTT6 pic.twitter.com/pvtuVnf25z

— The Recount (@therecount) February 26, 2022

Vitaly Skakun is hailed as a hero after sacrificing his life to blow up the Henichesky Bridge.

The bridge was mined but a Russian column was advancing and there was no time to detonate it remotely.

Skakun radioed his unit and told them he would do it manually, saying goodbye. pic.twitter.com/6gqIFxlc01

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) February 25, 2022

This could be the “The Plot Against America.” In 2022 …

"Can we give a round of applause to Russia?!"

"Putin! Putin! Putin!"

And moments later, a sitting congresswoman jumps up on the podium and speaks. https://t.co/OerdjQwkhR

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) February 26, 2022

It really was just a matter of time. pic.twitter.com/hHIXtHDBzd

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 26, 2022