Having presented well over 1,000 episodes of the much-loved BBC Radio 4 series, Melvyn Bragg has made the decision to step down from In Our Time following the series which aired earlier this year Read more via @bbcpress ➡️ bbc.in/3K0J2RE

I’m sorry for the long post but a lot of you have followed me for a long time, since 2016 when I was one of the first to repeatedly call out Trump for being a Russian asset. I don’t know how else to say this, as a person who has studied cults (wrote a bestseller about it) and totalitarian states. I’ve been attacked on Fox News, berated by the VP and others and like many of you, I’ve gotten death threats. So please believe me when I say this. Things have changed. ICE is going to be the vehicle for fascism in this country. The extra-judicial practices (no warrants, no ID), the masks (anonymity leads to horrors again and again throughout history), the dehumanization of immigrants and Democrats (dehumanization precedes arrests, torture, murder, again and again). No we are not going to be Nazi Germany because nothing in history matches Nazi Germany. But fascism has arrived in America. Here is how it is going to happen: ICE will be the vehicle, the gestapo empowered by the President, to enforce his will, first among vulnerable undocumented people, then among legal immigrants, then among political rivals, then among citizens who speak out against the Trump grift. This is not a hypothetical. It’s happening. That Big Dumb Racist bill gives $170 billion dollars for an organization which has no respect for the constitution, no oversight, nothing but marching orders from a couple racist, power-hungry madmen. $170 billion to build hidden prisons with no oversight. To put this in perspective, this is 62% larger than the entire federal prison system. $170 billion to drag people out of their places of work, parks, homes. $170 billion to hire racist little man babies who hide their faces as they assault children, old people, pregnant women. How do you think this goes? How has this ever gone in history? We are entering a dark period. Our only hope is to draw the line now. To stick up for our friends and neighbors, our co-workers and loved ones, who are undocumented and being hunted. If morality or empathy for them is not enough to motivate you, fine. Then let this be your motivation: if you don’t draw this line, you are next. Do you think Trump will grow a conscience? Do you think Stephen Miller will have any trouble going from, “these people are criminals” (them) to “these people are helping criminals?” (You, by being against Trump). To “we must arrest the traitors opposing our efforts to arrest criminals?” (You or anyone you care about who publicly opposes Trump.) Do you think republican congressman are going to care? To lift onefinger to protect you? To do anything which gets in the way of Trump’s agenda? A person who has no problem letting children with cancer die in order to put a few dollars in the pockets of rich men will have no problem with letting Democrats and activists rot in jail for trying to stop it. This has happened again and again throughout the world. And now it’s happening here. I wish I had concrete plans. I don’t. Not now. All I know is the first step for change is identifying the gravity of the truth. And the truth is fascism has arrived in America. And we must stop it in its tracks or it will swallow all of us.