When Do We Finally Say, "Enough!"?

We are told that comparisons to Nazi Germany are counterproductive, and I would agree, but how else is one to explain our concerns when years of dehumanization of immigrants by calling them vermin, snakes or scum, followed by forced deportations without due process and government exploitation of civil disturbances so closely mirrors the years of dehumanization of Jews, followed by Germany's forced deportations of "stateless" Jews in 1938 after Poland stripped citizenship from Polish Jews living abroad, followed by government instigated riots that came to be known as Kristalnacht in the wake of the reported murder of a German national living in Paris by a Jew - all which was greeted as rather ho hum by the general German public and world at large?

I've been asking since at least 2016 when is the time to put one's foot down and say, "Enough!" Is it when a politician first starts describing others as somehow less than us? Is it when the worst elements of a society - the racists, the white nationalists and others - begin to claim that politician as a kindred spirit? Is it when that politician achieves power and begins disregarding basic constitutional rights in the name of "the greater good"? Or is it once support for those undemocratic, unconstitutional, inhumane policies is so great that vigilantes who take the law in their own hands, killing protesters, become lauded as heroes?

All these things have taken place in the ten years since Donald Trump entered the political stage. And all of them took place in Germany between 1923 and the advent of WWII.

Most of us still get up in the morning, have our coffee, our warm shower, go to work and come home to our loving families. Life as we've always known it goes on, so we feel no great urgency to speak out or act. And those who do are derided as alarmists. Meanwhile, the normalization of the abnormal proceeds unabated.

All these things, too, have taken place in the ten years since Donald Trump entered the political stage. And, again, all of them took place in Germany between 1923 and the advent of WWII.

But when a president does everything listed above, when a president says he would be fine taking those same steps against U.S. citizens, when it's said by a president who demonstrates no understanding of the rule of law, let alone  any respect for the law, should we not all be speaking out?

If not, do we really understand what patriotism truly is and the responsibilities of citizenship that democracy demands? Or worse, do we really not care?