The Dunkirk story of 1940 cannot be retold too often. The Dunkirk story must in fact be taught in every school in every classroom, not only in England's classrooms. Today, I believe the Dunkirk story should be an open discussion in the USA...in classrooms, in town halls, in newspaper editorials, on social media. Dunkirk is a true hero's story; it is also the story of defeat. Unlike the triteness of Failure is not an option and, Be a winner not a loser, the Dunkirk story is one of truth and immeasurable value. The story is new again...because Americans need to learn from those men and women who lived to retell the events and died to mark the events in time immemorial.
We are at a crossroads, on a beach waiting to be utterly defeated or to be rescued from utter defeat. We don't know what will happen; we do know that this is our time of humiliation and loss.
Most of us feel real and personal humiliation related to the regime who has control of our nation. We feel defeated. We did not vote for this. However, pride in that fact does not change what we are seeing; comfort does not arrive on boats that sailed into the sunset eight months ago. We are aware that several decades of political, religious, and social events brought us to this era but, we had hoped all along that We are better than this. Trump and MAGA did not appear as a genie from an evil billionaire's magic vase. The far right did not take control from town to city to state and nation overnight or by force. We saw it coming over at least four decades; many tried to expose the consequences of extremism and tolerance of Unconstitutional actions; many warned the nation. But let us be honest, most of us were complacent. Many remained Bystanders who thought We are too strong to be defeated, We will keep the wars on foreign lands, God is on our side, Our free and fair elections will protect us from extremism, It (fascism, communism, theocracy, despotism) will never happen here...ad nauseum. Until it did happen here. This feeling -- defeat, humiliation, shame -- is unlike the hour in which our football team lost the game. This feeling returns every morning when we see the news. Every week that rolls around, wondering how we will be rescued. Knowing that Midterms 2026 will end this! is bullshit because our SCOTUS is empowering states that suppress voter turnout and purge voter rolls and create new ways to make a Constitutional right very difficult to exercise. We are on the beach, held there between a rapidly advancing army of vicious extremists and a channel of water too wide and deep to swim.
What brings me to tears and lights the waning candle of hope inside me is how over 350 thousand men were rescued from Dunkirk. The facts reveal what today's Americans lack and need to learn about, that the heroism was a collective enterprise. Unlike popular comics and film that portray the hero as a strong man who acts alone, the rescue from Dunkirk was the effort of thousands -- many who gave their own lives -- to rescue the men on that beach. Most Americans believe in the supernatural and in fantasy. Fortunately, fantasy is where we learn to be curious, to accept struggle as the natural force that propels us toward successes, to believe that heroism lies within each of us. Unfortunately, fantasy is also why Americans are Bystanders and hero-worshippers. Americans like the Strongman type: John Wayne and Superman. But this belief is our weakness. We look to others to save us; we join movements that promise deliverance from all enemies; we let these Strongmen dictate who our enemies are; we think like cultists -- our pride in a football team or a religious leader or a politician overrides Reason and Critical Thinking. In 2025, the Republican party and its Useful Idiot tell us to believe that Trump was chosen by their God to Make America Great Again. Millions believe this marketing tool because they are simple-minded fools but, many millions more are mere Bystanders who believe only that the Republican party is the good one...What I want trump to do to others will not be done to me. The Dunkirk story reminds us that heroism is a collective force that arises when people forget about themselves and believe in doing the right thing.
The British military force sent several large battle ships to rescue men who were stranded at Dunkirk. PM Churchill recruited great minds to devise rescue plans. They hoped to rescue 50 thousand men. The effort was too slow. What happened?
Then PM Churchill radioed a message to the British people, asking for their help. Thousands of small ocean crafts took to the Channel, crossing twenty miles of ocean, making themselves targets, rescuing twenty men at a time. The weather created a cloudy veil between the beached men and the Luftwaffe who sought to kill them from above. A small unit of mostly French soldiers stood ground to hold back the approaching Nazi tanks. Large Navy cruisers and small fishing boats were sunk by the Luftwaffe. However, many more of them got to Dunkirk for the evacuation and returned safely to England's shores. Every man who stood ground to hold back the Nazi tanks and foot soldiers died...but they bought valuable time with their lives. Time for the fishermen and private yachts and British military to cross the Channel and return with the defeated. Time for men on the beach to construct from abandoned jeeps accesses so that the rescued did not have to swim towards the larger ships. Time for the RAF to battle the Luftwaffe. Time for men on the beach to gather their wounded and renew their courage.
The story of Dunkirk is not entirely about heroism, nor is it entirely about defeat. The BEF, the British Expeditionary Force, and thousands of French and Allied soldiers were caught in a situation that portended their defeat in capture or in death. They were prevented from stopping the German army; Germany went on to take France and Belgium. They were defeated. They lost their fighting power and any advantages they might have had. They were cornered. They could swim and drown in the Channel; they could surrender to the German army; they could use the last of their firepower and fight to the death in the sand. The British and Allied soldiers numbering nearly half a million on that French beach had no other choices. That is the very definition of defeat. No way to reclaim victory. Victory is lost.
Victory seems lost to us. We who believe in democracy and freedom and Constitutional rights are feeling defeated. The regime has most of the USA's oligarchs and most of SCOTUS on its side. The regime has rendered most corporate news media weak, complacent, and acquiescent. The regime has the world's despots like Putin on its side. The judiciary has been weakened by decades of Republican appointees who favor right wing ideology. The regime has millions of white evangelical, religious absolutists on its side -- people who are loyal Republican voters, who espouse Christian Nationalism and Christian Zionism, who choose their leaders based on a corruption of Jesus' teachings and a hatred of The Other, who have chosen political power over spiritual enlightenment or servant leadership, who feed themselves on resentment and racial bias and willful ignorance. So, we feel alone and stranded.
But if we look across the deep, cold waters we will espy help. MAGA are a minority. Oligarchs can be brought down. Trump is old and demented. Vance and most of the Republican leadership are hated by most of America. We can hold their evil back and buy time for those who are awakened by the crisis.
Many in our judiciary are standing up to this regime and ruling against illegal executive orders. Many organizations manned by lawyers are suing the regime for wrongful executive orders and actions. Not only are these people buying time until the next elections, but they are also standing firm and upholding the law.
Artists and writers and film makers are exposing crimes and corruption. Politicians are in town halls and doing television interviews and producing podcasts to expose the regime's unlawful and pernicious behaviors, making valid arguments against the regime's actions. They are fighting back; in places we cannot see or hear them -- like the RAF fought the Luftwaffe above clouds and the men stranded on Dunkirk wondered why the RAF were nowhere to be seen. We've organized and marched to protest the regime and its vile actions. Active-duty military and veterans are standing up and speaking out. We are not alone. We are not stranded. We will not surrender to this regime.
Sometimes our heroes arrive and fight our enemy out of sight. Sometimes our heroes die trying to rescue us. Sometimes our heroes are the people to whom we give little thought in comfortable and prosperous times -- like the fishermen with their 700 fishing boats that crossed the Channel under air attack, vessels so small they could rescue only twenty men at a time. People are networking on social media and devising phone applications that inform communities where ICE is present and active. They are saving lives. People are filming ICE in action. People who are standing between ICE and immigrants are being kidnapped and disappeared. But these heroes are rising and increasing in numbers. We do not see them yet in our neighborhoods, but we know about them.
Although it seems as if the wealthy and powerful stand firm with the trump regime, we can look to something else that happened during Dunkirk and the earliest days of the WWII. Both Joseph P Kennedy, US Ambassador to England, and Lord Halifax, rich and powerful men who chose appeasement with the Third Reich over war, were chased out of town. As the Dunkirk events unfolded and England's bravest workers who held no power in a system that awarded power to the wealthiest landowners risked their lives to evacuate nearly a half million men from utter defeat, the oligarchy crumbled. Wealth WAS entitled to power, wealth desperately TRIED to hold onto sole power, and wealth showed its weakness in the face of workers' heroism. Wealth seeks merely to build wealth and grasp total power. But wealth is a coward. We know that we can defeat our GOP oligarchs...because they are inherently cowards. I don't know the best ways to accomplish their defeat but, I do know that I am doing what millions of other Americans are doing, refusing to use my power and my precious dollars to help them build their wealth. Advising my Congressional representatives and my state legislators to oppose tax subsidies for wealthy corporations and tax cuts for wealthy individuals.
Like every small fishing vessel that made it under Luftwaffe fire to rescue twenty men from Dunkirk, we can be courageous and strong and gradually grasp success from certain defeat One Step Intentionally Take At a Time.