Once upon a time, possibly this very time, Americans believed that lemmings threw themselves off cliffs in a kind of unspoken but intentional suicide pact. We believed this because Walt Disney, in a forgery of a documentary, “White Wilderness,” had crew members throw lemmings off a cliff, while the narrator asserted that it was mass suicide.

While the lemmings didn’t launch themselves off the cliffs following their own “Alpha lemming” leaders, the American public followed Disney’s fictional depiction like, uh, fictional lemmings.

Back in the 60s, when we thought we were enlightened, we believed it was imperative to “Question Authority.” Our generational motto has fallen out of favor with too many, and today, much of our nation is playing a toxic and malign game of “Follow the (Dear) Leader.” We seem to be marching into a dark forest behind a strangely charismatic Führer. We seem to be marching without interrogating the reason for this march into darkness, or questioning the sanity and goodwill of the leader who beckons us towards a new Dark Age.

While I don’t personally “get” this leader’s charisma or find anything about him even vaguely appealing, I must try to understand the appeal that is leading so many into surrendering their autonomy, their moral principles and our precious democracy. Many, too many, smart, educated and successful people have surrendered to the leader’s vision—his dark vision of American carnage, failure and victimization.

Many of our institutions, our societal guardrails, have crumbled, felled by the very first blows against them. “It’s an emergency,” the leader warns. “I must act and save our cities from the worst people, immigrants, rapists, criminals, homeless and insane people.” I must, says Trump, send the National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles to save it from burning to the ground. I must save Washington, DC by taking over its police department and deploying the National Guard to tame the rampant crime—all those murders, robberies, and criminality.

His constant message and rationale for taking over our cities is to declare an emergency. Most people seem to go along. They go along with activities that would have been unthinkable, even to the greatest pessimists, a few months ago. Who foresaw masked agents of what was once “our” government, sweeping up people off the streets, churches, hospitals, and at work, solely based on their brown skin and Spanish language?

Who could imagine major law firms being extorted to donate time and money to Trump-endorsed causes as the price of not being locked out of federal courts and having any and all government contracts voided? Consider the craven capitulation of the media to Trump’s bullying. Paramount pays extortion to let a sale and merger go through. Bezos and the Washington Post change election coverage and endorsements to dodge the threat to Amazon of increased postal rates. Universities are pressured to turn over employment records, admissions criteria and the immigration status of foreign students and faculty. UCLA is given a billion-dollar penalty, theoretically for not fighting antisemitism. They’d better pay it if they don’t want $400 million in grants suspended. UCLA says they will fight. Maybe they learned the lessons from Colombia and Harvard that tried to buy off the demands but found that, as we see on endless TV shows and movies, extortionists never stop after the first pay-off.

Many of us were deluded into believing that our institutions would hold, and the courts would not cave. The Supreme Court will save us. No. Some lower courts have been true, but the Supremes are consistently caving to Trump’s every whim. Maybe our military, which is sworn to defend and protect the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, won’t follow illegal orders. That faith also has been shattered as Marines accepted their illegal deployment in Los Angeles, and Trump today has threatened to deploy more in DC, Chicago and New York.

The Posse Comitatus Act forbidding the use of the military to enforce civilian law means nothing today—despite the fact that according to 18 U.S. Code § 1385, Trump could be subject to two years of imprisonment for violating it. Of course, following the unbelievable capitulation of the Supreme Court, Trump can’t be held to account. This Supreme Court has granted him “Presidential immunity.”

There are no guardrails left. They were destroyed in six months! We the People effectively (or ineffectually) surrendered our once precious democracy in six short months. What will be left in three more years?

How will history understand our lack of resistance, our national willingness to betray friends and embrace adversaries? Will anyone be left either free or alive to write our history? Trump is committed to rewriting history and removing anything uncomfortable to white men or displaying criticism of past acts that lacked perfection—as he and he alone sees it. Slavery? Not so bad … just a matter of working conditions, and really, slaves were better off here than in Africa.

Our Vice President and Secretary of Defense on August 11th, associated themselves quite admiringly with Christian nationalists who hold that men are the leaders of every household and women should obey them and vote as their husbands demand, lest they lose their franchise. I am not making any of this up!

Only today, President Trump said that “people were spitting on police and cursing them, and the police were frustrated because they’re not allowed to do anything. But now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.”

Where are the people? Some meekly follow the leader out of fear, laziness, or despair. Others enthusiastically march behind the leader, committed to his holy cause, his infallible judgement, and the magical energy of surrendering their authority and autonomy to a mad Pied Piper who leads where not even Disney’s fictional lemmings would go.

It is not too late. Not yet too late. We can save our nation and our democracy! Don’t follow the leader and do question authority. Stand up! Show up! Speak up!