When I cross the street I look both ways, even when I’m in a crosswalk, even with there is a light telling me I may, and I look both ways even at a crossing of two one-way streets where I shouldn’t have to look. Drivers in the early morning aren’t always paying attention to someone like me.

People like me are concerned about where our country is headed, but first: Safety while running.

I’m running again, up to two miles in the early morning and aiming for four. Some people are surprised when I say I feel as safe running at dawn in Portland as I do on the coast. Either way, I am generally alone, there aren’t many people around. On the coast, I’ve been threatened and growled at, nipped at, and even face-bumped by a loose pitbull—not in a friendly way—as I backed away super fast.

Running in Portland, none of the above. Loose dogs are rare, though dog-walkers are common. I cross the street when I note a dog ahead of me because city dogs rarely hear my footsteps and will startle when I pass them and suddenly come into their sightline. I often run in the street in order to have blacktop rather than concrete under my feet. I’m more careful now than I used to be about that, after an electric car came within 20 feet of me before I noticed it behind me. The electric cars are silent, and I react like those leashed dogs.

In Portland, I run an unpredictable path, mostly west and north, but zig-zagging for distance, and generally meet Gary at some point on NW 23rd. I usually stay in NW, the Nob Hill neighborhood, but I have on rare occasions crossed under I-405. That feels risky to me as I pass homeless camps. I am very conscious of who is around me, walking or otherwise awake. I don’t run more than a couple blocks east of I-405, not because there are more homeless there, but because there are occasional shootings. I don’t think anyone would deliberately shoot me, but bullets stray, though I’m a small target. There’s risk involved in running anywhere.

The world feels risky just now. The United States used to stand for something. We were trusted, and while we sometimes violated that trust and supported horrible people, we claimed to do it in the interests of our country and humanity and democracy. We used to at least pretend to be fair. We made promises and kept them as a nation. We earned the title of a Free Country. We gradually addressed our imperfections by admitting those flaws exist.

The world mostly trusted what we promised. We violated trust, but not without a show, not without embarrassment, not without trying to do better. Now we seem to be thrashing about, hitting at other countries, beating up ourselves, and the white men in power seem determined only to advance themselves regardless of the risk to the rest of the world and even our nation. Acknowledging our errors was something that made us stronger—we always looked forward. We look forward more than to the past. This makes a better future possible, because America is a young country in the sense that we have been willing, even eager to make corrections and to become more fair and righteous. A better nation.

One thing striking to me about Trump and Trumpism is that while constantly squawking about manliness and strength, it’s a bunch of weak men weakening the United States in every way possible. —Rebecca Solnit

So I run the streets of an American city, the sand on other days. No one particularly means me any harm. I am active on social media and I feel confident about that. I spout leftwing opinions online and occasionally someone—some man using a fake name to post—will argue with me in comments on The New York Times or a Substack. Sometimes, I’ll tell an anecdote that attracts many likes. Mostly, crickets.

I have not been feeling overly optimistic about our future as a nation. I might have investigated my English paternal grandfather if Gary was willing to move to Scotland. I might flee to Iceland if only they had forests. A friend confided that she felt certain our country would come back from this current disastrous political situation, but it wouldn’t happen in her lifetime. I fear she is right.

Here is my hopeful realization, suggested by my husband: Germany recovered from the Nazis.

Yeah, I know, for years it felt unfair to compare all the president’s men to the Nazis. That was an exaggeration, fear-mongering, hysteria… whatever. The comparison doesn’t feel inappropriate to me anymore.

As the reactionary alt-right elite begins to sound openly racist and authoritarian—with the attitude that because they are rich in dollars they must also have wisdom and the absolute right—those early comparisons to Germany during the Great Depression and Nazism sound less exaggerated and more genuinely threatening. On his recent visit, King Charles reminded us of who were and have been and what we have stood for. How did Americans get to the place where an actual King seems to understand more about democracy than the person inhabiting the Oval Office?

If my mother were alive she would be 101 years old this month. The current political situation would have killed her. I’m not certain it won’t kill me.

What if we have become the Nazis of the 21st century? Eventually the rest of the world beat the Nazis down, took over, and enforced decency—imperfect, of course, still unfair and biased to some major extent, but something better than what the Nazis had in mind. And that changed. Germany became a nation determined not to fall to such beastly behavior again.

I know I’m not supposed to urge the lesser of two evils, but right about now, I might embrace a lessor evil. I’m willing to see the world force us to be what we promised, a young nation willing to become better, seeking an ideal without yet achieving it. We might again become the land of the free. Given how this worked after WWII, I may live to see it happen. I might.

I’d like to see us regain the world’s trust, to earn it again, to become once again a beacon of hope to those yearning to breathe free. I’d like to see that.