The man on the right is my father. This picture was taken in Italy in 1939. A year later, my father was an Italian Jewish Holocaust refugee in New York. My father was an Italian Jewish Holocaust refugee at a time when Jews were second class citizens in both Italy and the United States. In Italy, the government swooped in and took the family fashion design company. In 1939, my father’s family was worth in the range of $20 million in today’s dollars. A year later my father, uncle and grandparents arrived in New York with pennies of those dollars.

Note my father’s knee cap. A year after he fled to the United States his leg was crushed while he was in the U.S. Army. America was reluctant to let in Jews during the Second World War. Donald Trump is reluctant to let in Muslims today. Immigrants, refugees and emigres have made America great — not just again but forever.

Trump has begun the creep toward Fascism. He wants to send “the feds” into American cities, is threatening to withhold federal funds from sanctuary cities, unilaterally closing the door on immigrants from personally-selected countries, bullying trading partners and threatening to ignore the mitigating power of the United Nations. He is the reincarnation of Benito Mussolini. Critics say that Trump has obviously not read history.  I’m worried that maybe he has.