What was Lost with the Greatest Generation.

We were the last of them. The men and women who stormed beaches, liberated concentration camps, and bore witness to history’s worst horrors have left this world. Our generation—hailed as the greatest, tasked with rebuilding what had been shattered—spent our final years watching the ideological battle we thought we had won slowly rewritten. The generation that saw these atrocities firsthand is gone, and with them, the living memory of what they fought for. In their absence, we have lost the narrative, buried under a bombardment of propagated media that twists history to serve power. The cottage industry of clickbait is now embedded in the economic reality of the nation, ensuring its influence for the foreseeable future. And with it comes the collateral damage of a country that has ignored science for decades, allowing misinformation to shape its future.

The war we fought was not just about nations but about ideas. It was a fight against imperialism and totalitarianism, against leaders who manipulated nostalgia to justify expansion. Now, those same tools of control have resurfaced, not in foreign capitals but within the United States itself. Fighting a war based on nostalgia and a mythic America that never existed is a dangerous proposition. Imperialism in this context is not merely about land grabs but about control—of narratives, of historical memory, and of the very definitions of democracy and sovereignty. It is not just military aggression but a cultural and psychological war, where reality is rewritten to justify expansion.

The post-World War II order was designed to prevent the return of imperial conquest. The Marshall Plan stabilized Europe, NATO kept authoritarian expansion in check, and we believed we had secured democracy for future generations. Yet, over time, the institutions meant to safeguard democracy became tools for its slow erosion. Those seeking power realized they didn’t need tanks to dismantle democracy—just time, strategy, and incremental change. Reagan understood this. He gave Republicans a gift—a cause they would use to energize their base, frame their party as activists, and paint Democrats as murderers and the government as an oppressive establishment. He knew that outright regression would trigger backlash, so he played the long game. He took 80% of what he wanted, conceded 20%, and framed it as a significant sacrifice—granting women partial control over their own bodies while ensuring the long game remained in his favor, and embedded conservative ideology deep within America’s institutions. He appealed to moderates, used charisma to soften resistance, and set the country on a slow, deliberate march backward. Only ten years after a conservative court decided Roe versus Wade. His policies treated the symptoms of authoritarianism without curing the disease.

Reagan was not an extremist by today’s standards, but he understood how to shift the political landscape. He compromised on abortion—not because he supported reproductive rights, but because he knew rights could be dismantled gradually. Rather than banning abortion outright, his administration allowed small restrictions to take hold, accumulating over decades until Roe v. Wade collapsed. A conservative court had once ruled in favor of Roe; fifty years later, a conservative party reversed it. Despite the legal contradictions, they declared themselves credible. Reagan built the framework that would one day dismantle democratic norms, empowering the Federalist Society to shape the judiciary, fueling conservative media to rewrite reality, and laying the foundation for a Republican Party that would become unrecognizable. What seemed like remission was merely dormancy, waiting for the right conditions to spread again.

Trump didn’t create a movement—he simply unleashed one. He took a carefully engineered conservative machine and wielded it recklessly. Unlike Reagan, he lacked political intelligence, patience, or strategic vision. He was not threading a needle; he was torching the fabric. He demanded absolute loyalty, alienated moderates, and transformed the Republican Party into a cult of personality. Reagan worked within the system while reshaping it; Trump sought to destroy it outright. The cancer had found its ideal host—one who wouldn’t slow its spread but accelerate it.

Trump reached back to a grievance buried deep in Russia’s history, one festering since the Soviet Union’s collapse. Like an unqualified, misguided Robert Kennedy Jr. at his side, he reignited nationalist fervor that had long simmered beneath the surface. Together, they built a monster—one branded in Tesla’s sleek futurism and fueled by Facebook’s algorithmic rage. He used it all to mimic Reagan’s glory, but without the discipline or strategic thinking. Where Reagan maneuvered carefully, Trump relied on spectacle, chaos, and grievance. The cancer was no longer creeping—it was sprinting forward, fed by misinformation, blind loyalty, and the promise of a return to an America that had never truly existed.

By the time Trump took office, democracy’s guardrails had already been compromised. Right-wing media had become a self-sustaining propaganda machine, courts were stacked with ideological judges, and decades of anti-government rhetoric had convinced millions that their own democracy was the enemy. His 2020 loss did not trigger a peaceful transition—it triggered an uprising. January 6 was not an anomaly; it was inevitable. A movement built on grievance does not accept defeat without an enemy they cease to exist. A leader who sees accountability as persecution does not step down. The attack on the Capitol was not just a riot or a failed coup—it was the culmination of years of conditioning, a moment when the undercurrent of resentment boiled over. And yet, the most telling part was what came next. Trump was not cast out. He faced no meaningful consequences. Instead, he regrouped, rebuilt, and returned. The cancer had been diagnosed, but no treatment followed. And now, he is back, not to fight the Cold War as Reagan did, but to fight it on Putin’s side.

Putin’s war in Ukraine is not about defending Russian sovereignty or resisting Western influence. It is an expansionist project, built on manufactured grievances, distorted history, and the manipulation of national identity to justify aggression. It mirrors the expansions of the past, when authoritarian leaders claimed they were forced into war to protect their people. Hitler justified taking Czechoslovakia under the guise of safeguarding Germans, Stalin framed invasions as necessary for Soviet stability, and now Putin insists Ukraine rightfully belongs to Russia. The excuses remain unchanged. What makes this moment different is that, for the first time in modern history, a major faction of American politics actively supports the authoritarian aggressor. The former Soviet Union. No less.

A glimpse of this could be seen in Madison Square Garden in 1939, when thousands rallied under the Bund’s banners in support of American totalitarianism. Then, it seemed like a fringe movement with no real future. Now, the same ideology resurfaces, but the consequences are far more severe, amplified by technology that makes propaganda more pervasive and persuasive. This war will not be fought in analog. Propaganda spreads at the speed of light, deepfakes manipulate reality, surveillance monitors dissent, and algorithms dictate what people believe before they even know they believe it. Authoritarianism no longer needs brute force alone; it thrives in digital spaces, where truth is rewritten with a keystroke and millions are radicalized by an invisible hand guiding their feeds.

The past is not just repeating—it is mutating in clinks, faster then blinks. The struggle against authoritarian rule was never truly over, only postponed. And now, as history loops back upon itself, the reality is stark.