There's elections in Germany on Sunday. Prognoses still give CDU/CSU as the party with the majority of votes, followed by AfD. That, friends, does not bode well for our future. (You can look at dawum.org for the current results from surveys.)
Meanwhile, I'm spending too much time on social media trying to reach, hopefully, a few people and make them realise that we'll be up for deep shit if we get a right-wing dominated Bundestag. And with one eye, I'm looking towards the US in some kind of disbelief (this feels so much like a bad movie, it must be a bad movie, right?) and concern (it's obviously rather easy to deconstruct a democracy once you're in position, and who knows if we're not next in line?).
The weak, those without defenses, the ones easily silenced and erased get taken out of the equation first. And then it spreads. You can see for yourself how that works, just go visit https://orwh.od.nih.gov/career-development-education, the US National Institute of Health's pages for the Office of Research for Women's Health, scroll down, and click either "Women Scientists in Action" or "Local Legends".
So. For those of you protesting things in the US: Thank you. Please keep going. We do see you, and every protest counts.
For those of you unsure of what you can do: Connect with others. Go out and join protests. You can find out more, for example, at indivisible.org. If you're in Germany, protests can be found on the pages of demokrateam.org.
Don't give up on human rights. Don't give up on democracy.