Is it Fascism Yet?

In a parking lot in suburban Philadelphia, a mother buckles her child into the car seat. She puts the groceries in the back of the station wagon, and as she pulls the door down I see, on a piece of paper taped on the window the question “Is it fascism yet?” My brother calls and in the middle of the phone conversation says into the silence “I know how people felt in Germany in the 1930s.” It is not fascism yet. We are waiting, as winter comes, to see if the shadows lengthen and the light fails.