Like many Americans, we are not fans of either the Republican or Democratic Parties. The former has now, under Trump, become openly proto-Fascist in everything but name, while the latter also aided and abetted the turn to the Right that began decades ago.

Both parties have turned large swaths of America into Third-World territories, with crumbling infrastructure, gutted and wholly inadequate public services, precarious work, low wages, and deep poverty.

A small segment of already wealthy people have become obscenely rich -- with three single individuals now owning more than 160 million Americans, while the working class has seen its incomes stagnate or even decline. The rich and the super rich have defrauded the majority and siphoned off the wealth produced by the latter.

All but the most naive realize that nobody becomes a billionaire through "honest work."

The swindler billionaire, who manipulated his way into the White House in 2016 -- while paying some limited lip service to how ordinary Americans have been robbed by the financial and business elites, -- has continued this race to the bottom.

In an obvious attempt to bolster his anything-but-stellar reelection chances, Trump is now resorting to increased war-mongering, shameless lies, and utter recklessness, all mixed with unfathomable chaos and incompetence.

We should not rely on the political establishment to stop Trump and his course of military aggression. "We the people" must put meaningful pressure on those in power. On Saturday, January 25, in cities around the country, there will be anti-war protests.

The world doesn't need another Vietnam or Iraq War.

Axel and Laura Fair-Schulz

Potsdam