On Charlottesville
<p>In a deeply personal new post on <em>To the Point,</em> Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., explains why the fascism and racism on display last week in Charlottesville, while shocking, were all too familiar. Nazism, he writes, indelibly shaped his life and world view.</p><p>Blumenthal tells of how his father escaped Nazi Germany and, in the true spirit of the Statue of Liberty, went on to achieve success and happiness, despite having arrived in the United States alone, poor, and incompletely educated.</p>
<p>"Under sufficient stress, any society can fall prey to the diseases of fascism and racism,” Blumenthal writes. “To prevent that from happening here, we must address the forces that can tip ordinary people into the cauldron of hatred."</p>