Lesley Grahame, a Norwich Green Party member and campaigner for peace, social, environmental, economic justice, shares her fears (and determination) after the US election result

Could it happen here?

That is the question that plagued my childhood, as my parents' holocaust-related fears cast their communal shadow. 

Those who read the writing on the wall, whose terror prompted them to leave Nazi Germany (and whose resources allowed them to) were probably labelled doom-mongers at the time, and as survivors later. 

Today I expected to share with the world a sigh of relief that fascism had again been seen off by reason, and that our chance to avert climate catastrophe would be improved. 

Of course it still exists, but the odds just got massively more difficult, and the US government will be an opponent instead of an ally.

It is one of those days most of us will remember.

Like when Britain invaded Iraq and voted Brexit, or when John Lennon was shot and George Floyd's murder was filmed.

I remember my friends' distress when the hole in the ozone layer was discovered, and my own at various stages of iceberg melt, deaths from extreme weather events, the risk to the gulf stream, the loss of 73pc of the species that were around when I was a kid.

The time before Hitler was democratically elected, he was neck and neck with the communists.

Big business ploughed in to support the Nazis against a perceived communist threat. 

I don't use the f-word lightly. However, just as the world was beginning to notice the devastation of society, climate and nature, big business has jumped in to prevent and reverse any serious response to our peril.

(Image: PA)

It has to be said. The US has just elected an elite/rich, corrupt, convicted criminal leader whose threats and propaganda bear the hallmarks of a fascist regime.

Some citizens will have done so in full knowledge, some less so.  It seems that the vote itself wasn't rigged, only the information on which people based their vote.

As Rebecca Solnit says, the aim of propaganda is not to make people believe the lie, but to leave everyone confused, to make truth difficult to recognise.  Anyone can fall victim to that.

The work of truth telling is as important as ever, and luckily there are still independent journalists and fact checkers to help us.

While I can recommend some that I personally trust, the main thing is to look at more than one source of news, and to check it against lived experience. 

We've all seen high food prices, fewer insects, dirty water, lack of healthcare, dirty money in politics, to name but a few.

Security doesn't come from believing that bad things won't happen, it comes from knowing that you'll deal with them if you have to.

Hate has triumphed, and yet I'm seeing outpourings of love, solidarity and people reaching out to support each other, just as we did during the pandemic, and as my parents did during the war. 

There lies my hope and determination, if not to keep calm, to carry on.