2026 – Is the USA Ready to Celebrate?

2026 will be an important year for America. As well as hosting the FIFA World Cup in June & July, they will have their mid-term elections in November 2026, and most importantly America will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of their Declaration of Independence from Britain.

What connects any of that with the novel Evil in High Places by Rory Clements?

Evil in High Places

This novel is the follow on from Munich Wolf (both excellent books) which is about a German detective trying to maintain his career and his integrity as the Nazis take over Germany. During the Winter Olympics and in the run up to the Summer Olympics of 1936, Inspector Wolf has to investigate two murders while suppressing the news so that the foreign press could not gather more information to assist those seeking a boycott of the Summer Olympics in Germany.

Evil in High Places is fiction, but the efforts of the Nazis to conceal the true nature of their regime are factual. We remember studying the Munich Olympics in History, but we usually did not cover the earlier and much smaller Winter Olympics held in the German town of Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February 1936. This was the last Winter Olympics to be held in the same year and same country as the Summer Olympics and it received much less attention, but it was a rehearsal for the Munich games and similar news management was used.

Amid preparations for the Games, the Garmisch-Partenkirchen town council passed an order to expel all Jews in its jurisdiction, but decided to wait until after the Olympics to implement the decree. Antisemitic signs and publications were removed from the region before visitors from other nations arrived. Germany even allowed the Jewish athlete Rudi Ball to play on Germany’s ice hockey team.

An American journalist, William Shirer, reported in Feb 1936 that ‘the Nazis have done a wonderful propaganda job. They’ve greatly impressed most of the visiting foreigners with the lavish but smooth way in which they’ve run the games and with their kind manners, which to us who came from Berlin of course seemed staged.”

Similar news management tactics were used for the Summer Olympics in Berlin. The Roma people of Berlin were taken off the streets and interned in the Marzahn concentration camps well before visitors arrived for Berlin Olympics and most anti-Jewish signage was removed.

The USA Connection

America is not like Nazi Germany, but all is not well in the USA.

Almost every day, heavily armed and masked ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents are seen dragging people of colour off the streets, interning them in camps like ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ in Florida (due to close because of appalling conditions.) Some of those captured by ICE are shipped to external facilities like El Salvador’s notorious Cecot prison (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-5bb1a625-2a25-4cc5-86f3-9132c7b9468a)

American news is peppered with alarming stories such as that of the 15-year-old boy who suffers from autism who was snatched by ICE in Houston, Texas, without the knowledge of his family. They reported his disappearance to the police and the fact that he was held by ICE only became clear days later.

ICE behaviour in Chicago seems particularly disturbing. ICE agents had just snatched a journalist and were speeding away when they slammed into a woman’s vehicle as they completed an illegal U-turn, but then snatched her out of her car at gunpoint and took her with them, only releasing her hours later.

Most recently, one US citizen, Leo Garcia Venegas is taking court action because he has been arrested twice by ICE agents, despite showing his ID which they dismissed as fake. Mr Venegas is not alone, over 20 US citizens have experienced being arrested and held incommunicado for more than 24 hours by ICE. Last Tuesday (28^th Oct) a man was taking his 12-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son to school in Durango when they were stopped by ICE agents and taken into custody. All three remained in ICE custody as of Friday.

When ICE agents are challenged in any way, violence is a frequent response. A Presbyterian minister in Chicago is suing Donald Trump’s administration after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were captured in viral video firing pepper balls at his head during protests against the president’s anti-immigration agenda. In yet another disputed Chicago incident, ICE officials admit to shooting a woman several times but claim she endangered them by ramming their car. (Her car shows damage only to its passenger door.)

President Trump is determinedly gathering more and more power to Washington and seems determined to crush local state government in the USA. Where state governors do not concede, he is prepared to use the armed forces of the National Guard from Republican states like Texas, to take over the streets of Democrat run cities like Portland, Oregon. Trump responded to push back from Illinois and Chicago by claiming Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “should be in jail”.

However, it is far too early to claim that America is falling apart.

Travelling to America to Celebrate

Next year should be a year of celebration for America, with the FIFA World Cup games beginning in June and then the July events to celebrate the 250^th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. They will hope to host visitors from across the world.

However, it will look bad if visitors are confronted with heavily armed and masked ICE agents pursuing people of colour on American streets. Confrontations between armed soldiers of the National Guard and local people will be disconcerting for outsiders. Similarly, what will happen to visitors to the USA who have (like myself) criticised President Trump online?

Before anyone books a flight to the USA, we need to consider, is it safe for us to travel to the USA? Will the Trump regime even allow us in? And in what state will we find the country when we arrive? Will Trump have the sense to follow the example of 1936 Germany and pause the ICE raids and National Guard invasions until all the visitors have gone home?

Or are we better holidaying in Europe next summer, where it is safe?

(Olympics Trivia: Until I researched this, I did not know that the Olympic Flame Relay tradition was invented for the 1936 Berlin Olympics – previously the flame was lit, but there was no relay.)