Rick Steves, the Fascist Playbook and the Covid Response

While waiting with a friend on the southbound platform at the crowded junction of Medellin, Colombia’s two Metro elevated train lines in February 2017, a short, bespectacled, wavy-black-haired, thirtyish man approached me and asked, in Spanish, where I was from.

I answered, “Los Estados Unidos.”

He replied, “Gracias para derrotar Alemania en la segunda guerra mundial” and walked away, smirking.

I can say most of what I want to say in Spanish and understand most of what natives say to me. But aft...