I’m under the distinct impression that a lot of Jewish people aren’t all that thrilled when the rest of call someone we don’t like “Hitler” or a group we don’t like “Nazis” because unless the people we don’t like have killed six million people, started a World War and tried to take over the world, there’s just no comparison.
Good point.
And just in case you’re still the teensiest little bit anti-Semitic, here’s something else to think about:
Former NBA basketball player Amar’e Stoudemire, who went to Israel to play basketball, was once asked if he thought he might be Jewish and replied:
“I think through history, I think we all are.”
If you buy the Holy Bible’s version of events, Amar’e makes sense; if we started out with just two people and they were Jewish that would mean all of us have some Jewish ancestry so maybe we should ease the fuck up on all those people we’re related to.
Anyway…
A while back I read an article from the Post-Dispatch (and I’m guessing that’s the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, not the Krakow Post-Dispatch, but I neglected to write that down when I read it) and the article was about Donald Trump and why he still matters.
I can only guess at the Post-Dispatch’s motivation for publishing the article (I’m only dimly aware of my own motivations), but my guess is they felt compelled to say something because anytime you talk negatively about Donald Trump, some Trump supporter will say:
“Why don’t you leave him alone?”
To which I say:
“I will when you will.”
You can’t go to his rallies and do everything but goose step and Sieg Heil this guy and then turn around and say he doesn’t matter and the rest of us should pay no attention to what you’re up to.
Now here’s what the Post-Dispatch had to say about it:
Donald Trump is still the leader of a populist movement and that movement has some disturbing similarities to another movement in 1930s Germany:
It’s anti-immigrant
Xenophobic
Mistrusts science
Blames others for their lot in life
Attacks local officials who disagree with them
And isn’t afraid to use violence to get what they want.
As the Post-Dispatch article pointed out: Trump wouldn’t mind being a dictator who could ignore the popular vote when it didn’t go his way and he's still the favorite (or among the favorites, depending on what poll you look at and when you look at it) to get the Republican nomination for President and January 6th appears to have been a trial run for what he and his followers want to do in the future.
While the rest of have been occupied with taking out loans to pay for a tank of gas, Republicans have been busy changing laws to make it harder for some people to vote and easier to overrule election authorities when they don’t like the way those votes add up.
The threat of violence
All this comes up because the people on the House select committee investigating the January 6th insurrection have been getting threats and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (who is actually a Republican) revealed that a letter addressed to his wife threatened to kill them and their 5-month old baby.
Kinzinger (and one more time, he’s a Republican) said the January 6th violence was not an aberration, but a consequence of his party’s repeated lies.
“There is violence in the future, I’m going to tell you. And until we get a grip on telling people the truth, we can’t expect any differently.”
Keep telling people they’re being cheated and victimized and they need to fight like hell and don’t be surprised if some of them believe you.
OK, so maybe you’re thinking there are a few isolated nutjobs out there, but then how do you explain former Missouri governor and current Senate candidate Eric Greitens?
Just in case you’re living someplace sane (and right now I’m not exactly sure where that would be):
We elected Greitens governor, but he had to resign because he had more scandals than The Old Woman Who Lived In a Shoe had children, but now he’s back and running for the Senate and everybody that isn’t Batshit Crazy is appalled that immediately after we had a series of mass shootings that shocked the nation (assuming we still have the ability to be shocked) Greitens ran a campaign ad that shows him holding a shotgun and proclaiming that he’s going RINO hunting.
As you probably already know, RINOs are Republicans In Name Only and the not-so-subtle message is if you’re a Republican and you’re just not radical enough, you ought to be hunted down and if you’re thinking OK, there are a few isolated nutjobs and Eric Greitens, get a load of Missouri Representative Vicky Hartzler and Mark McClosky – the guy who went out on his lawn and pointed a gun at Black Lives Matter protestors – and the images they think will appeal to voters.
BTW: As of last Monday, Greitens was the frontrunner to be elected to the U.S. Senate so not everybody thinks this guy is being all that extreme or maybe they do, but they like the kind of extreme he’s being.
So what about those Hitler/Nazi comparisons?
For some people maybe it’s too early to start calling Donald Trump “Hitler” and his followers “Nazis” but Adolf and the Gang had to start somewhere and maybe they could have been stopped earlier if people had taken the threat more seriously.
Here’s an article from The Atlantic about Hitler and how a lot of Americans didn’t take him seriously in the 1920s and early 1930s because he seemed like such a clown.
They laughed at his voice and herky-jerky movements and I totally relate because I’m the guy who thought a candidate could not talk about the size of his penis and grabbing women by the vagina and still get elected President of the United States. (Turns out our standards for elected officials are even lower than I thought and I didn’t think they were all that high to begin with.)
Back before they realized just how dangerous he was, people also thought that even if Hitler came to power the other German politicians would be able to control him and maybe we should ask Mitch McConnell how that strategy works out. Turns out the semi-sane German politicians couldn’t control Hitler because he inspired such loyalty and fanaticism among a lot of the German people, which right about now sounds way too familiar.
Now here’s a quote from The Atlantic article that seems relevant:
When someone lobs those kinds of rhetorical bombs, it's sort of a natural human tendency to say, "Oh, that's just a figure of speech. They don't really mean it. It's just a way to whip up supporters."
But at a certain point, people began to witness things that were unbelievably horrifying. And of course, there was Kristallnacht.
So here’s the question: when you see dangerous behavior do you ignore it (which a number of people advocate) or do you say something dangerous is happening here and we need to pay attention and do something about it before it gets even worse?
Now here’s another quote from The Atlantic article:
Edgar Mowrer, the Chicago Daily News correspondent who was basically run out of Germany in September of 1933, kept advising Jews, "Get out of Germany!" There's a scene in the book where Mowrer is having lunch with group of Jewish bankers in Germany, and it becomes clear that each of them has given some money to Nazi Party at the urging of non-Jewish industrialists. They were told it would be a way of protecting themselves a bit, and they believed it. Just like a lot of Americans, the German Jews thought, "This can't really be happening."
But one of the things I found fascinating in writing this book was to put myself in the shoes of the people there, who didn't have the benefit of hindsight, and wonder, 'What would I have understood? What would I have done?" I came away from it all knowing that I couldn't, with any assurance, say I would have been any smarter.
I feel pretty much the same way.
I’ve obviously decided to speak up and use whatever platform I have (and I’m well aware it’s a very small platform, about the size of your average soapbox) to say when politicians are appealing to voters by going RINO hunting, it seems like something really dangerous is happening, while simultaneously hoping I’m wrong and overreacting.
The Jewish people say we must never forget and shouldn’t believe it can’t happen here and must do everything we can to prevent it from happening again and I think they’re right and I’d rather overreact early than underreact late and I’ll leave you with Buffalo Springfield and For What It’s Worth and while it wasn’t written about what’s happening right now, it’s still current because it’s a warning that maybe we should stop and question what is happening right now before it’s too damn late.
Attorney General Janet Reno was forced to remove a finding in an official DOJ report. What finding, you ask? That the highest violence risk to the U.S. was from white nationalist groups (as I recall, there may be details I missed). Congressional Republicans had objections and the finding was excised.
To use a dated reference, Right On Lee