“Fascism
originates from aggressive Nationalism and massive intolerance for minorities.”
Origin by Dan Brown.
The New Your Review of Books, June 28, 2019 publishes the review
of a book on the Fascism movement in Nazi Germany, titled It Can Happen Here. It is easy
to make a comparison from this article to the United States under the Trump
administration.
The premise
of the piece is, that during the Hitler years Germany was a nation gone
mad. It wasn’t a tyrannical few at the
top, but a mass movement – a willingness of people to be governed by chaos. Hitler was elected in a free and fair
election.
Fascism was
a right-wing movement that attacked freedom of speech, treated critics as
enemies of the state, dissolved checks and balances in government and vilified
newspapers using the term (Lugenpresse)
lying press, along with a constant
attack on Jews and Romany declaring them morally degenerate. It was a movement of the people, of
“aggressive nationalism and massive intolerance for minorities.” This is also the mantra of the Republican
Party today.
Hitler was
painted as a fascist dictator; but he was actually an avatar of the people who
enthusiastically supported him.
We are in a
dangerous place today with a President who seems intent on dismantling our
constitutional government, undermining our rule of law, demeaning our allies,
aligning himself with dictatorial strong men, vilifying minorities and
destroying a free press.
Trump is
only an avatar of a base that blindly support him beyond all reason. We can’t change the Trump base, but we
outnumber them. They are a minority whose
candidate lost the popular vote by 2.9 million votes, but was declared winner
by a gerrymandered electoral college.
Every voter
that couldn’t vote for Hillary because of her e-mails, elected Donald
Trump. You can’t change that vote now;
but perhaps this will be a reality check.
There are only two viable parties, and either Trump or Joe Biden will be
elected.
This is a
time to put aside ‘purity test’. The
only test of Democrat nominees should be, who can best defeat Donald Trump.
If the
Republican candidates are your choice, by all means vote Republican; but if the
Republican candidates and Republican policies are not palatable for you, you
must vote for the Joe Biden.
the Ol'Buzzard
I am redder than blue but I surely want a different president this time.
ReplyDeleteThose who support the Second Amendment to fight authoritarian government would have been first in line to support Hitler and are first in line to support Trump.
ReplyDeleteIt's surprising how so many of our safeguards & checks and balances were annihilated in 4 years. When we elect a new regime, the first order of business should be to strengthen laws, the court system and even the Constitution to prevent Fascism to take hold.
ReplyDeleteI try very, very hard not to imagine a second term for 45. It is unimaginable, right?
ReplyDeleteBuzz, you have not posted in a while. Hope all is well with you, your wife and the kittys!
ReplyDelete