If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes and experiencing it myself, I would not believe it. My country that I love has been turned upside down with the type of hate and fear that I only previously knew from history books. When I learned about the terrible atrocities in history like slavery, Native Americans forced onto reservations, the Holocaust, Japanese Internment camps…etc., I felt a sense of distance when trying to understand how they could occur. I couldn’t visualize the circumstances where it could happen in present times, so it seemed tangential, something to be considered in retrospect. I could never comprehend how someone like Hitler could come into power. How could the Germans support someone so evil? How could they hate other human beings, the Jews, so much? Did they realize how evil Hitler was in the beginning or was it a slow process? Over the past few years and even more so the last few months, I feel like I have a front row seat to the phenomena that creates exactly the type of environment where such evil can thrive.
Looking back to when I really saw a dramatic shift in the tone of political discourse, I go back to the 2008 Presidential election. Obama v McCain. I’ve usually held Senator McCain in good regard, but he made a decision during that election that had repercussions that continue to be felt, the choice of Sarah Palin as a VP running mate. Beyond the fact that she was purely a political pandering choice and that she was woefully unqualified, it was her bold use of “otherness” as a weapon against then Senator Obama that had continuing effects. The not so subtle insinuation that “he isn’t one of us” i.e. a Muslim, not born in this country, he “pals around with terrorists”, when done by a Vice Presidential candidate on a main party ticket gave credence to the bigotry and xenophobia that has always laid beneath the surface of our society. You could hear those types of ideas in private discussions or on Talk Radio and Fox News, but to hear it come from a Presidential running mate, gave people who already had those type of leanings license to bring those ideas into open public discourse. I’m not saying that all people that didn’t like or vote for Obama are bigots and xenophobes. What I am saying is there are a number of them that are and Sarah Palin gave them a voice and power to speak louder.
Fox News et al. has spent a great amount of time and money for many years now trying to scare Americans. I’m not one that has an affinity for conspiracy theories, but in my view, Fox and other right wing media seem to be part of a well orchestrated plan for power, especially actors like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. I’m not implying that other media doesn’t have power to influence people, but the difference I see is right wing media uses fear to motivate and facts are optional. They are constantly stoking a low burning fire of anger and bitterness. The introduction of Donald Trump has been the fuel that has taken that fire to a new level.
Above are just two of the outrageous and FACTUALLY WRONG propaganda that Trump feeds his mainly white supporters. He feeds them this diet of bigotry because he knows that they already have fears of “The Mexicans” and “The Blacks”. In the case of the bogus crime statistics, he passed these lies on with an illustration of a black boogie man with a gun. (Although a white man with a gun would be a second amendment patriot.) Then he talks about how he will be “the BEST on stopping crime!” He continuously makes sweeping platitudes about how he will solve all of Americas problems (namely violent black people and “illegals) because, well, he’s “The Donald”. Again, people are made into “others”. They’re not like us. When you start to view people as less than you, it becomes much more easy to say things like….round up families that have lived in this country for decades and sent them to Mexico.
I’ve seen Trump compared to Hitler a number of times recently. I don’t think he is Hitler, but I do think he uses many of the same propaganda and manipulation tactics as historical fascist demagogues in general and Hitler specifically. Hitler came on the scene after the Germans lost WWI. They were hurting and angry. Hitler was very charismatic and seemed to offer them solutions for their problems to “make Germany great again”, if you will.
“The Nazi Party was attractive to the majority of the German people because Hitler and his party proposed a solution to nearly every problem that was facing the various segments of the population. For example, the Party agenda addressed the problem of Germany’s loss of WWI. The Nazis exploited the popular myth that Germany’s army was “stabbed in the back” by the Weimar Republic’s first politicians. In this way they seduced the German people into associating the loss of the war with Democracy. ” 1
More importantly though, he gave them scapegoats to blame for their problems. He capitalized on the already simmering sentiments of anti-semitism of the time.
“Hitler used the Jews as a scapegoat, blaming them for Germany’s economic and social problems. The Nazi party promised to resolve these issues, and in 1932 won 37% of the vote. The persecution of the Jews began systematically, shortly after Hitler came to power. The Nazis introduced anti-Jewish decrees, which gradually eliminated the rights of Jewish citizens. Jews were regularly persecuted and humiliated. Many members of the German public were bystanders and did nothing to condemn the Nazi racial policies. This may have been due to the fact that they were content with other Nazi policies, which appeared to improve the disastrous financial and economic conditions in Germany. People were also afraid to speak out, as they were terrified of the brutality of the Nazis.”2
Although Trump and his ideas are reprehensible, they aren’t ultimately what pose the biggest threat to our society. The biggest threat is from the people that he and others like him are whipping into a frenzy of fear and anger. My jaw literally dropped when I saw the video of Jerry Falwell, President of Liberty University, a Christian school, encouraging an arena full of his students to bring guns to school. He said, “I’ve always thought that if more good people had concealed-carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they walked in, killed them……..I just wanted to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permit. We offer a free course. Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.” Falwell didn’t say end those shooters or murderers. He said, “end those Muslims.” He later indicated that he was just talking about Muslim terrorists, but that isn’t what he said was it? And the students there certainly had no problem with his unedited version as they gave loud applause and shout outs of affirmation to his statements.
Then there was the Black Lives Matter protester that was attacked at one of Trump’s rallies by a rabid mob of his supporters, beating and screaming at the man. When Trump was asked about this the next day he indicated that the protester “maybe deserved to be roughed up” because he was obnoxious. A leading Presidential candidate vying to be leader of the free world advocated violence on his behalf because someone was “obnoxious”. Unreal.
Actually Trump is right, we have a lot to be worried about. Yes, there is terrorism and that is something we need to fight diligently and decisively, but the bigger threat to the United States is the hate and division within our own borders. Because if this continues, we will be so fractured as a country that we can’t fight an enemy like ISIS.
We not only have a responsibility to save our country from this man and his divisiveness, but as a nation that has taken the position as a global leader, we have a responsibility not to unleash him onto the world.
“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana
- Understanding the German People’s Participation in the Third Reicht, Theo Bailey. http://itech.fgcu.edu/&/issues/vol2/issue1/german.htm
- British Library: Voices of the Holocaust http://www.bl.uk/learning/histcitizen/voices/testimonies/life/backgd/before.html
An American in Deutschland 