I came across this article today, a detailed account of a man whose family were ardent Nazis. His father was a Gestapo head officer and personally committed documented war crimes. It’s a must read, as far as I’m concerned.
We need to realize Nazis weren’t all Indiana Jones villains hell-bent on pure evil. If you had lived in Germany in the late 1930s, I’m not sure you’d see much difference between the political climate there and the climate across so much of western civilization today. The Holocaust hadn’t begun, but the finger for all of society’s ills was pointed straight at minorities. Jews. Slavs. Roma. LGBT. The rhetoric used then could be swapped out with the rhetoric Trump, Putin, and other far right leaders are spouting off.
The people who went along with Hitler were, by and large, the same as those who eagerly jump aboard the MAGA train. I am not saying they’re evil. All Nazis weren’t evil. But the effect they had on the world was undeniably wicked. The problem is, the popular belief is that all Nazis were absolute demons. So a MAGA supporter who’s parroting back “facts” about how awful immigrants are, and how our country’s being poisoned by them, feels safe in thinking they’re nowhere near what a Nazi would be like, since they don’t view themselves anywhere like a demon.
Yes, there were the extreme supporters then, just as there are extreme supporters now, wearing masks and carrying torches and waving swastika banners. But Hitler didn’t do what he did by having the simple support of those extremists. He did what he did by having the support of the majority of the nation. Not to have them go staff the concentration camps, but to turn a blind eye when their neighbors were whisked away. To agree that it was all for the greater good.
There are so many mirrors to what’s happening now and what happened then. Nazi supporters held a rally in Madison Square Gardens in 1939. Over 20,000 people showed up to support it. Other protested from outside. Life is never about the good guys vs. the bad guys. Each of us has good and bad inside of, though the balance is more out of whack in some than in others. I love Germany. I love the people there. I stayed there for two years and met and talked with so many of them, including many who would have been in their prime during World War II. None of them seemed “evil.”
I didn’t ask any of them which side they were on back then.
If you’re against elements of the Democrat platform, that is perfectly fine. You’re allowed to have strongly held beliefs about the sanctity of life, the need for the Second Amendment, the importance of traditional family values, or a preference for a smaller government. I may disagree with you on some things, and we might get in a long argument about where the line should be drawn between personal beliefs and government-enforced mandates. (Ironically, there will probably be some areas where I’m on one side of that argument and you’re on the other side, and then other areas where our “sides” are reversed.)
Politics is politics. Donald Trump is anything but politics. You can’t embrace him or use him as a tool to accomplish the things you want to have happen. You can’t view him as a net gain, so you hold your nose and turn a blind eye to the things he says or does that you disagree with. And mind you: it’s not just Donald Trump. At this point, the MAGA movement he leads is becoming stronger and bolder. Republican leaders are actively abandoning earlier views of the nature of Trump to instead embrace him and his followers.
Don’t even get me started on Project 2025. Vance wrote the foreword to the new book coming out from the founder of the movement.
Even as I’m writing this, I again question what the use of it is. I’m not sure I’ve ever convinced even a single Trump voter to turn away from their decision. I would love to start seeing posts of people who had voted for him but have since changed their minds. Instead, I see his support only grow. Of particular concern are polls that show 70% of Black voters have an unfavorable view of him, and 50% of Hispanic voters. Compare that to the 2020 election, where 92% of Black voters and 62% of Hispanic voters didn’t support him. In other words, he’s gained 22% and 12%, respectively, with those two groups. When 2020 was so close, those kinds of numbers can have a huge impact.
Anyway. That’s all I’ve got in me today. I read that article I first posted, and it made me think once again of just what sort of situation we face today. I hope more people can see that, so that we might avert the troubles that may arise from it.