CommentsCORRUPTION WATCH-Nazification is a waxing and waning process.
We have not yet become a small “n” nazi state. But recently, the “nazifiers” have gained prominence with their separating of infants and toddlers from their parents, a process based on lies.
How Did We Get Here?
We did not get into this nightmare overnight, nor did it start with Donald Trump. German history after World War I illustrates some of the causes. The economic hardship imposed by the Treaty of Versailles was a major contributor to demoralizing the German people. The terrible economic conditions in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, however, were immeasurably worse than what Americans had been enduring since before November 2016.
Nonetheless, economic events leading up to the Crash of 2008 caused sufficient widespread economic distress that leaders should have heeded the danger, as FDR did in the 1930s. The 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall was particularly foolishly since its original enactment staved off a revolution in the 1930s. Its repeal, coupled with the legalizing of Credit Default Swaps, resulted in massive Wall Street fraud, culminating in the Crash of 2008. Upon the election of a Democrat as President, the government ignored the cruel harm that these economic crimes had been causing in the Rust Belt.
Post 2008 foreclosures, bankruptcies and the opioid crisis resulted in the Rust Belt’s white population experiencing shorter life-spans. Absent the Democrats’ hostility towards the whites in the Rust Belt – as shown by Hillary Clinton’s calling them Deplorables – the anger of those voters would not have been a determining factor in the November 2016 election.
In the 1930s, FDR saw the folly of pro-Wall Street policies which sent the middle class to bankruptcy courts and into homelessness. In 2009, the Democrats should have foreseen white middle class America’s response to Obama’s Wall Street bailout by re-watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart. Middle class America did not root for Henry F. Potter. The real difference between FDR and Obama is that Obama played Identity Politics. Obama’s policies did not see a struggle between individual Americans against the greedy bankers. Obama was not George Bailey fighting the Henry Potters of the world. Rather, Obama’s policies gave Henry Potter trillions of dollars while taking away homes and jobs from the Rust Belt. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ Identity Politics cast white victims as the villains.
How Does America in 2018 Compare with Germany in 1933?
Both Hitler and Trump lost the popular vote. In the 1932 election, Hitler got only 36.8% of the vote compared to von Hindenburg’s 53%, while Trump got 46.1% to Hillary’s 48.2%. Trump did eight times better than Hitler who lost by 16.2%, while Trump lost by only 2.1%. Americans gave Trump a significantly greater support than Germans gave Hitler in 1932.
Democrats, however, are aggrandizing Trump’s power by doubling down on Identity Politics – the very policy which almost gave Trump the popular vote. White middle-class America hears the promise made through Identity Politics that in a few years, Democrats will vote middle-class whites into oblivion. This poses an existential threat to Trump’s base.
For decades the religious right was the predominant purveyor of the Good vs. Evil approach to political life. Now, with their Identity Politics, the Democrats have adopted a similar Us vs. Them strategy . One is “good” by belonging to the correct group and one is “bad” by belonging to the wrong group, e.g. white, male, straight, Christian (Jewish).
How Identity Politics Make America Ripe for Nazification
In psychological terms, Identity Politics is racism and it threatens to eradicate the white population. The meaning of a message is in its receipt. There is no gain saying that Identity Politics is “racist” in the sense that the content of person’s character no long matters; that the color of one’s skin, or ethnicity, or one’s sexual orientation will determine one’s fate.
Knowing that their numbers are dwindling, many whites feel their survival is threatened. We see this fear in their anti-immigration stances and their absurd claims that illegal aliens are voting in the millions and stealing American elections. White people in Russia meddling to help Trump does not concern them, but their delusions that millions of brown illegals are voting causes them to justify taking babies and toddlers from their mother’s arms. America has just witnessed how Trump’s base, which is larger than Hitler’s base was, readily rushes into nazification when faced with Identity Politics.
How the Dems Advance Nazification
Rather than embracing our founding principles that people are individuals with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the Dems are doubling down on their belief that one’s basic rights are not individual but rather grouprights. Equality does not mean Liberty; it means dividing everyone into groups and allocating the nation’s goodies according to which group one belongs. That is what many Americans hear when anyone says “Socialism.” (Yet Americans are clueless what Socialism even means.)
America is familiar with Identity Politics as slavery is its quintessential example. Since slave owners are long extinct and one has trouble finding direct descendants of slave owners, Identity Politics has White Privilege. Its premise is simple – nothing you have done as an individual human being matters. Because you benefitted from being white, you owe me because I am Black, Brown, female, Gay, transgender, etc. Leaving aside Megyn Kelly’s observation that Karl Rove had a special math for Republicans only, everyone sees the real mathematical threat to Trump’s white base.
We have already seen how quickly the Trump base endorsed nazification with its delusional fear of illegal immigration. Just as Jews posed zero threat to Germany, illegal workers pose zero threat to America. The real danger to which the Trump base responds is Identity Politics. We have also seen American people repudiate nazification in overwhelming numbers. While it waxes and wanes, Democrats should understand that their Identity Politics is what fuels nazification under Trump.
America needs a centrist party that will honor the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that each individual has inalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Abrams’ views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
