I have been around for a long time, and have followed politics for a long time as well. Like most people, wars I've always found to be especially disturbing--why were people doing such horrible things to one another? I remember the Korean War, but was too young to understand the background of the conflict. I remember the Vietnam war as well, and couldn't forgive Johnson or, later, Nixon, for its (unnecessary! and immoral!) horrors, such as the widespread use of civilian bombing. By now you can imagine my response to the completely unjustified invasion of Iraq, with its hundreds of thousands of casualties, not to mention its trillion-dollar expense. "We are doing Iran's dirty work," I remember telling others at the time; a prediction that has since been proven to be correct.
During times when I was convinced that my country was making bad decisions, I always consoled myself with the following thought: at least this isn't Nazi Germany!
For the first time in my life, however, I am beginning to see similarities with that awful regime and our current one. I am not exaggerating. Our institutions and traditions remain largely intact, along with our glorious system of checks and balances. The public, at least the progressive section of it, is vigorously opposing separation of children from parents at the border. These are good omens. But the fact that this separation took place, not to mention that it is supported by many, is one of many ominous tendencies. I am not saying that we are becoming Nazi Germany; I am saying, however, that the current president's sympathies are much more with fascism than with democracy.
I have always been extremely uneasy about comparing any American regime to Hitler's. We are so much better than that! What is the source of my present misgivings? What lead me to believe that Trump, deep down, might be one of them?
Born one month after the end of World War ll, I was horrified from an early age by the war against fascism, which resulted in the greatest destruction that the world has ever seen. The response of many adults around me was, "We won! We won!" Although I was certainly glad and grateful that the Allies had been victorious, I had difficulty getting beyond the war's wanton destruction--fifty-five million dead, the epicenter of which was the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust.
My father despised the Germans. I could not accept the belief, however, that all inhabitants of one country were worse than all inhabitants of another. Since my relationship with my father was conflicted as far back as I can remember, I decided to learn German as an act of defiance, and also as a way to prove my conviction that "all people are the same." I studied German in high school and went on to study German in college as well, after which I spent a year studying German in graduate school before switching to medicine.
Despite having been a busy pediatrician for many years, I did not neglect the German language. To this day, I can read, speak, as well as write in German.
I am still very appreciative of German music and literature; I still believe that Germans as a whole are no better or worse than members of any other ethnic group. Being able to approach history from a German context, however, deepened my horror about what was perpetrated in Germany's name.
This is a huge subject; I will limit my discussion here to how I came to believe that Trump has marked fascist tendencies.
The Nazis began their debasement of the German language from the very beginning. They coined malevolent memes and used them to foment antisemitism everywhere. I will provide only a few examples.
After The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1934, a new crime arose, "Rassenschande," "shame against the race." German has the unique ability to form compound eotfd which are much more direct, and in this case, more vicious, than indicated by an English translation; the English translation of "Rassenschande" seems muted and bureaucratic in comparison. The is especially true of an especially horrible compound adjective: "judenrein". When mass deportation of Jews from German cities took place after 1942, cities or towns were declared "judenrein," that is, cleared of Jews, once there were no Jews left. "Cleared of Jews" however, doesn't cut it: the world literally means "pure of Jews"; the cognate of this Nazi-coined word is "stubenrein," that is, "housebroken." The real meaning of this malevolent word is closer to "purified of filth." This is the word Nazi newspapers used, while, all over Germany and Austria, people were marching to the strains of "Deutschland erwache, Juda verrecke!"--"Germany, awake, Jewry, croak!" Oh, the horror, the horror! These are but two examples of debased, dehumanized language perfected by the Nazis.
I was well aware, from the beginning of his regime, that Trump was a malignant narcissist in addition to being a liar, a racist, and someone unfit to be the president of the United States. His performance since becoming president has deepened this awareness.
Yes, Trump is a racist. Having been the head of the notorious birther movement for five years prior to his election is a good indication of his racial animus. Even worse, when five teenagers were accused of raping and severely beating a white jogger in Central Park, he ran a full page ad in the New York Post demanding, before a trial took place, that they receive the death penalty. Even worse--far worse: when, years later, the five no-longer-young men were proven innocent by DNA analysis, Trump recommended that the convictions should not be overturned. How can this be explained other than by a racist animus against Blacks? (There is, of course, much more evidence which illustrates Trump's fondness for America's Original Sin.)
Yes, he is a racist, but this didn't make him a Nazi in my eyes. After all, racism has been a prominent part of the American story from its inception.
What made me come to the conclusion that Trump's racism was worthy of Nazism?
On June 19, 2018, Trump tweeted the following:
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
My God, I thought to myself: he is one of them! I never thought that I would ever compare a U.S. president to Nazis. How dare I make such a comparison?
(I would like to make clear at this point that I'm certainly not implying that Trump is an advocate of mass murder; I am asserting, however that Trump would be much more comfortable in a fascist role rather than in a democratic one. And, oh, by the way, if he had been a German businessman in 1933, which side do you think he would have been on?)
I can't imagine that any American in higher office--at least since the Civil Rights Movement--would ever use the word "infest" to refer to human beings. He is implying that these Hispanic refugees are vermin, vectors bringing a plague of crime into the United States. (Never mind a fact that can't be emphasized enough: migrants, both legal and illegal, commit crimes at about half the rate of native-born Americans.) "Infest" here struck me as coming from the same dark place in the human soul that spoke of "judenrein" seven decades earlier.
In the midst of mounting scandals and egregious behaviors, this tweet was hardly noticed. Its significance, however, has struck me deeply. For me it was the broken window through which I got a glimpse into Trump's soul.
Now Trump's constant stream of lies is beginning to remind me of those of Josef Goebbels. Now Trump's periodic rallies are beginning to remind me of Nazi rallies. Now Trump's cozying up to dictators and his contempt for democratic allies remind me of that demon himself, who once said in Mein Kampf that the great advantage of fascism is that it brings all leaders down to its level. In this context, his admiration for dictators and disdain for allies makes sense.
The man who has no empathy, the man who is our president, appears to be a fascist at heart: the majority of American hearts, however, follow the beat of a brighter and better drum.
We must, however, take Trump's threat to democracy seriously. This is not a conservative issue, nor is it a progressive one: it is an issue of justice and of humanity; it is an issue of patriotism.
Please join me in peaceful, vociferous and active opposition to this man who, at his core, seems to be--horrible to say--not one of us, but one of them.
During times when I was convinced that my country was making bad decisions, I always consoled myself with the following thought: at least this isn't Nazi Germany!
For the first time in my life, however, I am beginning to see similarities with that awful regime and our current one. I am not exaggerating. Our institutions and traditions remain largely intact, along with our glorious system of checks and balances. The public, at least the progressive section of it, is vigorously opposing separation of children from parents at the border. These are good omens. But the fact that this separation took place, not to mention that it is supported by many, is one of many ominous tendencies. I am not saying that we are becoming Nazi Germany; I am saying, however, that the current president's sympathies are much more with fascism than with democracy.
I have always been extremely uneasy about comparing any American regime to Hitler's. We are so much better than that! What is the source of my present misgivings? What lead me to believe that Trump, deep down, might be one of them?
Born one month after the end of World War ll, I was horrified from an early age by the war against fascism, which resulted in the greatest destruction that the world has ever seen. The response of many adults around me was, "We won! We won!" Although I was certainly glad and grateful that the Allies had been victorious, I had difficulty getting beyond the war's wanton destruction--fifty-five million dead, the epicenter of which was the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust.
My father despised the Germans. I could not accept the belief, however, that all inhabitants of one country were worse than all inhabitants of another. Since my relationship with my father was conflicted as far back as I can remember, I decided to learn German as an act of defiance, and also as a way to prove my conviction that "all people are the same." I studied German in high school and went on to study German in college as well, after which I spent a year studying German in graduate school before switching to medicine.
Despite having been a busy pediatrician for many years, I did not neglect the German language. To this day, I can read, speak, as well as write in German.
I am still very appreciative of German music and literature; I still believe that Germans as a whole are no better or worse than members of any other ethnic group. Being able to approach history from a German context, however, deepened my horror about what was perpetrated in Germany's name.
This is a huge subject; I will limit my discussion here to how I came to believe that Trump has marked fascist tendencies.
The Nazis began their debasement of the German language from the very beginning. They coined malevolent memes and used them to foment antisemitism everywhere. I will provide only a few examples.
After The Nuremberg Laws were passed in 1934, a new crime arose, "Rassenschande," "shame against the race." German has the unique ability to form compound eotfd which are much more direct, and in this case, more vicious, than indicated by an English translation; the English translation of "Rassenschande" seems muted and bureaucratic in comparison. The is especially true of an especially horrible compound adjective: "judenrein". When mass deportation of Jews from German cities took place after 1942, cities or towns were declared "judenrein," that is, cleared of Jews, once there were no Jews left. "Cleared of Jews" however, doesn't cut it: the world literally means "pure of Jews"; the cognate of this Nazi-coined word is "stubenrein," that is, "housebroken." The real meaning of this malevolent word is closer to "purified of filth." This is the word Nazi newspapers used, while, all over Germany and Austria, people were marching to the strains of "Deutschland erwache, Juda verrecke!"--"Germany, awake, Jewry, croak!" Oh, the horror, the horror! These are but two examples of debased, dehumanized language perfected by the Nazis.
I was well aware, from the beginning of his regime, that Trump was a malignant narcissist in addition to being a liar, a racist, and someone unfit to be the president of the United States. His performance since becoming president has deepened this awareness.
Yes, Trump is a racist. Having been the head of the notorious birther movement for five years prior to his election is a good indication of his racial animus. Even worse, when five teenagers were accused of raping and severely beating a white jogger in Central Park, he ran a full page ad in the New York Post demanding, before a trial took place, that they receive the death penalty. Even worse--far worse: when, years later, the five no-longer-young men were proven innocent by DNA analysis, Trump recommended that the convictions should not be overturned. How can this be explained other than by a racist animus against Blacks? (There is, of course, much more evidence which illustrates Trump's fondness for America's Original Sin.)
Yes, he is a racist, but this didn't make him a Nazi in my eyes. After all, racism has been a prominent part of the American story from its inception.
What made me come to the conclusion that Trump's racism was worthy of Nazism?
On June 19, 2018, Trump tweeted the following:
Democrats are the problem. They don’t care about crime and want illegal immigrants, no matter how bad they may be, to pour into and infest our Country, like MS-13. They can’t win on their terrible policies, so they view them as potential voters!
My God, I thought to myself: he is one of them! I never thought that I would ever compare a U.S. president to Nazis. How dare I make such a comparison?
(I would like to make clear at this point that I'm certainly not implying that Trump is an advocate of mass murder; I am asserting, however that Trump would be much more comfortable in a fascist role rather than in a democratic one. And, oh, by the way, if he had been a German businessman in 1933, which side do you think he would have been on?)
I can't imagine that any American in higher office--at least since the Civil Rights Movement--would ever use the word "infest" to refer to human beings. He is implying that these Hispanic refugees are vermin, vectors bringing a plague of crime into the United States. (Never mind a fact that can't be emphasized enough: migrants, both legal and illegal, commit crimes at about half the rate of native-born Americans.) "Infest" here struck me as coming from the same dark place in the human soul that spoke of "judenrein" seven decades earlier.
In the midst of mounting scandals and egregious behaviors, this tweet was hardly noticed. Its significance, however, has struck me deeply. For me it was the broken window through which I got a glimpse into Trump's soul.
Now Trump's constant stream of lies is beginning to remind me of those of Josef Goebbels. Now Trump's periodic rallies are beginning to remind me of Nazi rallies. Now Trump's cozying up to dictators and his contempt for democratic allies remind me of that demon himself, who once said in Mein Kampf that the great advantage of fascism is that it brings all leaders down to its level. In this context, his admiration for dictators and disdain for allies makes sense.
The man who has no empathy, the man who is our president, appears to be a fascist at heart: the majority of American hearts, however, follow the beat of a brighter and better drum.
We must, however, take Trump's threat to democracy seriously. This is not a conservative issue, nor is it a progressive one: it is an issue of justice and of humanity; it is an issue of patriotism.
Please join me in peaceful, vociferous and active opposition to this man who, at his core, seems to be--horrible to say--not one of us, but one of them.
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