Unity From Division

There’s no denying the hardship, suffering, and death across the covid-plagued America that Trump’s malfeasance, ineptitude, negligence, and ignorance has wrought.

There's no denying the rise in white nationalism, and the erosion of decency, rule of law, and checks and balances. 

It wasn't that long ago we saw the neo-Nazi hate in Charlottesville, that killed an innocent woman. Right wing white nationalist terrorism wasn't finished. It was going to be far worse.

The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on October 27, 2018 left 11 people dead. 

The El Paso shooing on August 3, 2019 left 23 people dead.

However, there’s a faint light beyond the doom and gloom of Trump America. 

The dark cloud of 2016 is lifting. Something is different in 2020.

Droves of former Republicans and former Bush people are declaring their support for Biden. 

The Lincoln Project and 45 Alumni For Joe Biden are two of the most active groups of conservatives who have a conscience.

Of course, conservatives of conscience are summarily dismissed as disloyal “anti-Trumpers”. 

During the sham impeachment trial, Mitt Romney was the lone person of conscience among Senate Republicans. Among all the Trump toadies, Romney alone stood on the right side of history.

Stuart Stevens, the chief strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid has a new book titled, “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump”.

He understands what we mean by the right side of history.

From:
The Republican Party Is Racist and Soulless

“Stuart Stevens says he now realizes the hatred and bigotry of Trumpism were always at the heart of the GOP.”

“A lot of us in the party liked to believe the dark side was a recessive gene, but it’s a dominant theme,” Stevens, a seventh-generation Mississippian who was named for Confederate Gen. Jeb Stuart, told me. “And it’s all about race. The Republican Party is a white party and there still are more white people than non-white people.”

“When there was rising anti-Semitism, isolationism, and pro-Nazi sentiment, why did the US not become fascist?” Stevens asked. “Because of FDR. Leaders matter, and the GOP has now completely abdicated its role.”

“This is the complete moral collapse of a governing party of a major superpower...”

The Republican Party has become nothing more than an obedient, loyal, and servile band of stooges bending the knee to an authoritarian bigot. They are a cult following a despotic sociopath who declares Democrats hate America, protesters are terrorists, journalists are the enemies of the people, and he alone can make America great.

“Holy Hitler, Batman!”

And speaking of history, here is how Hitler duped the people:

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.” – Adolf Hitler “My New World Order” – Proclamation to the German Nation, Berlin, February 1, 1933

On October 10, 1936 Heinrich Himmler created the Reich Central Office for Combating Homosexuality and Abortion, or Special Office (II S), a sub-department of Executive Department II of the Gestapo.

Hitler would have clinched support of American Evangelicals and other conservative Christians by this measure alone. He won support of big business by relentlessly blaming “Marxists” (his term for socialists and communists) and Jews for the nation’s ills.

Don’t be deceived by the American Right. Hitler was not a socialist and NAZIs were not a socialist party. They were 100% nationalists, with racial purity and bigotry as their foundation. Their rise to power was not that dissimilar to Trump’s rise to power through his racist birtherism, selective harsh treatment of Muslims, demonization of brown immigrants, and other appeals to white nationalism. And of course, anyone not with him is a “Marxist”.

Trump’s former wife reported the only book she knew he read was the one he kept in the bedroom. It was “My New Order”, a book of Hitler’s speeches. Very interesting choice for a guy who doesn’t like to read books.

Hitler declared:

“The German state is gravely attacked by Marxism....The main plank in the Nationalist Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood.”

All we need do is substitute “America” for “German state” and “Republican Party” for “National Socialist” and we have the essential message of the Party of Trump.

It's not a difficult task to show a number of other parallels between Trump and Hitler.

Incremental expansion, and unchecked abuses, of power are notable common indicators. Appeals to racist nationalism is the other similarity. It’s all about who to hate and blame, stoking anger and division, and telling you anyone who disagrees with them is a commie. 

Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda, gave us a preview of how Trump would use fascist projection:

“The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.”

 The far Right’s primary Big Lie is “liberal media” in their war on journalism. Journalism has always been seen as a threat to totalitarians and authoritarians.

The German Nazis used the term “Lügenpresse”, or lying press, in their campaign to destroy journalism. Now American fascists cry “liberal media” and “fake news” when the truth threatens their agenda.

These are the authoritarian fanatics of the fascist Right that have risen to frightening levels of influence in their war on our Constitution’s regulation of commerce and provision for the general welfare. They actively suppress voter rights, democracy, a free press, science, education, unions and minorities.

Their goal is nothing less than a democracy-suppressing one-party dictatorship.

In the United States of America, Constitutional checks and balances, racial equality, democracy, and the rule of law are being viciously destroyed under Trump. 

Defeating America’s Hitler and his authoritarian white nationalism and unchecked abuses of power is the first of many objectives in our struggle to reclaim our democratic republic. 

An important step is uniting with decent and sane conservatives and former Republicans. Trump has unwittingly forged the most unusual political alliance. Let's hope it works, and maybe this can become a foundation for building a more perfect union.