Reading the history of Germany prior to and during World War II and looking at the actions of conservative Christians in the post-Clinton era, I have come to believe that America is on the verge of becoming the worlds Fourth Reich. The similarities, indeed the parallels, between recent actions by conservative "patriots" and those of Hitler and his Reich are striking.
Hitler was elected after years of working his way up the party ladder, speaking harsher and harsher rhetoric against the "enemies" of the German nation. As history has shown, chief among those supposed enemies were two prominent groups, Jews and homosexuals. Modern conservatives have paralleled Hitler's demonization of by singling out, again, homosexuals. In place of Jews, conservatives have added liberals.
Hitler's "brownshirts", the Sturmabteilung, were instrumental in his rise to power. It was the SA who strong armed opponents, attacking opposition political parties whenever they met, using force, intimidation, and murder to silence any political party or person who dared speak out against Herr Hitler. The SA broke up political gatherings, using force to prevent any person or party from standing against the National Socialist German Workers Party, later known as the Nazi Party.
After Hitler was elected, he used the public unrest of his day to gradually strip the citizens of Germany of their rights, manufacturing evidence, arresting those who resisted without cause, holding them in detention without regard to legal counsel or the right to trial. Eventually these actions led to concentration camps, stripping an entire race of their right even to exist, placing homosexuals in the same camps, or just beating them to death in the street.
Once in power, Hitler used his position to woo the power elite in Germany, ensuring he had the funds necessary to keep his SA men loyal and expand his influence, starting, among other groups, the Hitler Youth. He also used his position to re-arm and expand the German military, gaining even more support from the wealthy industrialists as well as cementing his popularity with the German Army command structure.
As Hitler's Germany grew stronger, and the need for raw materials increased, Hitler began eying his neighbors, determining which country or province he could take over with minimum fuss, believing that no one in Europe really cared enough to stop his expansionism. He manufactured excuses to invade his neighbors, seeking always more and more access to critical raw materials, materials necessary for the expansion of Germany's military. Expanding and strengthening the military was Hitler's way of keeping the military is his corner. He needed the backing of the military in order to ensure he stayed in power after he suspended the rights of the German people.
Hitler also had an exemplary propaganda machine, run by a gentleman named Josef Goebbels. It was this machine, headed by Goebbels but always marching in step with Adolph Hitler, which raised the emotions of the public to a fevered pitch, and it was this machine, and the biased press which it controlled, that, possibly more than anything else Hitler did, placed the public squarely behind him. Granted the SA bullied and beat those who disagreed, but the number of people who disagreed with Hitler dropped as more and more of Goebbels vicious rhetoric was heard and read by the average German .
It was that totality of what Hitler created, the SA, the propaganda machine, the demonizing of an entire race and homosexuals, the "buying off" of the military, and the insatiable need for raw materials, that allowed Hitler to start WWII. Appeasement didn't help, but Hitler would have done what he wanted to eventually, although someone standing up to Hitler may have slowed him down, somewhat.
In the end, Hitler lost because, though charismatic, he was just a little bit of a lunatic, but his lunacy dragged Germany and the world into a cataclysm from which it has not yet recovered
In America, because of our history of unity and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, things are going a little differently, but headed for the same end.
After WWII, America became fixated on being a "global policeman", with troops stationed throughout the world, supposedly to prevent the spread of communism. The military never lost it's hold on the country or the government. Dwight Eisenhower, an obvious military man himself, warned Americans about the burgeoning political strength of the "industrial-military complex", but was ignored.
Since Eisenhower's time, the fortunes of the military have waxed and waned with the Nation's fortunes. During the Cold War, when commies were at our doorstep and things looked grim, the military flourished. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on new weapons systems, delivery systems for newer and newer nuclear weapons, themselves constantly updated and made more and more "efficient".
During the Reagan administration, the military given extra funds for new weapons systems and manpower. Since that time, no President has been able to reduce military spending without being made out to be "soft on Defense", thus making said President, and his Party, look as though they were "unpatriotic". Fear has been used since WWII as goad to ensure military spending is kept high.
President Reagan showed that America was willing, even eager, to invade smaller nations should they perform some act which he deemed anti-American. He made us feel proud (at least some of us) by showing that America would not be pushed around. He set the stage for later military actions against small countries. (Funny how he never invaded the larger ones.)
Also during the Reagan administration, America began running massive budget deficits. These deficits can be carried in two ways, by either borrowing funds from other nations or by printing money. In the Germany that existed prior to the ascension of Adolf Hitler, public debt was eliminated by printing more money, to the point where it took a wheelbarrow full of deutschmarks to purchase a loaf of bread.
America has borrowed this money instead, becoming the largest debtor nation in the world. Now, of course, because of the current economy, America too is printing money, the inflationary pressures of printing excess money offset by the deflationary pressures of a recession. Eventually such a course will lead to a high inflationary rate. It remains to be seen how high.
On September 11, 2001, America was the victim of a terrorist act, of a type which the world had not seen before or since. The most immediate response, after the initial shock, was to pass the Patriot Act, suspending many of the rights Americans used to have under the Constitution, such as a speedy trial, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, the right to have a lawyer present during questioning, and others. Indeed, Americans can now be arrested as they walk down the street if the appellation "terrorist" is applied to them. And what is a terrorist but an enemy of the state?
Since then, we have invaded two countries, one because they harbored and abetted those terrorists who attacked us, and one for it's natural resources. (while I realize we invaded Iraq because they were" in a position to attack America", thus far no proof of WMD, or even the ability to create same has been found, and most of the "intelligence" on WMD has been shown to be questionable at best. But, it was a good pretext for invading a country to gain access to it's natural resources.)
In the eyes and rhetoric of Conservatives, people whose voices have grown more and more strident since Ronald Reagan was elected President, two groups have emerged as enemies of the state: Liberals and Homosexuals. The sheer amount of rhetoric and hate speech directed against those two groups surpasses anything seen on the world stage since Hitler's Germany singled out Jews and Homosexuals. Other nations have singled out America for hatred and scorn, but only in America have two sub-classes of people been singled out for such treatment by their fellow citizens.
(OK, there are other countries that do the same, such as Islamic nations, and similar despotic governments, but America seems to be the only "democracy" where such behaviors are common place.)
In America there is no true Opposition Party to stand up for the rights that have been systematically eroded and stripped from the Constitution. During the Bush administration, protesters were shunted to the side, pushed out into venues where they were not in the publics eye during major events. Oddly enough, the same thing occurred twice in the summer of 2009, once at the Beijing Olympics, and once during the Democratic National Convention.
The Patriot Act is still in place, even though a new Party occupies the White House and could rescind that Act anytime it chose to.
Conservatives are more shrill than ever, with a propaganda machine that grows louder every day, and there is no popular press that can be considered unbiased.
Brownshirts show up at every event staged to debate issues like health care, replacing honest debate with loud noise, and such noise has an effect on the views and beliefs of this nation, because no one seems capable thinking for themselves. Indeed, craven congressmen/women have refused to hold public meetings because of these bullies, showing themselves as cowardly as they are sometimes said to be, unwilling to stand up to those who seek to intimidate them. Indeed, they were intimidated.
With everything as outlined above, the only thing we are missing is that one charismatic figure who seems to hold the answers, and appears to be strong enough to get the job done. Everything else is in place. The propaganda machine, the brownshirts, the erosion of civil rights, the demonizing of a large segment of the population, the possibly ruinous inflationary picture, the lack of united opposition, all of it. The only thing lacking is the leader, that charismatic figure who can unite the frightened and unsure, who speaks to enough of the population that he/she can carry along loud voices that drown out the opposition. Everything else is in place.
And, unless those who oppose totalitarian states get their heads out of their collective asses and grow some balls, eliminating at least some of what is currently in extant supporting the upcoming Fourth Reich, it will probably happen, possibly withing my lifetime, and I'm 53 years old.
"Those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it"
George Santayana