I used to hear that someone like Hitler could never happen here. Also, I would hear other people ask how the Holocaust could happen. Knowing people who have been in Nazi concentration camps, I’ve told my children almost all their lives that someone like Hitler could easily happen here.
Blueprint for Dictators with Memories from the Holocaust
It’s all too simple, as I wrote in my diary on why Trump’s base won’t budge:
- very unhappy populace wants massive changes
- misogynistic demagogue promises to fix society’s problems with new vision of government
- demagogue creates a mob (of admirers and attackers of perceived enemies)
- propaganda machine is used to
- feed mob a continuous stream of lies to promote his message
- disparage other sources that might counter these deceptions
- keep people distracted with so many things that they don’t notice the takeover
- bigotry is used to sway emotion
- demagogue and propaganda machine use hate, fear, and other similar rhetoric meant to dehumanize targeted people
- Targeted people cast as the “other”
- demagogue blames everything (job loss, low wages, and many other societal ills) on the “other”
- demagogue mainly targets one “other” group at a time
This is not just referring to Trump. It’s Hitler’s playbook.
We are already living with concentration camps in the U.S. These camps, which concentrate rounded-up immigrants, are just like the ones the Nazis used early in their regime. Just to be clear, death camps came about later in the war in the Final Solution when there were so many prisoners that the Nazis couldn’t handle them all.
If we wonder how Hitler could come about and how the Holocaust could happen, we better take a look at ourselves and wake up to what is really happening. Where is this headed if it’s not stopped?
Given the Atmosphere, Is This Order a Double-edged Sword?
CNN is reporting tonight that Trump will sign order to interpret Judaism as a nationality. I was immediately horrified when I saw the title of the article, given that Trump is following Hitler’s playbook. According to the article, this is “a move that the Trump administration believes will fight what they perceive as anti-Semitism on college campuses, a White House official said.”
The article goes on:
It's an order that would allow Trump to take further steps to combat anti-Israel sentiments and divestment movements on college campuses by requiring colleges and universities to treat those movements as discriminatory in order to keep their funding.
Ah, I see this, in part, as a propaganda ploy to get sympathy from the Jewish community to vote for Trump. It’s also a move to protect funding to Israel, possibly more than helping the students. Jared Kushner pushed for this. Even with some good intent, plans throughout history have gone awry, especially ending in hatred and bloodshed of those in the Jewish community.
After the election, if Trump wins, there is a very real possibility that any protection Jews are afforded now will easily disappear. Jews in Nazi Germany thought they were protected. Until they weren’t.
Having said that, being that Jews were rounded up en masse by Nazis, imprisoned, made slaves, and later mass murdered, I want to caution people about this executive order. While Jewish people should definitely be protected, listing “Jewish” as one’s “nationality” or religion on a college application can give information to people who would later use it to potentially repeat Hitler’s playbook. At times in Europe over the past 1000 years, “nationality” pertaining to Jews became coded language for the “other.”
If we think it can’t happen, the climate crisis will bring out the worst in many people like Trump and Putin. We are already seeing a big rise in anti-Semitism in the U.S. and around the world.
Can we really trust people like Trump and Putin?