Rev Rick sent this to me on Sunday, before the news broke.
Everything changed when Biden declined the nomination. But in many ways, nothing changed. Our fight was, and is, to stop Trump and elect Democrats across the board.
I hope you will read what RevRick had to say. The threat is just as real today as it was when he wrote this on Sunday morning.
The real fight is with Trump, American Oligarchs, Republicans, Authoritarians. If we fight each other, Trump will win.
RevRick
Hello, I’m Reverend Rick Guhl, a retired United Church of Christ pastor… and I have a great feeling of dread about the upcoming election.
The prospect of Donald Trump getting re-elected makes me fear for our nation. In fact, I find myself caught in a web of trauma thinking, bouncing between disbelief and despair, anxiety and anger, remorse and rage. I feel trapped in a hopeless state, both agitated and overwhelmed.
I understand the stakes. I see the link to the dark paths of the middle of the 20th century and I fear we will go down the same deadly road as Germany, Italy and Japan did then.
You see, my parents both served in the American Embassy in Berlin before the war, my mom as a secretary and my dad as an assistant to the Naval Attaché. They both spoke and understood German. They heard the fascist rhetoric 24/7, and I know this because my mom said it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
And what did they hear from Hitler and the Nazi Regime?
They heard Hitler snarling that he would make Germany great again, just as Mussolini boasted he would restore the glory of Rome and the Japanese militarists growled that they would claim Japan’s rightful place in the sun.
They heard dehumanizing language directed at despised peoples: Jews and others, describing them as vermin and scum, as dangerous and defective, as disease-ridden and degenerate, as criminals, as those polluting the nation.
They heard Hitler promising revenge against Germany’s enemies, promising to rid the nation of those who polluted Germany’s pure blood and of those he accused had stabbed Germany in the back.
They heard threats of violence, and saw it played out in Kristallnacht, when the Nazis attacked Jewish businesses and synagogues and sent 10,000 Jewish men to the concentration camps, which inevitably would become death camps. They heard him promising to exterminate Europe’s Jews.
I hear echoes of all this and more in the rhetoric of Trump and his supporters and in the Project 2025.
Then, it was Make Germany Great Again. Today, it’s Make America Great Again. Then, the despised people were the Jews and the Rom and the LGBQT and the disabled. Today, the despised are those making arduous treks to cross our Southern border, and Jews and the LGBQT. Then, Hitler accused them of being dangerous and disease ridden, polluting Germany’s purity, bringing crime and drugs.
Today, they speak of rounding up 11 allegedly million illegal immigrants and sending them to camps for deportation. Does anyone really believe that when their Brownshirts sweep through neighborhoods they will care about such niceties as citizenship?
Just as Germany burned books and turned schools into factories of propaganda, we’re seeing book bans and plans to turn schools into factories of propaganda.
Just as Hitler attacked the free press as the “lying press”, Trump and his allies attack our free press as “fake news.”
Just as Hitler accused the LGBQT community of being degenerate, Trump calls them groomers and sexual predators.
Just as Hitler had underlings to carry out his evil plans, men like Russell Vought and Kevin Roberts are talking about declaring martial law on January 20th to implement Project 2025.
My dad, my uncle, and my father-in-law all served in the great struggle to crush fascism in Germany, Italy and Japan. Their graves, and those of sixteen million others who participated in that struggle in WW2, and especially the half million killed or missing in action, are scattered in cemeteries around the United States and overseas.
Now, Trump and his allies want to bring fascism into our country through the front door.
It pains me to say this, but they are spitting on the graves of those sixteen million. Every Republican who refuses to denounce the fascist rhetoric and plans are spitting on their graves.
Ultimately, it all comes back to us, you and me, as voters. Will we spit on the graves of the sixteen million WW2 veterans by electing Trump? Will we spit on their graves by giving our votes to Republicans who are on board with this ugly fascism? Will that legacy be etched into our gravestones? And even if it won’t there physically, you will know… and God will know.
RevRick on the existential threat we face with Trump and Project 2025 (pdf)
If you like what RevRick wrote, I hope you’ll think about sharing.
Just Some Fuckhead
Are we still fighting ourselves?
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Good point, I wrote this post on Sunday
But in a sense we still are. Maybe not on Balloon Juice, thank goodness, but there are a ton of elected officials that have gotten themselves in the doghouse in a serious way, so for the next 4 months we are all on the same team, whether we’re furious with a boatload of elected officials, or not.
WereBear
This is great. It will be passed around and spark discussion.
WereBear
@Just Some Fuckhead: We don’t have anything to fight about.
But I think the MAGAs are realizing they DO.
TBone
Here’s to you, RevRick.
Early, and often!
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-sOSr7n_8YU
WaterGirl
@WereBear: Good reminder to me – I had made a .pdf file to include with the post so people can easily share RevRick’s document, but I had forgotten to include it!
It’s up top now.
WereBear
Growing up in a conservative area alerts me to angles that Trump has rubbed in the dirt:
Many such families have a proud military tradition, strong-minded women who do good things as much as they can, and the hospitality edict which is a part of their Protestant offshoot.
Religion is woven into the culture, but if MAGAs get allies in Opus Dei, I’m hoping there are more open-minded types who can speak out about the real point of Christianity. Which isn’t Trump.
MAGAs have trouble with empathy. But that doesn’t mean they lack it entirely. And the early stages of Project 2025, in the red states?
Not going well. Solid metrics, with votes, say so. And winning back the Rust Belt is far more gettable than the South.
They keep making us drop unhelpful coalition members, and we get better and stronger.
SW
It is and always has been tribal. Not partisan. One tribe (ours) is inclusive forward thinking and committed to democratic ideals. The other isn’t. The two tribes are frighteningly close to the same size. But our tribe is growing and theirs is shrinking. The figureheads matter but not as much as everyone thinks. Their primary function today is not to win new converts but rather to get their tribe to show up. This fall, show up.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: We are all decompressing.
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl: I just wanted to know if I should start beating on Omnes.
cain
@Just Some Fuckhead: Nope, we’re not. Although some seem to have bitter feelings.
Biden united us. Kamala compels us. :)
TBone
If you haven’t seen this short comedy clip (and even if you have), treat yourself to a mood lightener:
https://youtu.be/IKICKcMU3MU
It’s a classic.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear:We have our own problems with bigotry be it race, gender, ethnicity, anti Semitism and ageism. Let’s not pretend it doesn’t exist because Republicans are worse.
Layer8Problem
@Just Some Fuckhead: Has he done something? If you don’t know, you should ask Steve in the ATL. I think he keeps a list.
twbrandt
RevRick, this is really good. Thank you for writing and sharing it.
Lapassionara
Thank you, Reverend Rick. These are my thought too. Until Trump came along, I did not have to worry that a Republican president would completely undo the post WWII order. Politics was supposed to stop at the water’s edge. Trump undid all that, with his love of Putin and other authoritarians. He is a threat to our national security, to our multicultural and multiethnic society, to our founding values, and to our prosperity.
How do Republicans get to claim the mantle of “liberty,” when they want to exclude everyone who does not espouse their brand of Christianity.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead: There is a rather long line to do that. If you are patient, you can get to the front.
Omnes Omnibus
Well said, RevRick.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
RevRick’s words really put things into perspective of the danger we face. Thank you RevRick and to WG for sharing this powerful and important message
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
If you want to get to the Redleg, you have to go through the Signal Corps.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Amen.
NotMax
@TBone
Yup. I’m on Kelly’s side.
;)
TBone
@NotMax: fierce! 💙
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: you rang?
WaterGirl
@Just Some Fuckhead:
If it’s a day ending in Y, then the answer is always YES!
(love you Omnes)
TBone
My stepdad bought the house on War Trophy Lane and then took my brother and I and mom up in the golden elevator to the top of the mountain in Berchtesgaden as a way to spit in Hitler’s eye (bio dad was Jewish).
That elevator ride gave me gooseflesh.
The ladies in the hammock are my ancestors:
https://www.lidsky.org/
WaterGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: I see what you did there. I laughed out loud.
WaterGirl
@Layer8Problem: I kind of thought that Steve in the WTF doesn’t just keep a list, but that he makes some of it up, too. Which I very much respect.
Old School
For those who have moved forward to this current thread, I thought I’d mention that Baud popped in on the last thread.
WaterGirl
Sometimes I think the most important reading gets the fewest amount of comments.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Look, as a management side lawyer, he just envies my street cred.
bluefoot
I said this in a previous thread maybe a week ago: I have a friend who grew up in East Germany, and whose grandfather was a member of the Nazi party. He also lost relatives to the Nazis for not falling in line fast or well enough. He is horrified and terrified about where we are now and the stakes in the election. The echoes of the past are loud. He has been warning me to get out or at least make plans – though he pointed out, if the US goes fascist, there will be no place safe.
He’s clear that the stakes of this election are literally life and death. Sooner for people like me, later for people like him, but life and death all the same. And if Trump gets elected, we can kiss any effort to fight climate change good-bye….so death all round.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl:
Sometimes there isn’t a lot to say in response.
WereBear
@bluefoot: That’s why we mostly had our existential crises this week.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, this might not be a “how about those Cubs?” kind of post.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: I totally don’t want to fight, but it’s a little amazing to me that our prospects seem to have radically improved here via the exact mechanism that people want revenge for. What if instead of insisting we knew people’s motives were evil and just turned out for the best, we instead gave them some benefit of the doubt. Especially when it’s practically every elected Dem there is, just some speaking up for them and others not.
Chris Johnson
I’m gonna take a moment to post something that I learned when I was today years old… you’d think I would have noticed what with us having well-known posters from India who’ve been outspoken against Modi’s right wing government, but I missed this one.
The campaign to take away Kamala Harris’s meme, the coconut parable (which I think is repurposing and displacing any previous meaning, and that she’s doing it on purpose because as a prosecutor she HAD to deal with the previous meaning and come up with a counter to it) is not only risking taking away Kamala’s counter to that negative connotation.
It’s also been pushing a replacement, the lotus, with some kind of reference to Sanskrit (never mind that ‘lotus-eaters’ is also a slur).
Trouble is, that’s the BJP symbol. A simple wikipedia search shows you it’s a hard-right symbol. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Janata_Party
I’m going to suggest, if you’re going to take away Harris’s agency and parable, maybe go back to the drawing board and do not suggest she run under the BJP symbol? I have half an excuse for not knowing this as I’m not up on Indian politics, but I should have been paying more attention when our own commenter’s decried Modi before, and when I’ve got a family member (my Uncle Peter) who is from India.
Just Some Fuckhead
@WaterGirl: Whatever you post, add a paragraph at the end that you dropped the banhammer on someone again. That will guarantee lots of response.
Chris
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sp3dIyNA2A
That is all.
WaterGirl
I had a great idea for a post early on Sunday. I titled it ( Idle Hands and All That ) and then I got the email about Steep, and then Biden, and now all I know is that I had a great idea for a post that completely fell out of my head when all that happened. I don’t want to delete it, but I have nothing to put in it. A *conundrum.
*Why is spell check yelling at me about conundrum?
kindness
My Republican WWII veteran father would not recognize the modern Republican party. I observe that the oligarchs waited till most the WWII vets were dead to turn the Republican party towards fascism. My parents were typical northeastern Republicans. They thought abortion and birth control should be legal and weren’t anyone else’s business. They supported Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare. They grew up during the depression and saw people despondent, homeless and withering in the streets and fought to make sure that didn’t happen again. The current Republican party spits on all their beliefs.
The MSM wants another Trump regime. We have to fight them as much as we have to fight the Republican party.
Bupalos
Personally I don’t love the existential escalation at this point. No one that is persuadable that this election is very important needs to be given images of concentration camps and ovens, I don’t think it’s really motivating or realistic or functionally supportive of democracy. I think it can be paralyzing. The other side is doing the same. Whatever happens in the election, we may be building a stock of American citizens convinced that nothing else matters now and/or they might as well resort to violence, flee, or otherwise disengage. The fewer the better.
Wolvesvalley
Thank you so much for this, Rev Rick.
You expressed exactly what I have been feeling for weeks:
Seeing the way Democrats are coalescing around Kamala is making me feel less frantic about the threat. But we have to do the work to get her into the Oval Office. I hope your wonderful historical comparison of Nazism and the MAGA movement (and powerful exhortation) will help energize us all. I will be sharing it with everyone I can.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: Devil’s workshop?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
He’s keeping a list
Checking it twice
Gonna find out
Who’s Baudy or nice
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: My guess is that you are an outlier in that opinion.
WaterGirl
@Bupalos: I’m pretty sure that different things motivate different people. For some, it’s hope. For some, it’s fear. For others, it’a something else. A better world for their kids and grandkids.
I find it useful when someone like Betty Cracker or RevRick can put into words something I am feeling but can’t quite express, or they can put words to a fully-formed idea I have but I don’t have a good way to communicate it.
It’s okay, everyone doesn’t have to like the same thing, right?
Ksmiami
Rick- your warning reminds me so much of The Garden of Beasts- one lone, awkward Professor turned diplomat warning to little effect about Germany’s plunge into midnight. Let’s crush MAGA because fascism is evil.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: Oh yeah, that was definitely the reference i intended. I just have no idea what it is that I wanted to say! Rough week.
DougL
@TBone: 🤣🤣🤣🤣 At your post #14, the ending of that was perfect. Paraphrase: why stop at punching one nazi? Punch more nazis.
Good motto for life.
FastEdD
I’m doing my bit as a small cog in a big machine. I’m an organizer for volunteers in my district in SoCal. I know I’m dealing with people who are partisans (in the best way) so they aren’t representative of the country as a whole. I know this, but I’m noticing a sea change since just last week. While there is lots of respect for Joe, Dems had someone to vote against, but now they have a candidate to vote for. The mood is ecstatic and the volunteers can’t do enough. You need staplers? Hell here’s 50 of them. You need door knockers? How about if I walk and send my two daughters out too? I really haven’t seen this much enthusiasm since 2008. We have done canvassing for years, but this year we will knock on the door of every Dem and NPP in our town of 93,000. We’ve never done that before. I spoke with a guy yesterday who has had nightmares and has been physically ill the last month contemplating tRump 2. (I have been there too.) He is thrilled that he can work for Harris and he poured his heart out to me begging to help. Here’s the kicker-he’s not a Democrat. Went to his first Dem meeting last week. We are expanding our base. We are motivated like crazy. The other side? Not so much.
Bupalos
@WaterGirl: For sure. I think it’s beautifully done. I’m probably reacting to a couple other posts from a commenter that often relates our situation to Nazi Germany in detail. And explilcitly says either we win the election or flee. I think that’s kind of disastrous.
mvr
My folks were in Europe (occupied Holland) for the duration of the war. My mom talked about it a lot. My dad, very little. She basically always warned me that it can happen here. She also was pretty good with languages and she thought that Hitler was an excellent public speaker. I know that different countries have different speech traditions and that the advances in sound systems have changed how public speaking works and sounds. But I don’t think that anyone (except those in the tank for him) would say Trump is an excellent public speaker – though perhaps he’s a crafty one. But so many of the other parallels you list seem on point. They both play to grievance and hatred.
gene108
@WereBear:
Congressional Democrats have been very united and disciplined, when it comes to voting, during Biden’s term. Getting good things done with a small margin in the House, under Pelosi, and a 50-50 Senate, under Schumer without a high level of unity.
The calls for Biden to step aside was one of the few times disagreements were aired in public.
Republicans, on the other hand, took 15 rounds of voting to confirm a Speaker and then voted him out 9 months later. The whole Republican Party is riven with various factions.
WereBear
@FastEdD: Thank you, we love reports from the field.
WaterGirl
@mvr: Speaking of parents warning us, my mom warned me in high school not to sign any petitions. I thought that was ridiculous, of course, because I knew nothing about the red scare and how many terrible things happened to so many good people who had done nothing more than sign a petition.
That kind of thing could easily come back with Project 2025.
TBone
@DougL: 💜👍🇺🇸
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: For sure. No question about that here.
Cheryl from Maryland
Reverend Rick, thank you for that powerful and personal statement. One of my uncles fought WWII in a small WWI vintage wooden subchaser — he was both in the Med and in the Pacific. He also fought in Korea. Wayne’s father was in the bowels of a destroyer in the Pacific. Only the wrong want to go backward.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
Honestly I think this is misplaced. This was not driven by elected officials, donors, or George Clooney. Voters had been expressing their opinion that Biden is too old for years. We all, including the large donors and George Clooney, had been ignoring it. We had an enthusiasm gap (historically low primary turnout is just one symptom, and polling before the debate was not good for Biden. He spent hundreds of millions on swing state ad buys and his polling got worse. The campaign had a problem. We were losing and Biden called for the debate to dispel the concerns. The debate made it worse. Biden finally was shown new swing state polling that confirmed he did not have a path to win and he made the right decision to step aside. Could we have been spared a lot of time and fighting if his campaign had shared information with him sooner? Perhaps. Did the timing work to our benefit? I actually think it might have.
My biggest concern at this point is with the campaign. I hope that behind the scenes there is some accountability for how badly they handled this whole situation.
rikyrah
@bluefoot:
This is my belief too.
TBone
Audrey Hepburn
Sophia Loren.
So. Many. More.
The month-long Oscars celebration on TCM was so very inspiring. They focused a LOT on anti-Nazi and WWII propaganda films. Amazing stuff.
https://www.historyhit.com/culture/audrey-hepburn-from-war-torn-childhood-to-hollywood-icon/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diary_of_Anne_Frank_(1959_film)
Shelley Winters later donated her Oscar to the Anne Frank Museum.
Jeffg166
When I was young I couldn’t understand how one of the most sophisticated countries in Europe could go down the tubes like German did in the 1930s. Now I understand seeing it happen here.
CliosFanBoy
Since they’re openly bragging they’ll deport “anchor babies” and other citizens, there’s no doubt whatsoever.
Bupalos
I’m spent hundreds of hours in scholarship of the cataclysm in Europe in the 30’s and 40’s. I’d start off with the statement that It can happen here, “it” being something other than a repetition but similarly horrific or even more horrific. But “It” would take several more jumps down the ladder of democratic decline and then a big slip down the authoritarian slide. We aren’t at the cusp of a holocaust if Trump is elected. We’ll be headed in that direction, and already are.
Over decades, climate change is likely to replicate the atmosphere of malthusian competition that gave rise to Germany’s attempt at empire.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
We say if often but not often enough: the echoes of pre-WW2 Nazi Germany in the modern GQP are troublesome (to put it mildly) and we should heed at RevRick so artfully said.
Layer8Problem
@WaterGirl: I know. It’s the creativity that keeps me coming back! 😁
Chris
@rikyrah:
I’m not sure that’s literally true, but…
The U.S. going fascist, IMO, would be as great a blow to liberal democracy, and specifically multicultural democracy, as the fall of the USSR was to communism. No, not literally every democracy is going to end, just as not literally every communist regime fell after 1989 (Cuba and North Korea are chugging along to this day). But the narrative across the entire world is going to be “see, democracy failed, democracy doesn’t work, and even the people who’ve been lecturing us about human rights and free and fair elections for years have admitted it now.” Even the countries that don’t literally disband their democracies and will still have them in the most basic sense, are going to jettison a lot of their better traits and move at least somewhat in the fascist direction in the hopes of forestalling what happened in America: closed borders, retreat from international institutions and commitments, cultural renewal projects that are very big on the bigotry and forced conformity, far more overt crackdowns on anything heterodox or cosmopolitan… One thing’s for sure: don’t count on a lot of countries throwing their doors open to American refugees.
Lincoln in the 1860s knew he was fighting not just for his country but for the idea of liberal democracy. That’s where we’re at now again.
Layer8Problem
@WaterGirl: You know we’re reading it and taking its message. Never fear.
hueyplong
@TBone: Part way into the link and want to thank you for it before the thread moves too far along.
catclub
@Jeffg166: However. Unemployment rate was 47% in Germany in 1933. I think that has a lot of crazy-making potential that has not been reached here.
ON the other other hand, many nations around the world are further ahead on fascism – and effectively no more elections – than the US. Hungary springs to mind. Putin is already well past it.
So it is just a thing around the world. It needs some large core of authoritarian followers to happen.
Bupalos
@rikyrah: Countries like France or Spain can probably go fascist without a domino effect. A US fall would absolutely damage democracy very deeply worldwide.
But again, that takes a lot more than just Trump winning. Many battles after that, and the US is stronger in it’s democratic character than we tend to recognize. It’s very sick but also very strong.
bluefoot
@rikyrah: I haven’t been making plans to leave, despite my friend’s urging, and my own personal history being at the receiving end of racial violence and discrimination. (I could MANY tell stories about trying to rent an apartment or get a job in my field… My parents had it a lot worse. For example, my father narrowly missed getting strung up from a tree in outside St. Louis back in the 60s.) Partly I can’t quite get my head emotionally around it. Partly because I am single and am willing to die in the fight if it comes to that. Hopefully helping someone younger and better able to carry on than I. But I understand people who have plans to get out if Trump is elected. Project 2025 + SCOTUS should terrify everybody.
rusty
RevRick, thank you for clearly drawing the lines that connect fascist movements from the 30’s and our current political situation. I would only add we are already a few steps down the road. Swamped by the decision on presidential immunity, our reactionary Supreme Court criminalized homelessness and poverty. Those “undesirables” can now be readily rounded up and imprisoned. The same court is also empowering bigots through cases like 303 Creative that allow all forms of discrimination based on the first amendment, and the group of cases where government out sources services and then allows the government funded provider to discriminate. I started attending seminary at night this summer (while working full time), with a long term goal of UCC ordination. Reading black liberation, Hispanic liberation, post-Holocaust Jewish and more theologies, and comparing them to our current culture, political situation and legal landscape has been absolutely jarring. I’m in my late 50’s, and while most of my friends are looking at retirement (and a few already retired), I am heading in a completely different direction. It’s a very strange time to be in seminary.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Yes the US is the largest economy in the world. We have the biggest navy in the world. The US footprint on the globe is large both in terms of hard power, softpower and economic power. Nowhere would be safe.
Matt McIrvin
@Bupalos: A lot of the media and money people calling for Biden to step down didn’t want what just happened. They *wanted* a big intra-party fight to ditch the obviously toxic Harris, a lot of drama and conflict at the convention in Chicago, followed by some centrist white guy riding in on a white horse, to start a new campaign from nil. That was what I was terrified of, because it’s a doomed strategy. The media talking heads are still in mourning over it not happening.
Hoodie
@Bupalos: I’d tend to agree. It’s like Godwin’s law has been completely forgotten. The stuff we’re seeing from the GOP is in line with the more typical authoritarian regimes, e.g., Hungary, Pinochet’s Chile, etc. Hyperbolic rhetoric might energize some of us to the dangers of this trend, but it can be counterproductive because normal, non political people might dismiss it as over the top. For example, I remember thinking at the time that hypotheticals like “Trump could order Seal Team Six to kill his political opponent “ might have been less productive than something like “Trump could steal taxpayer funds with impunity “ precisely because the latter is closer to things Trump was actually doing. Rhetoric like the former may actually create space for normalizing all sorts of corruption.
TBone
@hueyplong: thank you for reading. My mom taught remedial reading to disadvantaged children, many of color, so you’re honoring her for me today ❤️ too.
I wonder how many here know that I am referring to Hitler’s Eagles Nest on top of that mountain. It is now a tourist destination.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehlsteinhaus
Suzanne
Thank you, RevRick!
hueyplong
@gene108: It’s possible the the GOPer members of congress face unity issues precisely because they are a Trump cult.
They don’t have policy goals around which to coalesce because “policy” is Trump’s whim that day (example, the collapsed border bill).
The person gaining favor is the one who is most outrageous but in a way that pleases Trump. (MTG provides a good example of how that goes well and poorly.) But doing well in that setting is almost always at the expense of another soulless climber. So grudges are created, fester, and result in damaging consequences to “unity.”
They share some of the same internal weaknesses of those other Nazis.
hueyplong
@TBone: It’s awfully sobering but also a tribute to both the people chronicled and those who preserved their stories.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: Germany in the 20s and 30s also had a huge pool of World War I veterans who were not just out for revenge but trained in organized violence. Imagine a whole country of Tim McVeighs. We’ve got our share, but most of the keyboard commandos, including the ones with guns, aren’t actually experienced in a real fight.
TBone
@hueyplong: never forget
My Viet Nam vet stepdad retired from his job as a cop and became a college professor who taught Russian history and American history.
He drenched us kids from an early age in WWII history -books and magazines all over the house and especially in the bathrooms. We were not sheltered from any atrocities on purpose.
He made me into a guard dog, a kind of German Shepherd, barking loud about the fascist threat. He encouraged me to learn German instead of French and gave me his father’s French last name (his mother was 100% German) to replace my Polish-Jewish last name. He had plans to evacuate us to Canada if necessary.
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: I’ve often thought we should make more use of analogies from our own history, because there are plenty of them. We have a model for modern American authoritarianism–it’s Jim Crow. We have a model for murderous fascist paramilitaries embedded in society’s leadership–it’s the Klan. And we sure as hell have American genocide.
tam1MI
If the Biden supporters are channeling their anger and sense of betrayal towards George Clooney, let them do it. He can dry his tears while he sits in his villa at Lake Como. The narrative that donors and elites conspired to push out Biden but Dems outmanoeuvred them to get Harris is working for you to keep Biden supporters on side. Don’t step on it.
TBone
Today’s rerun episode of The Waltons guest stars Cleavon Little as “The Fighter.” 😍😊
http://www.allaboutthewaltons.com/ep-s4/s04-03.php
DougL
@Matt McIrvin:
I think this is an underrated point plus the US has much longer and deeper experience (ie, our entire history and founding ethos) with democracy than Weimar Germany. We’re not giving it up that easily and despite what Trump and much of the media is pushing, the situation on the ground is not an economic collapse. It’s a boom. We will win this election going away imho and start to really overcome the latest fascist threat. It is not who (most) the country wants to be. Our history and culture is too powerful for it to win.
MomSense
@tam1MI:
Given that Watergirl included elected officials and that I’ve seen a lot of Republican talking points expressed here, I’d rather stick with what we know. We are supposed to be the reality based side of politics. Maybe we could just cool it with all the conspiracies and vendettas. I’m sure the totality of what transpired will eventually come out. The basic story doesn’t fit the narrative here.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s true enough.
Then again, I’ve always thought that in a broader sense, if we taught more about the uglier side of our history, it might give more people a frame of reference for all kinds of overseas phenomena. If you understand the KKK, you’re well on your way to understanding the Taliban and Daesh. If you understand Tammany Hall, you’re well on your way to understanding how politics works in any number of countries, including some fairly developed and theoretically democratic ones like Italy or Japan. And so forth.
And of course, if you understand those phenomena in U.S. history, you might be able to reidentify them in U.S. current events.
Barry
@Bupalos: ““It” would take several more jumps down the ladder of democratic decline and then a big slip down the authoritarian slide. We aren’t at the cusp of a holocaust if Trump is elected. We’ll be headed in that direction, and already are.”
The ratchet is a huge concern. The GOP has already tried to overthrow the government and gotten away with it, with the eager support of their judicial, media and billionaire wings.
They have prepared the ground for declaring victory in any presidential election if they already hold the office.
They already hold multiple states by voter suppression, and are quite willing to roll that out to others.
SatanicPanic
@MomSense: yes can everyone please consider that maybe the big donors and “backstabbing “ congresspeople were just responding to how the country at large felt about the election? I’m not asking anyone to say they were wrong. But the last few days show there was a massive amount of pent up energy that the Biden campaign was never going to be able to draw on. And yeah maybe it wasn’t the nicest way to treat Biden, but what would be? So maybe we can all just forgive Adam Schiff and whoever else and move forward?
Chris
@Barry:
Also, quite frankly, most people as late as 2020 didn’t believe that the Trump era would lead to something like 1/6. As late as election time even the most paranoid people’s fears were that he’d try for some sort of quasi-legalistic fuckery that the Supreme Court could then rubber-stamp. Nope. He made a few gestures in that direction, but when it didn’t work out, went straight to the plain and simple coup attempt.
We don’t know exactly what the next Trump presidency might entail; all we know is that it’ll be extraordinarily bad, in ways we probably don’t currently realize.
catclub
Really? Which ones? I know they have tried voter suppression. It is not clear to me how effective it is.
MomSense
@SatanicPanic:
I agree with you. Biden is also very stubborn and of course he has an ego. EVERYONE in politics has an ego especially the ones who run for president.
RevRick
Um, I’m embarrassed that I’m late to the game, but I want to thank everyone for their praise or criticism. And special thanks to WaterGirl for considering my words worthy of its own post.
And now I must depart again to join my Community of Practice by which I maintain my status as an active United Church of Christ pastor. We’re going to discuss Alain de Botton’s The Consolations of Philosophy .
Again thank you to all of you. This is a great community.
brantl
@Bupalos: How much do you want us to respect having done an intrinsically bad thing, for the right reason? Joe has a speech impediment. Instead of believing that his doctor (he’d been examined, remember?) told the truth, or that Joe told you the truth about his doctor’s results, you all assumed that he had a major problem, and that he’d lied to you, when he told you explicitly that he didn’t. You guys let appearances matter more than truth. You guys hung an ally out to dry.
Joe did the right thing in the circumstances that developed, but a whole bunch of you helped them develope in a way that just wasn’t right. Stop trying to twist this to where you somehow, OBVIOUSLY, did the right thing. Because, frankly, if Joe told you the truth, and I think he did, you did wrong. You just lucked out, so far, and it ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings.
Are we going to get on with electing Kamala Harris? Yes, we will. It isn’t her fault that people screwed Joe over. But I hope I never need you watching my back.
brantl
@CliosFanBoy: If they go ahead with it, maybe they can start with Michelle Malkkkin?
brantl
@catclub: All of them that they control, Catclub, all of them.
brantl
@SatanicPanic: You still don’t have any evidence that “most” or even a sizeable portion of Democrats wanted Biden out. Keep trying to sell this fantasy, if it absolves your conscience.
Soprano2
I mean holy shit, I think this story belongs here!
My Uncle Donald Trump Told Me Disabled Americans Like My Son ‘Should Just Die’
Read this story, you probably won’t be surprised but still like wow holy shit.
SatanicPanic
@brantl: the excitement we’re feeling today is real
gene108
@Chris Johnson:
The lotus is a ubiquitous symbol throughout India. Even if the BJP uses it, so do countless others.
Chris
@gene108:
Yeah, I was wondering when I read that. Is it supposed to be a BJP icon in the sense that the Confederate flag is a far-right icon, or is it a BJP icon in the sense that the Gadsen flag is a far-right icon? One of these things is explicitly far-right, the other is a generically patriotic symbol that the far right tries very hard to claim, but is still used far beyond that. (I saw Gadsen flags during several anti-Trump marches, and nobody gave them any shit).
Chris
@Soprano2:
Shades of what happened over a decade ago when some interviewer asked Ron Paul if people who couldn’t afford health insurance should just die, and before he even responded, audience members screamed “YEAH!!!” This at least is just Trump being on the same wavelength as his supporters.
TBone
@Soprano2: he is a fucking Nazi to his rotten, festering core.
TooTallTom
@TBone:
The Eagles Nest is a major landmark in the HBO series: “Band of Brothers.” One of my all time favorite series.
These Rethug Fascists make my blood boil. My father volunteered for WWII. If not for his health issues (4F), he would have served.
@TBone:
Chris
@TooTallTom:
Fun fact: no one actually knows what the first Allied unit to reach the Eagle’s Nest was. According to Band of Brothers, it was Easy Company, from the American 101st Airborne. According to the graphic-novel-format story of General Leclerc’s exploits that’s sitting over there on my shelf, it was his French Second Armored Division (the same people who liberated Paris). Per Wikipedia, both units claimed this, but no one really knows.
I kind of hope the French version’s true. Not only did the French have to put up with the Nazis very directly, but if this story is true, then the specific unit to reach the Eagle’s Nest first would have been “La Nueve,” a company of Spanish Republican volunteers that was integrated into the French Second Armored. Talk about people who’d been fighting fascism for a long time. If anybody deserved to capture that flag, it’s them.
(Other fun fact: “the Eagle’s Nest” was the name of the main store on my college campus. Based on the fact that our mascot was an eagle. Took me years to realize that there was a hell of a thing it shared its name with…)