We had a visit last night from an interesting young man. He was here as an exchange student, getting an MBA at Cornell. Of German stock, he is bright, articulate, and—amazingly—interested in discussing all sorts of topics with an elderly couple! He helped us put the finishing touches on our Christmas tree. He stood on a stool and carefully draped strands of ‘icicles’ over each branch, high up toward the top, while I continued putting them on the back of the tree. As we worked, he told me about his grandparents’ experience of World War II. One grandfather had been pressed against his will into service in the SS, the dreaded Nazi band of soldiers. Because of his grandfather’s reluctance, he had been branded on the chest, with the letters SS, so that he could not later deny his involvement or avoid continued service. His other grandfather was in the regular German Army, and had been captured by the Americans and put in a prison camp. The young man said that Hitler had come to power in a legitimate election, but that immediately on gaining power, he had obliterated his political opponents, and taken absolute power in the country—against the will of much of the populace. We discussed the draw for many of being the world’s most powerful nation and a member of an elite group, set apart from others; how seductive such claims seemed for some people, for many people.
Our conversation strengthened a worry that has been growing in my own mind as I have listened to the claims and aims of the US Republican candidates. The most recent Republican debate (17 December 2015) further reinforced my worries. The topic throughout was terrorism, with an occasional sidebar on immigration. The antagonism to and fear of Muslims was pervasive. Some called for an absolute ban on all Muslims coming into the country and an expulsion of those refugees who are already here. Donald Trump was the most dramatically anti-Muslim.
- Is this not similar to Hitler’s ideas about Jews, and other ‘undesirables’ like Gypsies and gays? Does it not go against our own traditions of welcome?
He compounded this repugnant thought with similar ideas about Mexicans and others who come to this country from the South. He planned to make an impenetrable wall between the US and Mexico to keep out these ‘undesirables’ as well; and to deport immediately all those currently in the country illegally. What irony that candidates, Cruz and Rubio, children of immigrants, are among the most bombastic against America hospitality to those in need.
- Think of the Soviet building of the Berlin Wall, and all the pain and suffering that went along with that attempt to control people’s movements across borders.
But these were sidelines.
The center pieces of Trump’s proposed policies and those of most other Republican candidates included their intention to ‘make America strong again’, to take back America’s role as the ‘leader of the (free?) world’; and to do this by bombing Syria and ISIS to smithereens. Trump said it more clearly in Iowa: “They have some [oil fields] in Syria, some in Iraq. I would bomb the s— out of ’em. I would just bomb those suckers. That’s right. I’d blow up the pipes. … I’d blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left.” (http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-bomb-isis-2015-11).
- What about the populace in those areas? we may ask.
Trump went further, suggesting we hold the families of US enemies hostage, to force their compliance. This echoes the reasoning of the anti-hero Trotsky:(http://soviethistory.msu.edu/1917-2/red-guard-into-army/red-guard-into-army-texts/order-of-the-chairman-of-the-revolutionary-war-council-of-the-republic/).
- Do we really want to emulate Trotsky? Is this really the kind of leader the US populace wants our president to be? A killer of innocents?
How are these plans and goals different from the goals of the German and Russian demagogues whose goals and practices the US has long decried? We fought World Wars against Germany’s Kaiser Wilhelm II and Hitler; and we engaged in decades of a global Cold War with Russia, fighting against policies and practices similar to what Trump and his cohorts propose! We deposed Iraq’s Saddam Hussein in large part because of his treatment of his own people (also partly defined by religion) and his invasion of Kuwait.
- How would this differ from keeping Muslims out of America and invading Iraq and Syria?
Many of the Republican candidates (Trump, Carson, Cruz particularly) speak in simple language, reducing complex conditions to absurdities, yet apparently this resonates with a portion of our own populace. Cruz speaks of the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’, planning to obliterate the ‘bad guys’. Trump speaks in short sentences composed of very simple words (cf. sample above).* Are they appealing to ‘the uneducated masses’? Perhaps.
Noticeably missing from this debate was evidence of the Christian faith of the candidates, a standard stock in trade for many Republicans—pulled out with remarkable regularity to impress believers. Perhaps the clear incompatibility between what they were saying and genuine religious feeling was one reason for the omission. Compare their responses with those of the current German leader, Angela Merkel, who, unlike her historical predecessors, is opening her arms and her country to those in need.
To me, these Republican candidates are appealing to the baser impulses of humanity: racism, religious intolerance, machismo, fear, and a love of power. They are dangerous in the same ways that Hitler was. We must remember the parallels and guard against them.
*I’d guessed 3-4 word sentences might be the average, but the typical quote above averages nearly 6 words, probably a more accurate estimate. Just out of curiosity, I wondered how long the average word was: In the 7 sentences above, the average word length was 4.2 letters, ranging from 2-7 letters. The 7 letter words were ‘suckers’ and ‘nothing’.