A History Rhyme

Television political commentator Tucker Carlson recently said of the Trump Adminstration’s policy of separating immigrant children from their parents at the southern border, "A lot of people yelling at you on TV don't even have kids, so don't for a second let them take moral high ground. Their goal is to change your country forever." Carlson’s claim was about his frequent lament that demographics in the U.S. are changing. He and his fans fear that in thirty years “non-Hispanic whites” may no longer be the majority. In response to his statement, someone on Twitter noted, “Tucker Carlson came close to saying the 14 words.”

I wasn’t sure what was meant by “the 14 words,” so I researched the term a bit. White supremacist David Lane, the leader of the terrorist organization The Order, coined the term while he was serving a 190-year sentence in federal prison for his role in several armed robberies and the murder of Jewish talk show host Alan Berg. The 14 words are, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." Lane also used the phrasing in his manifesto the 88 Precepts, which urged people to reject “miscegenation” and support racial segregation. White supremacists later adopted both terms, and use the numbers 14 and/or 88 as racist dog whistles. Lane publicized his writings through Fourteen Word Press, which helped popularize the concepts and his writing.

Lane was inspired by one of Adolf Hitler's most quoted passages from Mein Kampf,"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood, the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may mature for the fulfillment of the mission allotted it by the creator of the universe. Every thought and every idea, every doctrine and all knowledge, must serve this purpose. And everything must be examined from this point of view and used or rejected according to its utility." ( Mein Kampf, Vol. I, Chapter 8)

As public declarations of white supremacist beliefs become louder and more common in the U.S., I’m reminded that the goal of a humanities education isn’t simply memorizing that “Hitler murdered 6 million Jews.” The point is to recognize when history might be repeating itself. One reason to study history is to understand how millions of Germans were convinced that fascism would “make Germany great again.” How were so many persuaded to disdain democracy, and embrace antisemitism, scientific racism, racial hierarchy, Social Darwinism and eugenics? Many were complicit through their silence. German-American rabbi Joachim Prinz said, “When I was rabbi in Berlin under the Hitler regime, the most important thing that I learned was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problem. The most urgent problem is silence."

Originally published as a column in the MVN in June 2018 by Quest Lakes.