by Quest Lakes, May 29, 2020
When I was about ten years old, my dad gave me his copy of The Diary of Anne Frank and recommended that I read it. For decades after reading it, I wondered about the people who stayed quiet and were complicit in their silence as fascism took over.
Naomi Shulman wrote that “nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than ‘politics.’ They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away.”
My purpose in writing these weekly columns over the last few years has been, in part, a response to a question I posed to myself as a child. If something like that happened here, what would I choose to do?
My answer to myself? Exercise the freedom outlined in this nation’s First Amendment and write columns that remind people of the steps Hitler and Stalin took to consolidate power. Authoritarians often use similar strategies, a “playbook” if you will.
One of Hitler’s most quoted passages from Mein Kampf stated that “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...” In a nod to those words, in 2017 white nationalists descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia where cell phone video captured them carrying torches and chanting things like “Jews will not replace us.” Several of my columns pointed out the rise and growing coordination of white nationalists groups calling for a white ethnostate, and detailed the violence that goal would entail in our pluralistic society.
Other of my columns noted that President Trump has labeled our free press “fake news” and journalists as “liars,” a tactic familiar in Germany when Hitler declared the free press Lügenpresse (lying press). I’ve written about Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and their push to create an entanglement of religion and government.
When I wrote about Gleichschaltung, the Nazi word for establishing a synchronized system of totalitarian control over all aspects of society, or the “Nazification of state and society,” I got in hot water with local Trump supporters. The goals of Gleichschaltung included paying homage to der Fuhrer (the Leader), removing all foreigners (which meant most everyone except those of the “Aryan” race), intimidating or murdering anyone who opposed Nazi ideas (such as communists and members of trade unions), and brainwashing the populace to believe that sacrifice for der Fuhrer and the state was both welcome and desirable. Under Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis’ "Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda” gained complete control of communications - newspapers, radio, television, movies, books, as well as music, theater, and art. In this way, Germany became saturated with Nazi ideology and full coordination – or Gleichschaltung - was achieved. In addition, purging the civil service was central to Gleichschaltung.
My column on the Reichstag Fire Decree – similar to declaration of National Emergency – explained how the Decree was ultimately used to establish a one-party Nazi state in Germany, and hinted about the ways authoritarians use chaos to consolidate power. This week, in the midst of a pandemic, President Trump retweeted a video of a speech by Couy Griffin, head of Cowboys for Trump, that begins with Griffin declaring, “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
One of my columns defined terms like stochastic terrorism, which is the “use of mass public communication to demonize a particular individual or group, which incites or inspires acts of terrorism.”
The Sturmabteilung (SA) or Brownshirts, were the focus of one of my columns. The Brownshirts became the main paramilitary wing of the Nazi party and were essential to the rise of Nazi power. Hitler encouraged the Brownshirts to go after Germany’s leftist and Jewish populations for intimidation. They were also the bullies in brown uniforms posing as “security” at Nazi rallies and meetings. Far from being a small fringe group, the Brownshirts included millions of working class and middle class professionals and ex-military. As such, they successfully popularized the Nazi worldview of political violence, and the patriotic duty to fight “Judeo-Bolshevism.”
In one of my latest columns, I wrote about the infiltration of accelerationist and white supremacist paramilitary groups into the “ReOpen” protests across the country, including in Carson City and Las Vegas. Yale history professor Timothy Snyder has warned, “when the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come."
Referring to unrest in Minnesota, last night President Trump moved this country into a new stage when he tweeted, “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” His use of the phrase, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” was a purposeful reference to bigoted Miami, Florida police Chief Walter Headley, known in the 1960s for his mistreatment of the black community and his use of that exact phrase. Segregationist George Wallace also used the phrase during his 1968 presidential campaign.
This is my last column for the Mason Valley News. The country has moved to a new stage that requires more than columns. In November of 2016, Sarah Kendzior, an expert on authoritarian regimes, wrote something that is important to remember in the coming months: “My heart breaks for the United States of America. It breaks for those who think they are my enemies as much as it does for my friends. You still have your freedom, so use it. There are many groups organizing for both resistance and subsistence, but we are heading into dark times, and you need to be your own light. Do not accept brutality and cruelty as normal even if it is sanctioned. Protect the vulnerable and encourage the afraid. If you are brave, stand up for others. If you cannot be brave – and it is often hard to be brave – be kind.”
