Don't let Fascism take root in Arizona or anywhere else in America

We know that Donald Trump has an affinity for Adolf Hitler, even though he scoffed at suggestions that he read and admired Mein Kampf. In an opinion column published in 2019 on Forward.com, NYU law professor and long time civil liberties attorney, Bert Neuborne draws troubling comparisons between the two politicians.

I hate to put Donald Trump and Adolf Hitler in the same sentence. It trivializes Hitler’s obscene crimes to compare them with Trump’s often pathetic foibles. And it understates our nation’s historic commitment to constitutional democracy to suggest a serious parallel between the twenty first century United States and 1930’s Weimar Germany.

But I can’t ignore the fact that Trump’s savagely divisive political rhetoric, both as a candidate and as our 45th President, closely tracks the tropes that Adolf Hitler used from 1932-36 to persuade a critical mass of the German people to trade their democratic birthright for a Nazi pottage of xenophobia, bigotry, and scapegoats.

Hitler did not take power by force. Germany dropped into his maw like a piece of overripe fruit spoiled by years of poisonous, corrosive rhetoric. The real risk to American democracy posed by Trump’s talent for invective and divisiveness is not a military putsch. It is the erosion of the bonds of mutual respect and common decency that hold constitutional democracies together.

One key to Hitler’s success in talking German democracy to death can be found in the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, where two small green plastic cubes rest almost unnoticed on small display tables—surviving examples of miniature radios distributed free of charge by the Nazi Party in the years following 1932. There was only one catch: the free radios received only a single frequency—the unremitting, unadulterated voice of Adolf Hitler spewing his witches’ brew of bigotry and hate directly into the heads of 35-40% of the German people.

Trump’s mastery of Twitter is the twenty-first century analogue of those green plastic radios, forging a direct line of unfiltered communication with 40 million Americans, enabling Trump to stoke mass fears and foment divisive anger on demand. (more)

Recently, Amazon Prime showed me a title, Rick Steves' The Story of Fascism in Europe. It intrigued me to no end. Maybe this is one reason why Trump loathes Jeff Bezos. I watched it on Monday evening. Then I wondered if that video was available on YouTube. Imagine my excitement when I found it there too!

So, here for your learning and viewing pleasure, I present to you Rick Steves' 2018 56-minute special. I highly recommend it, even if you have attention issues like mine and can't watch it all in one sitting.



I found this presentation more concise and cogent than former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's book Fascism, A Warning.

Clearly, even though we Americans would like to think it could not happen here, it IS on our doorstep. And if we do not act affirmatively to stand for American/democratic institutions, if Trump somehow wins a second term, it will all be over but the shouting within days of him taking the oath of office in 2021. As former President Barack Obama has said (and tweeted) the way to save democracy is MORE democracy. So, make sure to do all that you can to save democracy.