Homegrown Hitler's Progress

The word most used in the news media to describe certain tendencies of the current chief executive is "authoritarian."  It is perhaps accurate but certainly abstract.  Besides which it doesn't sound as dire as it is, nor as extreme as those who use it mean it to be.

Some used the term "fascist."  That surprisingly includes the former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.  It is the title of her new book, which is about the rise of 21st century fascism in Europe and around the world. The book begins with the current US administration.

The word however is also a little vague, especially as it is tossed around as a favored epithet in political arguments, both by the so-called right and so-called left, on a host of issues.

References to Hitler and Nazism are even more abused.  Every online political argument, someone once observed, sooner or later results in an opponent being identified with Hitler.

But this reference, I would argue, is not meaningless, because it still carries emotional weight and specificity. The two extremes of political argument (and perhaps they're all extreme now) seem convinced that the other side personifies 21st century Nazis. (Except of course the groups that call themselves Nazis, and wouldn't extend the compliment to their opponents.) Still, there is sufficient evidence and imagery to build factual arguments and historical comparisons regarding this administration.

So the current chief executive of the US, who is in all ways the Antipresident, also remains Homegrown Hitler, the apprentice dictator.  His tendencies are well known, and despite all the trouble he seems to be in, he is making progress towards creating the conditions to install dictatorship.  First he must weaken and deform the existing American political system, and he is doing so, by destroying
effective democratic government and substituting a pure power struggle based on an improvised ideology, practical intolerance (Muslims and Mexicans being named favorites) and violence.

In personal terms he is raging and threatening to take control of the Justice Department.  His threats are becoming more explicit, as reporting suggests various efforts to obstruct federal investigations involving violations very close to treason.  Stories, such as those involving Ukraine, are still breaking.

 He is also effectively developing his own Gestapo in ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement brownshirts.  A simple Google search will turn up lots of evidence, including unlawful incarcerations, targeting activists and the hallmark of brownshirts, bullying and intimidation.

But he is no longer alone.  He has succeeded in converting what was once an ordinary if traditionally (and often destructively) reactionary party, into the 21st equivalent of a proto-Nazi Party.  It's not all the way there yet, but it is getting closer.

Homemade Hitler vilifies his opponents without evidence, and supports his loyalists regardless of facts, as part of his general pattern of asserting whatever supports him, his ego and his political power (which to him are indistinguishable), while denying whatever is contrary to him and his political power, with absolute disregard of the facts and minimal political and civilized human norms, and with distortions and lies that he and his minions repeat shamelessly and endlessly.

His example is now more than ever being followed among members of his party in Congress, as we are seeing increasingly.  The Republican majority of a House intelligence committee issued their own partisan report on a matter of the highest national security. In absolutely and prematurely denying evidence of  collusion with Russian efforts to attack the American election system, it has itself colluded with that attack.   Ignoring and distorting evidence, it has no objective credibility. It is a complete assertion of power.

A few days later, Republicans blithely ignored serious accusations and evidence of corruption against EPA Secretary Pruitt, encouraged to do so by the White House, because Pruitt is good enough at p.r. to give the impression that he is effectively fulfilling the antipresident's agenda of destroying the planet in order to revenge himself on President Obama.

The pervasive breakdown in upholding universally accepted standards for government officers and in immediate accountability is exactly what is necessary to pave the way for totalitarian government, either directly or with an intervening period of chaos.  Or both.  Update: Jonathan Chait adds additional evidence in his Thursday post.

Then there is one of those relatively minor matters that may turn out to matter a lot as a very serious warning sign.  The lame duck Speaker of the House fired the chaplain of the House--the first such firing in the history of the Republic-- basically because he is not a member of the official religion of the Republican Party, which is the ultra-right white branch of evangelical Christianity.  (The fired chaplain is Roman Catholic, but not the kind of ultra-conservative Catholic that ultra-right white Evangelicals consider tolerated allies. He apparently offended Republican members by representing the Catholic position on social justice and compassion for the poor enshrined in various encyclicals of various Popes, in a prayer.)

That sector of Evangelical Christians is the last certain bulwark of the party's support, going into congressional elections, so it must be shown fealty.  But the cost of this move is a perhaps small but significant step towards the de facto establishment of a particular religion as representing the United States.  How long before it becomes the official religion (and political ideology) you must adhere to, to be a US citizen? This kind of thing can happen in small steps, as it did in Germany.

All of this has unfortunately also infected the opposition in Washington but especially in the media, with its increasing intolerance.  Though the accusations against the nominee to head Veterans Affairs turned out to be overwhelming,  the rush to judgment early on was notable--with few instances of even the formality of "if the charges turn out to be true."  The apparent collapse of the WH Press Correspondents Dinner is also a likely symptom.

A lot of this goes by the name of polarization.  But a perennial battle between two forces is not where this is headed.  The Democrats may become the majority in Congress, and they may win the White House next time.  But the Republicans will obstruct because they are unprincipled. And the next time the Republicans win, the way will have been prepared by this administration and this Congress.  The norms that restrain tyranny--even and especially when tyranny arrives in the name of representing the people, as it did in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia--will no longer exist.  It's a long game that not many may even realize they are playing.

The end game is not polarization, two extremes opposing each other but with common standards and a common set of laws that govern both.  It's totalitarian government, a homegrown 21st century Nazi state.   I used to believe that the American political system was resilient enough to prevent that, especially if the public is warned to watch for the signs.  It can happen here, and we must be vigilant, but I always thought it would be unlikely.

Now more than ever I believe it is possible.  Given the strains that will be placed on the institutions of this country in the coming decades, I see more danger that it won't just bend.  Unless there is substantial healing or reconsitutition, it may break.  This could be a crucial period in that regard.

This administration and this ruling party must be repudiated as well as defeated in the next two elections.  We must know what is at stake.  Unfortunately there is not yet anyone of the stature to be heard, who is making the case clearly that the American system of government is being destroyed.  Fortunately there may be one person who can, when election campaigns begin this year.  That person is President Obama.