In order to be a successful authoritarian, totalitarian, dictator, or whatever you want to call it, you must have an enemy. Someone or something you define as evil for your supporters to focus on. That way, no matter what happens or how badly things might go, you can deflect them back to the real problem, the enemy.
For Hitler, it was the Jews. They were “outsiders", "an alien race", and "degenerates”. He added to their demonization by tossing in that they were the brains and the money behind the rise of Communism. Two enemies now rolled into one. It was the Jews who were to blame for Germany’s defeat in World War One, for the “stab in the back” to the German Army while in battle - by their government back in Berlin that ended the war, and for robbing the German people since the Jews supposedly controlled the nation’s financial institutions. First, it was just small attacks on Jews; bullies beating them up, smashing shop windows, and mocking the Jewish people thanks to a compliant press. Then, laws were passed to restrict where the Jews could work, shop, and live, synagogues were destroyed, and Jewish businesses burned down. Then the Jews were rounded up…it was for their own good, of course, to protect them from righteously angry Germans, put into work camps or banned from universities, hospitals, and any government function. And finally, when war came, which was again blamed on the Jews who now had no power at all in Germany, a Final Solution. At least six million paid with their lives.
For Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, it was teachers, college students, intellectuals, people who owned small businesses, anyone who was educated or successful. After the fall of the capital Phnom Penh, they wasted no time rounding them all up, putting them in horrific re-education camps that became killing grounds. By small groups, so as not to arouse suspicion, those prisoners were then taken out and executed. At least 2 million people, a quarter of Cambodia’s population, were slaughtered in this manner. That happened in the 1970s. The Khmer Rouge was forced into western Cambodia by the 1979 invasion by Vietnam and did not completely die out until 1999. Cambodia has STILL not recovered from it.
For Donald Trump, it is the American free press.
In a tweet he sent twice on Friday, February 17, 2017, Trump called the media “The enemy of the American people”. He is setting up the press so that criminal acts against them will be justified. Remember how easy it was for Trump to encourage violence against protesters at his rallies? Reporters at several rallies have already stated they have been harassed, pushed, spat upon, screamed at, and Trump supporters pointing their fingers like a gun and firing at them.Think it will be very long before someone actually carries that out?
On February 16th, Trump had his first solo press conference. By all accounts, it was a wild, mind-boggling, grievance-filled rant. He spent his time justifying his election win…four months after winning, belittling the press over and over, making up statistics, showing his crass, bigoted side, and giving evidence that he has no understanding of what uranium is, the effects of nuclear weapons, or how government works. Others thought it was great entertainment and really put the press in its place. Right-wing radio commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity sang his praises on the air. The media got what it deserved. (The irony was lost on both of them that they are the media too. It will only take a small point for them to run afoul of Trump and they will not be spared anything the other media is now suffering.) Less than a half an hour after the press conference ended, Trump tweeted out that he wanted his supporters to know how dishonest the press really was and that they would not tell the American people the truth about his press conference - even though anyone watching TV or listening to the radio could hear it live with no filter. How is that dishonest?
On February 16th, Trump had his first solo press conference. By all accounts, it was a wild, mind-boggling, grievance-filled rant. He spent his time justifying his election win…four months after winning, belittling the press over and over, making up statistics, showing his crass, bigoted side, and giving evidence that he has no understanding of what uranium is, the effects of nuclear weapons, or how government works. Others thought it was great entertainment and really put the press in its place. Right-wing radio commentators Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity sang his praises on the air. The media got what it deserved. (The irony was lost on both of them that they are the media too. It will only take a small point for them to run afoul of Trump and they will not be spared anything the other media is now suffering.) Less than a half an hour after the press conference ended, Trump tweeted out that he wanted his supporters to know how dishonest the press really was and that they would not tell the American people the truth about his press conference - even though anyone watching TV or listening to the radio could hear it live with no filter. How is that dishonest?
The “dishonest media”, “the failing press”, “the fake news” "part of the problem" and "part of the corrupt system" are phrases Trump is using in his initial demonization of those who have a First Amendment right to ask him questions. Unless you agree with Trump 100%, you are the enemy. Trump has never read what one of our greatest presidents had to say about the press. "The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." -The words of Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington in 1787.
There will now be physical threats toward the media and violence is the next logical step. Trump will also pursue new and unique methods through the courts to close down or severely curtail the free press. And his supporters will willingly give up much of their First Amendment rights without a whimper.
There will now be physical threats toward the media and violence is the next logical step. Trump will also pursue new and unique methods through the courts to close down or severely curtail the free press. And his supporters will willingly give up much of their First Amendment rights without a whimper.
The Wall The Muslim Ban Unregulated oil and gas pollution
Trump means what he says. He will do the things he has threatened to do. He is not concerned with other people's happiness or well-being, not even his supporters. He is concerned only with his own and to a lesser degree his family's. If his billionaire friends can enrich themselves off the corpse of the American economy, that’s okay too. But the lesson of Michael Flynn should give anyone who works for him pause. If someone makes Trump look bad, even if Trump is the cause of it, they will be thrown under the bus…or overboard with weights tied to their legs.
Those of you who don’t take Trump's words and actions seriously, keep in mind, in 1932, few people in Germany seriously thought that Adolf Hitler would become their chancellor. And when he did win constitutionally the next year, they deluded themselves into thinking various branches of government would keep him reigned in. Sound familiar?
When Trump Advisor Stephen Miller went on nationally televised shows last Sunday, and in his best Joseph Goebbels impersonation, warned the viewers that Trump’s authority “will not be questioned”, you can clearly see where things are headed.
Knowing what you know now - if you were Jewish in Germany in 1935, what would you do?
In 2017, what should Americans do?
In 2017, what should Americans do?
