Day 138…
I made the horrible mistake yesterday of engaging with a supporter of the current President online. A friend of mine posted a mask-wearing meme involving a picture of the KKK and this person said that everyone in the picture was probably a Democrat. By the time I joined in, there had already been a long back and forth about the history of the political parties in our country, how the parties had changed their ideologies, grown, eroded, all of it.
I should have just stayed out of it, but… I didn’t.
In 1923, Adolph Hitler was arrested for attempting a coup d’etat against the German government called The Beer Hall Putsch. He was put on trial for high treason. His defense was that the Weimar Republic were traitors to the people of Germany. He was found guilty and given a sentence of five years in Lansberg prison.
During his time there, he was a model prisoner.
He wore a tie.
He dictated the first volume of Mein Kampf (My Struggle) to his deputy, Rudolph Hess, who he was allowed access to.
The following year, he was pardoned by the Bavarian Supreme Court and released.
From that time forward, most everything Hitler did was achieved by working legally, within the government. He was duly elected by the German people for every position he held. There was violence and intimidation from the Nazis, sure, but he gained the trust of the German people and they, in turn, trusted him.
In February of 1933, a month after he was sworn in as the Chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag which housed the German Parliament, was torched, reportedly by a Dutch council communist named Marinus van der Lubbe. There are plenty of historians who believe that the Nazis set the fire themselves. After the fire, Hitler convinced the President, Paul von Hindenberg, to issue an emergency decree that suspended civil liberties. Mass arrests of communists followed including all of their Parliamentary delegates. With them gone, the Nazis now had the majority.
At the elections to replace the now departed Communists in March, no party achieved a majority in the Reichstag. Hitler called upon the body to pass a temporary Enabling Act which gave him the ability to act without Parliamentary consent and without limitations from the Constitution. He promised the other parties that he would work with them in the spirit of friendly cooperation and they bought it. The Act passed and it gave him almost unlimited power for four years. Hindenberg was still the President with control of the military, but now Hitler was Chancellor with close to unlimited power.
By July of that year, non-Nazi parties were outlawed.
When Hindenberg died in August of the following year, all German soldiers took the Hitler Oath, pledging their allegiance to Hitler, himself. Not to his office, not to his nation, but to him.
Hitler then consolidated the offices of Chancellor and President into one position.
The referendum that allowed him to combine the two positions was overwhelmingly passed by the German people by an 89.93% majority. The result was that he then became Füherer.
Adolph Hitler came to power from within. He was welcomed each step of the way by the people. They handed him all of the power that he ultimately came to wield.
Chad Wolf is the Acting Chairman of the Department of Homeland Security. He replaced Kevin McAleenan who resigned, who in turn replaced Kirstjen Nielsen who was fired by the President. There were two others before her, making a total of five so far in this administration.
It is important to note that Wolf is just the Acting Chairman. He hasn’t been approved yet. It is Wolf, who at the President’s behest, has been sending Federal troops into Portland, Oregon and now into Seattle, Washington to quell the violence from protestors. It is unclear whether as Acting Chairman he is legally allowed to do that.
By all reports from both cities, the presence of these Federal troops is actually inciting the violence. Local government and law enforcement officials are not happy that these troops are there creating a far worse problem.
It doesn’t take a genius to see what’s going on. The President is using images of the violence (instigated by his own forces) to terrorize the population of the US. It is another step towards suspending the rule of law.
The Mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, has demanded that the troops withdraw. “People are being literally scooped off the street into unmarked vans, rental cars, apparently,” he said. “They are being denied probable cause. And they are denied due process.”
Chad Wolf responded to that in an interview on Fox News. “Because we don’t have that local support, that local law enforcement support, we are having to go out and proactively arrest individuals, And we need to do that because we need to hold them accountable.”
These Federal law enforcement officers are not even waiting until anything happens. They are arresting people BEFORE they do anything.
This lady that I got dragged into the exchange with yesterday is a sweet-looking Grandmotherly type. She posts pictures of her friends, and her dog.
Here is a quote from her: “I have decided I am not afraid to speak up now. I am tired of getting bashed for my Judeo-Christian values, my respect for the Constitution, law and order, police reform, not backing marxist BLM, boycotting the NFL, MLB, and the NBA for pandering. I love and adore my black friends and black God Child and follow Bob Woodson and Thomas Sowell. I will not accept the 1619 Project as it is revisionist's folk lore. I do believe in Woodson's 1776 Project. I have many liberal friends, a few transgender friends, homosexual friends and family, and a couple of lesbian friends and a lesbian cousin all of whom I love and respect. I just want love and peace for this country not division and hate.”
This is why this President stands a very good chance of being re-elected.
What a day-long back and forth failed to reveal is where this woman saw her Judeo-Christian values being reflected in the actions of this Administration. She seems to have missed the memo outlining the fact that the Black Lives Matter movement is actually fighting for those things that she claims to respect. The Administration she so admires? Not so much.
One wonders what this large group of LGBTQ and POC friends that she supports will feel towards her as her fear against speaking up against them subsides. She seems utterly terrified of black people. Not “her” black people, but black people out there in general. That fear has been taught and stoked by those trying to consolidate their own power.
In 100 days, we all have a decision to make. People like this woman who are getting their information from places like Fox News have to be reached somehow. FaceBook clearly isn’t the forum for anyone’s mind to be changed. I truly do know that, but then where is?
Before we get to our polling stations, how do we change the fear narrative in this woman’s head? She is looking at coverage of the line of Federal troops in full riot gear clashing with protesters in Portland, praying for the troops to succeed. She hasn’t taken the time to figure out why the protesters are there in the first place. She hasn’t taken the time to figure out the motivation behind why the Federal government might have sent the troops in. She’s just looking at this mass of scary people engaged in unimaginable violence and imagining it all descending on her own little Hobbit-like suburb.
People don’t engage. “Defund the Police” is possibly the worst slogan ever created for a movement in the entire history of human protest. It takes a fraction of a second for somebody to hear “defund the police” and then a full hour to explain what it really means. The overwhelming majority of people don’t wait for the explanation. They never get past the slogan.
This woman has now unfriended my friend. That’s bad. The more we all retreat into our own beliefs and block out streams of information, the more set we are all going to get in our ways.
This sweet old lady is never going to see the similarities between what is going on now and what happened in Germany in the 1930’s. Millions of sweet old ladies back then voted for Adolph Hitler and cheered him on. They thought that he was going to restore their country, ravaged by World War I, and make it great again. They chose to ignore the actions of the Brown Shirts and then the Gestapo and concentrate on what they felt Hitler was doing to uphold their Judeo-Christian values.
We cannot assume that the President is going to be voted out of office in November.
Every single person in this country MUST cast a vote.
There is going to be a lot more of what we are seeing in Oregon and Washington in the coming months. And worse. I have to believe that there are more people who believe in the rule of law than don’t.
Buckle up.
Please.
And prepare to vote.
Please.
V❤️TE
And read niece Mary’s book perhaps