Guest Post: Occasional Words from the Resistance …from the desk of R.E. Vanella.

Filed in National by on November 17, 2016

In reply to anonymous; is it fascist fait accompli?

Move me on to any black square.  Use me any time you want. Just remember that the goal is for us to capture all we want.    –Yes, I’ve Seen All Good People

Steve Bannon to king’s knight 2…. check.

On Woody Guthrie’s guitar there was a note taped that read, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”  Now, I’m nobody to disparage Woody Guthrie, but throughout history when fascists really needed killing the Martin 000-18 was insufficient.

John R Bolton to queen’s rook 4…. check.

Now that we’ve arranged the pieces just so how many moves will it take the Grand Master marketer and media manipulator to sort it out?

Wraith of Julius Streicher to queen’s bishop 3…. check.

See New Way to Curb Nazis.

BERLIN, April 25 (AP) . – Among the German Centrists there is a growing feeling that an attempt should be made to bring the Nazis into the government before their strength has increased any further.  They argue that once the Nazis participate in government they will become more moderate, and at the same time their political ascendancy will be curbed because, in the nature of things, they will find it impossible to keep the numerous promises made in the course of the recent election campaigns.

If Herr Hitler becomes the dominant factor in a coalition ruling Prussia, it will mark the high point of the Fascist movement he has developed from a joke to the greatest political power in the Reich.

—The New York Times, 26 April 1932

If this seems at all hysterical or premature, please think about it harder.  And disabuse yourself of conventional wisdom.

Till next time.

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A stay-at-home mom with an obsession for National politics.

Comments (10)

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  1. Steve Newton says:

    OK this is a tempting parallel, but only if you don’t know a great deal about the fragility of the Weimar Republic, including the role of the Army in politics, hyperinflation, the Versailles restrictions, and the centuries-long history of anti-semitism in central Europe.

    These guys are dangerous clowns (admittedly with nuclear codes in the near future), but the reality is the disintegration of Weimar required a lot more to explain it than what’s going on here.

    I am NOT suggesting that there is not extreme danger here, but the Hitler comparison actually points us in the wrong direction of solving it.

  2. RE Vanella says:

    Steve – Absolutely fair point. I didn’t mean for people to consider that the rises to power were parallel or even similar in any way necessarily. There was 10 years between the Beer Hall Putsch and the NYT bit above. The way I see it is the masses slowly got behind and followed Hitler whereas I think Trump (and his ego) followed the masses. So Trump went the other way round. This is very cold comfort. What is salient now is the fact that we’re here not the route we took. That’s the point I’m making.

    I’d also argue that the long standing racism and poor economic conditions here are actually similar to your point on anti Semitism and depression in Central Europe..

  3. anonymous says:

    Substitute the intelligence apparatus for the Army and you have a parallel there. The centuries-long demonization of a minority that has is actually the persecuted rather than the persecutor, check. An austerity budget that will slash government spending while exporting immigrants should work to cripple the economy, which ought to go a good ways to mirroring Germany’s uncertain economic condition in the ’30s.

    So the only one of the four conditions in which the parallel can be said not to exist is the “strength of the Republic,” which just demonstrated that it did not have the common sense to avoid electing a “clown,” as you call him. Yeah, a Steven King clown, maybe.

    Besides, they’re not looking at replacing the government. They intend to take it over and turn up the repression. When the GOP gains enough seats in 2018 to enact its agenda without interference, game over.

  4. RE Vanella says:

    …or, to continue the metaphor… check mate

  5. Jason330 says:

    When the GOP made the unprecedented and anti-constitutional move of preventing the President from filling a Supreme Court vacancy, I’d say they went full Weimar.

  6. Steve Newton says:

    @jason–I’d say they went full Weimar.

    I don’t think you guys get it. The Weimar Republic came into existence by accepting responsibility for “the stab in the back” meme for the loss of WW1, was tarred with signing the Versailles Treaty, and consciously wrecked its own economy in the mid-1920s as a way out of paying wartime reparations. (That hyperinflation didn’t just come into being on its own.) Then the Weimar leaders allowed reactionary “storm trooper” militias to put down Communist uprisings in the Ruhr and elsewhere before adopting about a quarter of the most extreme rightwing elements of those militias into the new treaty-reduced German Army.

    ALL of that happened not just before Hitler’s rise to power, but before he attempted the Beer Hall Putsch.

    Weimar didn’t lose legitimacy–it never had it in the first place.

    I am not objecting to this usage out of some antiquarian insistence on historical trivia, nor am I suggesting that it’s not a decent metaphor for what’s going on now.

    I am objecting to it because it’s only useful in terms of portraying the severity of the potential crisis, and not at all useful in terms of parallels that will help us overcome the threat.

  7. anonymous says:

    We have just had a hostile foreign power meddle in a presidential election. Apparently Washington is just going to accept this and move on. So if your point is that each moment is history is unique, no argument.

    Considering that overcoming the threat last time required a global war that killed hundreds of millions, I would hope that we are not on a parallel track. But to tell us that it’s “not at all useful” is, frankly, not at all useful. We’re not playing a parlor game of find the parallels here. The parallels are obvious to all. The most chilling one is the behavior of Trump voters to women and minorities already. This is exactly like the behavior of German citizens to Jews after the rise of Hitler.

    I think it’s highly useful, if only to wake people up to how fast the conservative sacking of liberal America is going to be. The secrecy Trump operates under will continue, the press will be shut out, and if we wait until January to put pressure on Congress to investigate this election, we will be routed.

  8. RE Vanella says:

    As I said, my goal here is narrow, Steve. I’m allowing people a few weeks recovery. Then we need everyone “clear-headed and courageous,” I think I wrote.

    I’m just using fun writing to rally the sane and the strong. So if that’s all it’s good for, very good for me. Mission accomplished.

    I’m resisting this now. I’m ready. I urge you all to resist as well.

  9. Steve Newton says:

    I’ve been writing (and working) to resist this since election day.

    Being in higher education I see, of course, that a liberal arts education (and all funding that pertains to it) is a massive target for Trump’s administration. After all, liberals control the campuses, don’t they? But working at an Historically Black University we are particularly aware that we will be on the chopping block.

    I agree with you that this election sounded a clarion warning bell about what’s here and what’s coming. I just want to give people the best possible ammunition, and beside the fact that most Americans probably think Weimar is a breed of dog, I want to be careful that our side is as accurate as possible.

  10. anonymous says:

    As a dog person, I can assure you that most people don’t know what a weimaraner is when they see one, either.