Several decades ago, I read a couple of novels set before and during the Second World War that really helped open my eyes to the whole scope of history of that time period. The two novels, The Winds of War and War and Remembrance, by Herman Wouk, wove the personal stories of the characters into the times, places and events of the Second World War. As a secondary history and government teacher, I knew the chronology of events, the philosophies, the economics, all of the facts that are studied about the war and its causes, but reading these two novels really helped to clarify and bring home how a war based on conflicting worldviews literally put most of humanity in mortal danger for seven years, and longer than that for the Jews and any progressive, freedom loving Germans.
When I taught an honors U.S. History class, the novels were made required reading for the second semester, during the period when we discussed World War 2. The author, Herman Wouk, was born in the Bronx to parents who were Jewish immigrants from Minsk, in what was then Czarist Russia. He grew up studying the Talmud with his Russian grandfather, but lived a fairly secular life until returning to the practice of Judaism when it was more essential to his work. He gives his Jewish grandfather, and the United States Navy credit for being the primary influences in his life and the main characters of his novels, a Navy captain, and a Jewish college professor and author who is an immigrant from Poland, along with his niece, reflect his perspective through the interactions of their characters in the story.
Every week, we had a class discussion on the section of the novel that was required reading for the students. The novels are written chronologically, starting in 1939, just prior to the German invasion of Poland. As we read through, we studied the background information on each event, using the novel's timeline. Any information which was needed to supplement the novel's narrative was provided by students doing research and was the subject of class discussion. We worked our way through the entire Second World War in a semester, something that textbooks normally cover in about two weeks, and gave students a full perspective on National Socialist Germany and the fascist philosophy that brought the country to ruin.
The novel helped keep things interesting. By actually having characters interact with international events, in a creative way, including Wouk's Navy captain, in diplomatic settings, actually meeting and interacting with Roosevelt, Churchill, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini, students had a point of reference when it came to historical events. I taught that course that way for eight years, and I had students who always came back to let me know how helpful it had been to them, especially in college.
The lack of knowledge of this period of time is so very apparent in so much of the rhetoric surrounding this election, that I can't help but think of the statement, "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it," made by Winston Churchill in a 1948 speech to the House of Commons.
He would certainly know.
We Are Seeing a Complete Lack of Recognition of the Similarities Between Trump and Fascist National Socialism
Early in his first campaign for President, Trump said "I could shoot someone standing in the middle of Fifth avenue and I wouldn't lose any voters." That's one of the few truths he's uttered since that moment. People are appallingly ignorant of this man's approach to politics. Whether he's a puppet being fed by a fascist elements somewhere else, who have figured out how easily Trump is manipulated by flattery, or money offers, the fact that he has been so openly anti-American, anti-Patriotic, anti-Democracy, anti-Constitution in his public speeches, which get cheers from his rally-goers, is deadly serious.
He's been the single most divisive politician in modern American history, and equally as bad as the slavery advocates. He is using tools available to him, found in the corners and crannies of various conservative interests, such as far right wing Evangelicalism, primarily the Charismatic and Pentecostal branches of it that are hard liners when it comes to their belief that God has set them aside, chosen them and ordained them to bring righteousness back to America, just like he once did for the ancient Jews, and the ongoing theme of white supremacy, which not only hasn't been eliminated from American ideology by education, but is being radicalized in right wing political alliances that now make up most of the Republican party.
The belief that what happened in Germany in the twelve nightmare years of National Socialist rule, which stretched the rules of the existing, fledgling democratic government to seize power, could not happen in the United States is a myth. We have already elected this ideology to the Presidency once, and were extremely lucky in the fact that it failed when it attacked the Constitution, and the legal guardrails held. But in the aftermath, we discovered there were members of Congress in both chambers who were planning on cooperating to help Trump bring it down, had there been any signs of weakness or openings to do so.
Wouk, in his novels, uses his characters to discuss, and affirm, that the United States is not immune to this kind of political upheaval, and that the right mix of cultural elements like the anti-Semitism that was prevalent in Germany, which he compared to the white supremacy prevalent in the United States, along with a natural, built in sense of selfishness over who controls the economy and the distribution of wealth, and who benefits from it, could create the same circumstances. We dodged a bullet in 1939, though the elements that overwhelmed Germany's democracy were active and working in the United States, too.
Trump's claim that there was massive voter fraud and that the 2020 election was "stolen from him," for which not even some of his most ardent and active defenders could find a shred of evidence, even among the people they planted all through the system, and the subsequent insurrection he instigated against the Capitol on January 6th should have ended his personal ability to walk free in our society. We have laws against it, but what he did was not met with a resolute defense of democracy, Congress and the Constitution, but with dithering, delaying, foot dragging and obfuscation, even after a Congressional investigation laid down a mountain of evidence against him. There, in a nutshell, is Trump's shot on Fifth Avenue. He was right about that.
Then, in the middle of a Presidential debate, after being triggered by a truthful comment made by the Vice President about people leaving his rallies in droves, and the outlandish things he says in his rallies, he claimed that Haitian immigrants, in Springfield, Ohio, were eating people's pets. Now that's a racist characterization of an ethnicity if I've ever heard one. That should have been the end of his chances to win the Presidency, and I'm not convinced it still won't be. But the lack of a genuine uproar among the American people is very troubling, and indicative of the kind of ignorance and lack of being informed that I'm pointing out here.
I think we have to go back to the Civil War and Reconstruction to find politicians making those kinds of insulting, bigoted, racist remarks about a group of people living in the United States without much in the way of accountability. And if this is a sign of how far we haven't come, of the level of ignorance that exists in our culture, and especially in our electorate, and that does not get brought to account, then our country really is in major danger.
The fact that Trump is the Republican nominee, and is running for President of the United States, is the result of a massive failure of our government, of, by and for the people, to act when it needed to act, and bring justice to an insurrectionist in a timely manner, as it has been able to do to almost 1,000 of the people who listened to his words and stormed the Capitol.
It is Now Up to We, The People
We are about to see if our nation's society and culture is capable of saving itself from a fascist dictatorship that a significant portion of the electorate is not capable of recognizing. It's not been a failure of just the government, or only the justice department. Our educational system has failed to produce the kind of informed electorate which its founders and visionaries created and established it to do. It has declined for decades, for which there is more than ample evidence to prove, and seems incapable of producing critical thinkers, especially when it comes to civics, politics and the social order.
The fact that we now have a convicted felon, rapist, and indicted insurrectionist on the ballot with polling numbers that would be frightening enough if they were barely in the double digits, is evidence of the failure of multiple cultural and social guardrails, and it also tells our enemies exactly how and where we are vulnerable.
Our first priority is winning this election, at all levels. One of the reasons Republicans have managed to keep things close and stay in power is that Democrats let their guard down in too many mid-term elections, and now the majority of our states have gerrymandered the GOP into almost permanent power. We've let ourselves be manipulated, because we play politics by the rules when they are no longer willing to compromise. So here we are, letting the media control the narrative once again, convincing people this is a real, neck and neck horserace, to try and tilt the advantages all in the direction of Trump, and his billionaire friends who are orchestrating it all with the power of their dollars.
Beyond what we need to do, once Harris is elected and has a Democratic controlled Congress, is some major social and cultural overhaul. Fixing our broken education system should be the top priority. It has been starved by Republican austerity since Reagan's days in office, in some Republican dominated states, longer than that. Project 2025's proposal to eliminate the Department of Education did seem to ring some alarm bells at last, as far as this was concerned. If we're going to keep the DOE, then we need to give it some authority and resources to bring the United States out of the doldrums of test scores, not only in science, math and technology, but in history and civics, and in helping students develop critical thinking skills, in order to avoid panics in the future over subversive demagogues getting elected President.
Americans ought to recognize the kind of inhumanity that led to the establishment of slavery, and then made it so absolutely difficult to stamp it out. It's the same kind of inhumanity that fed the anti-Semitism of Europe for centuries, eventually erupting into the Holocaust. The opposite of "American idealism" is this anti-immigrant hatred that seems to be the only thing Trump can talk about on the campaign trail. It consumes him, it's a psychotic obsession and it should be enough proof to disqualify his candidacy.
How can someone be so lacking in intelligence, information and conviction, to still be debating over insignificant political issues, while being completely unable to see the complete and total lack of character and ability to lead that is Trump. And J. D. Vance, a slimy opportunist who will take any position and say anything that benefits himself, is worse.
Get it together, people. Take time out for a history lesson. We need to win this overwhelmingly and decisively.
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