Moral insanity

The phrase “moral insanity” was coined by the late Hans Magnus Enzensburger, who tried to explain how “normal Germans” carried on during World War II, with their mouths shut, as genocidal atrocities were inflicted upon their neighbors.

In Ian Buruma’s new book, “Stay Alive: Berlin, 1939-1945,” Buruma asked Germans of the Tätergeneration (the perpetrator generation) what they thought, and were doing, during the Holocaust.

To quote the late, great William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It isn’t even past.”

Now let us compare the political speeches of Donald Trump with Adolf Hitler’s, and allow me to ask my fellow citizens: What the hell were you thinking, and doing, when you voted for this fascist?

What are you doing about it now?

Don’t you think you could be next?

Do you recall the words of the philosopher George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”?

Well, here’s an updated quote for you, my Republican amigos: “Those who cannot remember the past might be condemned to suffer it, in their own flesh.”

OK, let’s put Trump and Hitler up against the wall, so to speak.

Trump said that Hitler “did some good things,” and added that he wished he had some “German generals.”

General John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, said (in the link above), “Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?”

To which Trump replied, “Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.”

(For the record: Hitler forced Erwin Rommel, his best general, to shoot himself in the head after being wounded in North Africa, to spare the Rommel family from Hitler’s “retribution.”)

Moving right along, Trump, like Hitler, calls his political opponents “vermin.”

Also like Hitler, Trump has said repeatedly that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country.

Hitler said in “Mein Kampf”: “All great cultures of the past perished only because the originally creative race died out from blood poisoning.”

Trump calls immigrants “animals,” who are “not human,” just as Hitler insisted that white Protestant Germans are *űbermenschen *(supermen, or a superior race), while Jews and dark-skinned people are *untermenschen *(subhumans).

Here is a direct quote from Herr Trump (see the previous link): “The Democrats say, ‘Please don’t call them animals. They’re humans.’ I said, ‘No, they’re not humans, they’re not humans, they’re animals.’”

When asked by Time magazine whether he would build concentration camps for immigrants (which he has done), Trump replied: “I would not rule out anything.”

And of course, Hitler’s theory of the Big Lie was that if you repeat it often enough, people will swallow anything, because “the victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”

Yeah, but what if he loses, even one time? (“Stop the steal!” “Gerrymandering now! Gerrymandering tomorrow! Gerrymandering forever!”)

Now consider these news clips, wonderfully edited by the Daily Show, which show Trump emulating Hitler with everything but the Nazi salute.

See particularly: “We’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

(Abortion is murder, I guess, but slaughtering elementary school students is OK, so long as you can lie about it, because after all, who will ask a “winner” for the truth?)

OK, I can hear Republicans’ questions: “Bob, most of these quotes were from Trump’s first term in office, and his campaigns, when he was out of office. Why do you bring it up now?”

I bring it up because 70 million Americans voted for him, knowing he is a neo-Nazi. Either that, or they knew nothing about Hitler, or Nazis,* or they agreed with the Nazis, and with Trump*.

So, are we a fascist nation today? Purt near but not plumb.

Seems like damn near half of America is leaning that way.

Is there anything we can do to stop it?

Vote maybe, in your gerrymandered congressional district. No Blacks allowed. Shove ‘em all into a little pocket, and zip up that pocket. Or spread ‘em all out in pieces, to make it easier to kick them around.

Nazis gerrymandered too, you know. Jews were not allowed to vote. Black folks neither.

Of course, there were no Black voters in Germany then. Just how the Nazis liked it.

(Courthouse News columnist Robert Kahn’s father was a master sergeant in World War II.)