The Presidential Campaign: What Say I?

It All Happened So Fast Back Then—Part 1

    It all happened so fast back then. The National Socialist German Workers Party, led by Adolf Hitler, had been barely a blimp on the radar screen of German politics during the 1920s. But with the arrival of the Great Depression, with millions out-of-work, with the democratic Weimar Republic viewed as weak and chaotic, with many conservatives worried the Communists might gain control as they had in neighboring Russia, and with the defeat in World War I and the reparation payments to the victorious allies still a bitter pill being swallowed, the Nazis gained traction.

   Hitler reportedly was a spellbinding orator, both in person and on radio. He appealed to German nationalism, promising a return to greatness and accusing Jews, Communists, and others of stabbing Germany in the back during the war. He promised a return to law and order and economic security. He talked also of the superiority of the Germans and the need for racial purity.

    This message found a growing and receptive audience.   

    Helping get the message across, usually by means of thuggery, including beatings and threats to any and all who opposed their cause, were the Brown Shirts, the party’s paramilitary security force.

    In the parliamentary elections of 1932, the Nazis gained 33 percent of the vote, the most of any party. But it was not enough to form a government. So Hitler, in negotiations with the conservative parties, formed a coalition government. On Jan. 30, 1933, the president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, appointed him as chancellor.

     Then in February, whether by design or lucky happenstance, a fire was set in the Reichstag, the building housing the parliament. Blaming the Communists, Hitler had a state of emergency declared. When an ensuing election saw a decline in the Nazis’ vote totals, the party moved quickly, persuading their ruling partners to grant Hitler additional powers. In what seemed a blink-of-an-eye, he had become dictator, the Nazis were in complete control of the levers of power, and democracy (including free elections) was ended.

    The conservative politicians who were part of the coalition, along with other elites in German society, had imagined they could control Hitler and his Brown Shirts. That assumption would soon prove to be misguided. Beware of the tiger you chose to ride.

    In the biography on Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a Protestant pastor who opposed Hitler), the author Eric Metaxas writes, “In the first months of Nazi rule, the speed and scope of what the Nazis intended and had begun executing throughout German society were staggering,” adding, “No one dreamed how quickly and dramatically things would change.”

 This change was initiated through Gleischscbaltung (synchronization), a plan to completely re-order German society--including government, the military, education, places of employment, the arts, family life, and even the Christian church—with the goal of these institutions conforming to and reflecting the Nazi ideology. It began with the ‘Law for the Restoration of the Professional Service’ passed on April 7, 1933. Central to this edict was the Aryan Paragraph that stipulated “that only those of Aryan descent, without Jewish parents or grandparents, could be employed in the civil service.”

    Later that month the ban was extended to education under the ‘Law Against the Overcrowding of German Schools and Universities’. A few weeks later, on June 30, the original law was amended to state that marriage to a non-Aryan was also cause for being excluded from the civil service. Soon the net was widened to cover employment in newspapers, the theatre, public health, and agriculture.

     In addition, the new government pressured many federations and organizations to exclude Jews or those married to a Jew from membership, further marginalizing them.

      Bonhoeffer, whose twin sister was married to a Jewish man, reacted to the laws with this statement:

      What is at stake is by no means whether our German members of congregations can still tolerate church fellowship with the Jews. It is rather the task of Christian preaching to say: here is the church, where Jew and German stand together under the Word of God; here is the proof whether a church is still the church or not.

     The only weakness in his statement was separating the words Jew from German. Men and women who practiced the Jewish faith, who were ethnically considered Jews, were nevertheless still Germans. Most famous of them was Albert Einstein.

    The response to Bonhoeffer’s question “of whether a church is still a church” could not have been heartening. Fear, intimidation, apathy, and timidity or conversely agreement and support… whatever the underlying reason was—many in Germany, all too many, did not oppose the restrictions or chose to show solidarity with their fellow citizens who happened to be Jews.

    Of course, the question that has been asked in hindsight by historians and others is how they reconciled this with their Christian faith. The lack of opposition by many pastors and church members, as well as the support that some of them expressed, has been described by Timothy J. Keller, who wrote the Foreword to Eric Metaxas’ biography, as “the shocking capitulation of the German church to Hitler in the 1930s.”

    Not all Christians capitulated, though. Certainly not Bonhnoeffer. He and other disaffected pastors formed the Confessing Church which attempted to stem the tide and bear witness to what was wrong and evil. But even with this group, some of the pastors sought accommodation and a less confrontational approach. The Nazis eventually undermined the movement and arrested several of the ministers.

    One of those Protestant clergymen, Martin Niemoeller, reflecting on what happened (akin to a lobster being slowly boiled alive), reputedly said:

    They (the Nazis) came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Finally, they came for me. By that time, no one was left to speak up.

Be Careful of the Tiger You Ride—Part 2

   “What say you?”Aragorn, the hero and rightful king, demands to know near the climatic end of the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. Will you join the fight or not? he is asking.

    Then in a scene that still sends chills down my spine, with his ragtag army suddenly surrounded by a seemingly insurmountable force and facing what seems certain death, when hightailing it in retreat or trembling in terror would be understandable, this leader admonishes them to “hold your ground.” Then calling them “my brothers,” he says:

    I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break our bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you “stand…!”

   And stand they did.

    A wonderful metaphor.

    But life is not a Hollywood movie, with the anticipated happy ending occurring. Life can go haywire at a moment’s notice, as witnessed by what happened in Germany in the early 1930s. Dietrich Bonhoeffer ended up being executed by the Nazis, joining the millions of others--political opponents, Jews, persons deemed mentally enfeebled, and the so-called inferior races like Slavs and Poles--who were murdered, along with all of those soldiers, sailors, air crews, and civilians who were killed in the Second World War.

   The presidential campaign, thus far, has been an unruly and unpredictable affair. Center stage has been the candidacy of Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, with his campaign and accompanying statements generating enthusiastic support on one side and causing fear and alarm for many others.

   There are people of good character and good conscience who back him, feeling his business experience and strong (self-proclaimed) leadership skills are just what the country needs and who feel the issue of illegal immigration needs to be confronted in a forceful manner.

    Yet others—including his Republican opponents, a number of respected conservative columnists and TV and radio commentators, and GOP leaders and partisans-- (not to mention Democratic Party supporters and many Independent voters) have heard the echoes of those long-ago Nazi Party rallies in Trump’s harsh, take-no-prisoners rhetoric and his ridicule and vitriol aimed at his political opponents and detractors. They’ve also seen a reflection of the Brown Shirts (those menacing henchmen) in the nasty comments and threats uttered by some of those who’ve attended Trump’s rallies and by the sight of security guards forcefully and on occasion roughly removing protesters, accompanied by angry taunts from the audience.

    But Trump is not acting in a vacuum. Both Senator Marco Rubio and Senator Ted Cruz have attempted to out-do him with their own draconian proposals to deport millions of people and their comments about Muslims. Among the would-be deportees are children, brought to our country years ago or born on American soil, who have grown up here and now attend colleges or have jobs.

    In exit polls conducted during the recent primaries, a good number of the Republican voters expressed support for a wall being built along the border with Mexico and the mass deportation, along with banning Muslims from entering the country. Presumably Trump’s latest proposal to weaken the libel laws so that he and other like-mined people can more easily sue the news media will enjoy similar support—a measure that, if enacted as a result of his election, would allow the rich and powerful with their deep pockets or the government, itself, to stifle and censor free speech and public discourse.

    Ah, that lobster is boiling.

    For a lot of people—Hispanic-Americans and those who practice Islam, but also African-Americans and citizens who came here from Pakistan, India, the Middle East, and other countries in that region--what’s being said and its possible implications must be unsettling.

     For those who believe in limited government, free-market economics, free trade, and individual liberty—the bedrocks of the conservative philosophy of governance—what’s being spoken must seem alarming. The work of a generation threatens to be tossed aside, the principles that undergirded it being abandoned in the name of expediency. All of those supporters (the Republican base) who supposedly believed in the separation of powers, now apparently favor a presidency on steroids.

     For all those who’ve feared that the powers of the presidency, were they to fall in the wrong hands could send the government sliding down a slippery slope into autocracy, the harsh rhetoric and threats and alpha-male chest thumping raises the question:  Could Trump, backed by his supporters, be that person? Could he bully and threaten a GOP majority in Congress into allowing him a free rein?

     Or is it farfetched to worry that a Trump administration might return us to another McCarthy Era, with its ostracizing of anyone not adhering to the accepted orthodoxy? Or could we see a reprise of Nixon’s Enemy’s List, coupled with his use of the FBI, the CIA, and the IRS to undermine his political opponents?

    Maybe these concerns and worries are misplaced. Maybe Trump, if he were to be elected, will be (as he keeps telling us) a great president and will join the fellows on Mount Rushmore. On the other hand, maybe he’d be of little historical consequence—another Millard Fillmore. Maybe as his political opponents and other critics suggest, he’s a con man—putting on an entertaining dog-and-pony act designed to “seal the deal”—and who knows what would happen with a Trump presidency. Perhaps a hybrid or mishmash of Republican and Democrat talking points or a whatever-comes-to-mind approach.

   All I can say is be careful of the tiger you choose to ride.

What Say You?—Part 3

     Over the years I’ve voted for Democrats and Republicans. My decisions were usually based on policies I supported and whether I thought a candidate would best advance that policy. On a few occasions I regretted my choice. Often, particularly in earlier years, my votes supported the notion of divided government, my feeling being that this kept ‘at bay’ the inclination of one party to run roughshod over the other. I have embraced Madison’s notion of “checks and balances” designed to keep the sometimes ill-advised and threatening passions and emotions of the majority (what Madison and other Founding Fathers referred to as the danger of  mobocracy) from trampling on the rights of the minority and undermining our free society.

    What say you?

    I share the concern of many others that this campaign is opening a Pandora-like Box that is letting loose dark forces of racism, bigotry, intolerance, repression, and persecution that always exist in the body politic, that have always had their practitioners, but which the better angels of our nature—the better impulses of American society—have kept (not always, but for the most part) under lock and key.

    I worry that it doesn’t take much for people’s anger and fear to be directed in an ugly direction. I’m concerned that these dark forces, if they get out-of-hand, if their practitioners feel emboldened, will end up overwhelming those better impulses and that, once out-of-control, are hard to put back in the box.

     Our history is not perfect, since we (as individuals) are not perfect. Slavery, followed by the Jim Crow laws of the South and the de facto segregation of the North, our attitude and treatment towards Native Americans when we were taming the West, the widespread discrimination once practiced against Jews and Catholics as well as against the Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans and many others who immigrated here, the violent resistance to workers seeking better pay and working conditions, and the long denial of women being allowed the right to vote are among the sad and regrettable chapters.

    But we’ve come a long way, too. We’ve overcome many of those attitudes and practices and attempted to remedy the injustices. We’ve passed protective laws. We are generous with our help to countries suffering from starvation and natural calamities and to those who need a helping hand in our own nation.

    Here in Michigan, after we learned the water in Flint was poisoned with lead and that other contaminants were the probable cause of residents dying from Legionnaires disease, people opened up their hearts and wallets. Churches, organizations, and many private citizens have aided and assisted our neighbors with donations of bottled water and money, and are still doing so.

    Certainly not to be forgotten are the American service men and women who helped liberate Europe from Nazi oppression, with many thousands of them giving their lives to that purpose. Had that sacrifice not been made, a few million more helpless victims might have perished in the extermination camps.

     “Liberty is a fragile thing,” said President Ronald Reagan, implying that if we are not vigilant it can be lost in an instance. But liberty--the freedoms we enjoy as Americans--has to be shared by everyone, or else no one’s liberty is safe. If we do not speak up for the first victim who's targeted, then who will speak up for us if or when our turn comes?

    What say you?

    I’m under no allusions that my commentary, published in a small-town newspaper and posted on an internet site that draws only a handful of visitors, will have much impact in the vast arena of public opinion that sways people’s minds in presidential elections. I’m mindful, as I said, that people of good character and good conscience, for their reasons, will continue to support Trump and his proposals to build a wall, mass deport millions of people, and restrict entry of Muslims into the country. I’m aware that there will be those who disagree with my stance.

    Given that reality, perhaps the prudent option is to remain quiet. Many do.

     But in moments of great debate and momentous decision, timidity, hesitation, and hedging the bets seems a meek response. If you style yourself a knight of the pen, then at some point you need to sally forth with a bold opinion.

      So… What say I?

     These values--freedom of expression, the equality of all men and women, a government of both law and justice, and the right of everyone regardless of race, national origin, ethnic background, or religious belief to live their life in peace, to raise their families without fear or threat, to be treated with dignity, and to be allowed the pursuit of their happiness—are what I hold dear. I know that I am not alone and that many others share those same values.

    I trust that courage, if called upon, will not fail us.