ARE WE IN CRISIS?
July 6, 2024
UPDATES as of July 18, 2024
Do we face a situation similar to what the German Weimar Republic faced in early 1933? That was the year the Adolph Hitler was appointed as Chancellor of Germany. Now, let's stipulate that Americans get confused about how Hitler came to power. Chancellors were not elected, so Hitler was not. President Hindenburg appointed him. The previous Chancellor, Von Papen, was already ruling under an emergency decree. A devoted right-wing nationalist himself, Von Papen convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor and Von Papen as Vice-Chancellor. Von Papen assured Hindenburg that he could control Hitler. Of course, he could not. Von Papen is one of the few high-level officials that survived both the Third Reich and the Nuremberg trials. But that does not make his moves in 1932 and 1933 any less cynical and it does not make him a "good guy.". He convinced an aging and possibly cognitively impaired Hindenburg to put Hitler into office. The rest of the story is fairly well-known.
Like a lot of folks, I am hesitant to make Nazi Germany comparisons with our time in America in 2024. The United States is not Weimar Germany. Our institutions are stronger. We have a mostly fair justice system. We do not lock up people simply for their beliefs. But, my fear is that if Donald Trump is elected, we could look a lot more like post-Weimar Germany. After all, Trump has already said he would use the Department of Justice to prosecute his political foes. He has said that one of his prominent Republican critics, former Congresswoman Liz Cheney, should be tried. He suggested through a "ReTruth" that Cheney should be tried in a televised military tribunal. That seems a lot like the 1930s in both Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union. The ability to communicate repression on television is something that would have left both Hitler and Stalin salivating.
UPDATE: The big update, of course, is that on July 13, a lone individual with an AR-15 attempted to assassinate Donald Trump. No one should see that as good news. No one should make jokes about that. In fact, if you listened to what President Joe Biden said, he certainly does not think it is a joke. But here is what we know so far: the individual assailant did succeed in murdering one man attending the Trump rally. That is not only tragic, but ridiculous that a shooter could somehow access a rooftop line of sight. We also know that this assailant acted alone. He was a lone 20-year-old with easy access to a weapon. That political murder seems to be accepted by some as legitimate prompted me to post on Twitter that "We are living in the final year of the Weimar Republic." That is not a good thing.
True to form, Donald Trump and his followers want to assert that this assassination attempt is some kind of Democratic plot. There is zero basis in fact for that claim, nor will any ever be produced. But producing evidence is not what Donald Trump does. The other claim is that people who say Donald Trump is dangerous to democracy (I am one of them) somehow inspired this 20-year-old to attempt the assassination. That is silly. In fact, Trump and his apologists, like Stephen Miller, want to silence political speech. We cannot let that happen.
But here is the thing. President Joe Biden is showing obvious signs of age-related cognitive impairment. His debate performance in late June was both sad and frightening. But now, a lot of Democrats are circling the wagons, criticizing members of the party who suggest that the President bow out of the campaign. If one goes to any social media site, erstwhile Biden supporters are called any manner of names for suggesting that the Democrats nominate another candidate. I suppose I would, as well. Of course, I actually did a Biden Campaign commercial in 2020, that ran in Nebraska's Second Congressional District just prior to the election. You can still find it on YouTube. I am a Biden guy. But I am also an American who is repulsed by the prospect of another Trump presidency.
UPDATE: President Biden tested positive for COVID as of July 17. In spite of the ill-informed belief that COVID is no more dangerous than the flu (that is a lie), it is particularly serious when a person of Joe Biden's age contracts it. Yes, he is President, and one presumes he gets the best care, including Paxlovid and other drugs. Still, this is concerning.
We should note that Donald Trump's speeches are also a hot mess. He routinely garbles words, he routinely gets facts wrong, he routinely confuses the identities of people. He has been speaking like this for as long as most of us can remember. The Republican debates in 2016 between candidates were appalling because candidates who could make logical sense and were prepared to debate (whether one agrees with their positions or not) were beat by a man who clearly did not prepare, and who tossed out nonsense assertions in every single debate. The man who clearly does not care if he is prepared or not was somehow elected. That was then. Now is now. In my opinion, no matter who is elected in 2024, we will probably see the death (by natural causes) of the President during the next term of office. President Biden is not well, and Donald Trump is a walking cholesterol bomb who is also not healthy. And they are both old. Let us just acknowledge that. We all die. If we all live a long life, we are blessed. But we all die, and older people are closer to that event than younger people.
That means we are left with ideas. It is astounding that numerous officials in Trump's first administration will not endorse him. This includes Vice President Mike Pence. It includes the previous Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, several members of the White House staff. What's up with that? It is more than likely that they realize Trump has authoritarian tendencies as his operating philosophy. And now, those tendencies are backed by something called Project 2025. Read it. This is nothing if not a long manifesto suggesting that all of government should be brought under the strong control of the executive branch. It is anathema to the main concept of the Constitution: limitation and separation of powers. The Founders feared concentration of power. That is why, in fact, they invented an arrangement that is often inefficient. It does not look like a business. There is no way someone would devise a business with so many veto points built in. But the purpose might not have been efficiency. The purpose was preventing the centralization of power.
Now, we could talk forever about what a despicable man Donald Trump is. He is. He is one of the few persons in public life who comes across as a sociopath--a person openly devoid of conscience. But that is not why I am afraid. I am afraid of the ideas that Trump will bring. I am afraid that the U.S. Military, in which I served for 26 years, will come to look like Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard. It will become a loyalty force with loyal generals at the top. I am afraid that even mundane parts of the government will become infected with the Trump Loyalty Germ. When the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the unemployment numbers, will these numbers need to be approved by the President? When the Census does its counts and surveys, will the findings first need to pass muster with the administration? When scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration study climate patterns, will they be prevented from releasing findings? That is Donald Trump and it is Project 2025.
UPDATE: The Republican National Convention is this week. It appears that Immigration is the strong focus area. There is a prominent sign held by many attendees to the Convention. It is red and says in bold letters: "MASS DEPORTATIONS NOW." What does that mean? It means exactly what Donald Trump and his advocates say it means. It means using racial profiling to round up Hispanic-looking people and throwing them into camps. It also necessarily means suspension of rights of the accused and trials. I am not sure how anyone cannot see that.
As an administration, the Biden administration has accomplished a lot. A few: the Inflation Reduction Act (it is misnamed, as it really is a very strong piece of environmental legislation); the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act; the CHIPS Act; the reduction of insulin costs for people using Medicare. And Democrats should certainly advertise these accomplishments Joe Biden has a hell of a strong legacy. But if now he cannot run on it, if he is handled by his people so that he only appears in stage-managed events, it seems that voters will see through it.
So, in my opinion, President Biden should withdraw from the campaign. The Democrats need to strongly talk up the accomplishments of the last four years. The Democrats need a strong and energetic candidate who will get in the face of Donald Trump's bullshit and call it what it is. The Democrats need a candidate who will not flinch from telling the American voters that we cannot survive another Trump presidency, because we cannot. I do not care what Trump does. Let him keep holding his rallies. Let his idiot sons keep posting on social media. But the other party needs to have a candidate who will challenge this guy at every step of the way. Otherwise, historians could be writing volumes about us decades from now.
UPDATE: I love Joe Biden. Joe Biden was the right man in 2020. Joe Biden saved our democracy. But Joe should not have run again, and he needs to serve the nation now by passing the torch.
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