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The Weimar Republic. Ring any bells? It didn’t last long. It’s been reviled as feckless, ineffectual and cowardly. A guy named Adolph ended that republic.
Richard Painter, White House chief ethics counsel under W. Bush calls our attention to the Weimar Republic. He does it as warning; a deja view of a cautionary tale. Mr Painter says that it’s the Weimar Republic all over again. Here.
There have been ample warnings of the similarities between the USA and Germany between the wars coming from many quarters since the rise of MAGA-dom. Stark warnings have even come from survivors of the Holocaust who fear the another fascist reich.
Caveats will apply, of course. One major caveat to espousing a complete identification with the Weimar Republic is that we have the history of their failure before us to consult. We must do that and not mentally pooh-pooh the parallels.
Everyday, we are inundated by lies; what Kellyanne Conway branded ‘alt/facts. False accounts of everything from COVID-19 to the contents of the Build Back Better Bill pour forth from the GOP, Fox Gnus, NewsMax, OAN, the Orange Mar-A-Lago MAGA-dope and his minions.
“The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact.” William A. Wallace, FDR’s VP before Truman and former Secretary of Agriculture and former Secretary of Commerce, observed in 1944. (Even in the midst of a World War against fascism, there were, evidently, fascists active in America.
Witness the despicable actions of Paul Gosar. Or MGT. Boebert. Brooks. Cruz. Graham. Guiliani, Stone. Meadows. We must stop pretending that they can be dealt with as honorable people. They have no honor, no sense of decency or ethics or social responsibility. They want power and if the 'subtle' tactics they’ve employed thus far don't get them what they want, they will resort to more desperate and violent means. Let's call it a 'putsch' rather than an insurrection and see how that plays.
Keep pretending that 'It Can't Happen Here' and watch it happen here. Let's start calling Jan.6th a 'putsch' rather than an insurrection and see if that gains traction.
