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I can’t imagine any of us suffers from a lack of information.
If anything, it’s the opposite, a surfeit of opinions and sources so that we rarely make time to think about what we are reading/hearing.
And, apparently, a lot of us are having trouble recognizing fact from fiction.
Which is why I’m introducing you to Heather Cox Richardson, an impeccable source. I subscribe to her daily blog; it is invaluable.
She recently shared the story of Dorothy Thompson, an American journalist (and wife of Sinclair Lewis) and author who met, and interviewed, Adolph Hitler before the outbreak of WW2.
Professor Richardson shares Thompson’s thoughts on Hitler, the rapid rise of fascism and how the German people came to embrace both.
Her words are instructive:
“No people ever recognize their dictator in advance…. He always represents himself as the instrument for expressing the Incorporated National Will. When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model. If anyone turned up here in a fur hat, boots and a grim look he would be recognized and shunned…. But when our dictator turns up, you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.”
“Chancellor Hitler is no longer a man, he is a religion.”
Hmmm…who does that sound like?
Ms Thompson also writes about her expulsion from Germany by Hitler because she had dared to disparage him:
“My offense was to think that Hitler is just an ordinary man, after all. That is a crime against the reigning cult in Germany, which says Mr. Hitler is a Messiah sent by God to save the German people…. To question this mystic mission is so heinous that, if you are a German, you can be sent to jail. I, fortunately, am an American, so I merely was sent to Paris. Worse things can happen….”
These are especially fraught times in America, because of the upcoming election.
We should pay attention to what the candidates say out loud. This is from today’s post by Professor Richardson:
“On Saturday, September 7, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump predicted that his plan to deport 15 to 20 million people currently living in the United States would be “bloody.” He also promised to prosecute his political opponents, including, he wrote, lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and election officials. Retired chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is “a fascist to the core…the most dangerous person to this country.”
Hitler never hid his desire to take over as a dictator, nor his plan to kill every Jew in Europe.
Vote carefully. Millions of people, including some we know and love, may be affected by our votes.
Every vote matters this time!