Why I Still Talk to Jesus -- In Spite of Everything
picture composite by theodysseyonline.com
According to press reports, when a heckler interrupted Trump, he openly invited violence. “You know what they used to do with guys like that when they were in a place like this? They’d be carried out on a stretcher, folks,” Trump snarled.
Moments later Trump saw the protester was smiling as he was marched from the room by Trump’s guards and Trump raged: “I’d like to punch him in the face, I tell you that.”
With a promise to build a wall to keep Mexican “rapists” out, and a promise to ban all Muslims from coming to the USA Trump enters territory that recalls the rise of Nazism.
When Trump says: “I will build a great wall – and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words…” he echoes Hitler.
Nazis forced Jews to pay their own deportation costs.
French prosecutor Edgar Faure told the War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg that Nazi authorities in France made Jews pay the expenses of their own deportation to the concentration camps where hundreds met death.
Like Trump, Nazi propagandists contributed to the regime’s policies by publicly identifying groups for exclusion, inciting hatred and justifying their pariah status to the populace. Germans who longed for unity, national pride and greatness joined the Nazi Party “To make Germany great again.”
Many in Trump’s base of white, working-class voters feel threatened by immigrants, so Trump’s final solution to that, whether with Mexico (build a wall) or the Islamic world (keep them out), speaks to white hate and fear.
Trump joins in the long tradition of what Hofstadter had termed in 1964 “the paranoid style in American politics,” in his well-known analysis of an American far-right that believed vast conspiracies were undermining the United States.
As a Washington Post editorial noted: “Trump’s loathsome [comments] in which he excused violence against a Hispanic man in Boston as “passionate” acts of “people who are following me,” taps into a dark vein in American history and merits special attention.”
In a Boston incident, two brothers were charged with using a metal pole to assault a 58-year-old Hispanic man. The man, who was homeless, was left with a broken nose and other injuries to his face, arms and chest. “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported,” one of the brothers, Scott Leader, told police, the Boston Globe reported.
When Trump was told of the incident, in which the brothers also are alleged to have urinated on the man before beating him, he said: “It would be a shame. . . . I will say that people who are following me are very passionate. They love this country and they want this country to be great again. They are passionate.”
At the Washington Post noted:
“Recall the Southern politicians of the past century who were apologists for lynchings. Rep. Charles E. Bennett of Florida, who said he condemned such violence, nonetheless explained that lynchings occurred because Southerners were aggrieved at the meddling of Congress. Others, more coarsely, cited the rape of white women by black men as having naturally incited a lynch mob.”
When Trump says:
“I’m going to bring jobs back from China. I’m going to bring jobs back from Mexico and from Japan, where they’re all — every country throughout the world — now Vietnam, that’s the new one. They are taking our jobs. They are taking our wealth… We’re going to bring that money back,” it is no stretch to know he’s reusing the old Nazi machine ploy, he is tapping into an old Nazi stratagem.
On April 7th, 1933, the German government issued an order firing all civil service workers not of “Aryan” descent. This was the first instance of discrimination on the basis of “race” which was consistent with German law.
Long before the actual Holocaust started, city governments “responded” to the Jews “taking their jobs” by passing other laws discriminating against Jews.
In Frankfurt, Jewish teachers were excluded from universities, and Jewish performers were barred from the stage and concert halls. A decree was issued defining “non-Aryans” as those who were descended from “non-Aryan” parents or grandparents, even if only one grandparent was “non-Aryan.” This was all done to “Make Germany great again” and to “take back German jobs” from “those people.”
Or as Trump repeated this Nazi race theme: “People are streaming across the border, and sometimes it’s the drug dealers, and what’s happening now, the drug dealers are coming in, and that’s a big problem. They’re coming in and they’re killing.”
When Bernie Sanders allowed members of the Black Lives Matter group to speak at an event of his Trump reacted with scorn and by threatening violence.
Speaking during a press conference Trump said it was “disgusting” that Sanders had allowed these pro-black black protesters to even speak.
“I thought that was disgusting,” Trump said. He continued, “That showed such weakness, the way he was taken away by two young women. The microphone – they just took the whole place over!”
Trump said he would never allow protesters to interrupt one of his events. Trump said: “That will never happen with me. I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself, or if other people will. But that was a disgrace.”
A Black Lives matter protester was kicked and pushed as he was forcibly removed from a Trump rally in Birmingham. Trump yelled from the stage “Get him the hell out of here!”
The SA (Sturmabteilung or Storm Detachment) was better known as the Brownshirts or Storm Troopers. (The SA got their nickname from the color of the shirts they wore.)
From 1921 to 1933 the SA disrupted the meetings of Adolf Hitler’s political opponents as well as defended the halls where Hitler was making a speech in public. According to the Nuremberg Military Tribunal, the SA was made up of “ruffians” and “bullies”. However, it played a very important role in the first years of the Nazi Party….
The question is WHEN not IF Trump will incite deadly violence.
It used to be hyperbole to compare Republican Party white conservatives to fascists. Not anymore.
What was once fringe white hate group and “militia” rhetoric is now at the heart of the GOP… and it is winning.
The mask has slipped.
The GOP is the party of hate and it is soon going to be the party of sanctioned violence against opponents.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. His latest book —WHY I AM AN ATHEIST WHO BELIEVES IN GOD: How to give love, create beauty and find peace
Available now on Amazon
Follow Frank on Twitter www.twitter.com/frank_schaefferSee Frank’s paintings http://www.frankschaefferart.com/Follow Frank on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/frank.schaeffer.16Contact Frank at http://www.frankschaeffer.com
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