Never Again?

This morning I woke up and sent this paragraph to a group of friends with whom I share a political email chain….

“Too many people think that the ideological spectrum is a line and not enough realize that it’s actually a circle. This is what allows people on the Left to act as awfully as they want, secure in the knowledge that as long as they are on the Left, they can never become a Fascist. But they can, and in many cases, they are… because it is a circle.”

So many on the Left delight in what they consider the unique evil of the Nazis because they’ve convinced themselves that the Nazi Party’s position on the far ideological Right is the foundation of its evil. “That could NEVER happen on the Left”, they’ll tell you.

Well… let’s leave aside for a moment the fact that “Nazi” is shorthand for National Socialism, and instead come to grips with the fact that the evil of the Nazis was not unique… The Maoist Chinese, the Stalinist Soviets, The Imperialist Japanese, the Khmer Rouge Cambodians, The North Korean Kims, The Khameini Iranians, Ottoman Turks in Armenia, the Jacobin French, all committed horrific attrocities in the name of their Ideologies.

Beacuse once you convince yourself that the other side is evil and represents an existential threat to Democracy, Freedom, your racial identity group, your religious group, your job, your way of life, or whatever, pick your poison (literally), then it follows logically that no action taken to stop them can ever be considered out of bounds, up to and including violence.

This is not a thought progression that is the exclusive purview of the Right. History has shown this over-and-over, and as much as I hate to re-affirm Godwin’s Law here in my very first blog post, I see it happening again on The American Left.

Read the following quote carefully:

“There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that – can you understand what Biden meant to us. Because he said to us: ‘Lift your heads! Be proud to be Americans! There are devils among us. Conservatives, Trumpists, Proud Boys, White People! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.’ It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few ideological minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Biden himself will be discarded… sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password.”

Now of course this was not a speech delivered at the Inauguration last week. This is actually a quote from JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, with the targets of Hitler’s hate changed to make a point.

In the movie, this is Ernst Janning’s description of Pre-Nazi Germany, not Post-Trump America. But it does not take a great leap to see how the same argument could be used to create a Totalitarian state here in our current American moment. And in fact, in the wake of Biden’s victory, many prominent figures on the Ideological Left have indeed called for a purging of Trumpism specifically, and of Conservatism more broadly, as an existential threat to “our Democracy.” We must create lists, they tell us. We must censor Conservative websites, news networks and radio, we must track anyone who supports anything even remotely Trumpist and they must be driven from the public square. Deplatform them so they cannot earn an income online. Confront them in public. Email their employers and get them fired. Tell their banks not to do business with them. If you have Trump supporters in your family, inform on them. Expose them. Put them in re-education camps. They must be destroyed!!!

That’s how easy it is.

Being on the Left is not an antidote to Authoritariansim and it does not mean that anything you do or say automatically puts you on the right side of History. We all have a Totalitarian inside us and it’s very easy, and sometimes quite satisfying, to flip that switch. I would urge everyone to remember that in the coming years, to resist that Totalitarian impulse, to call out politicians who call for it even when they are on your side, or we are in for some very dark times indeed.