Yep, it's time for a repeal of Godwin's law, because nothing short of "fascist" captures the essence of Trump's proposal to bar all Muslims - even US citizens temporarily abroad - from entering the United States.
The Donald repeated his remarks to standing ovations last night, though it's not clear whether the crowd was chanting HEIL! or just SIEG! He did clarify that he would allow Muslim members of the US military to return home, a position modeled on Hindenburg's progressive policy of exempting Jewish war veterans from the first wave of Nazi laws.
Consider if you can these policy proposals:
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have (majority ethnic group) blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no (member of specified minority religion) can be a countryman.
5. Those who are not citizens must live in (nation state X) as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.
7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then non-citizens must be expelled from (nation state X).
8. Any further immigration of non-(majority ethnic group) must be prevented. We demand that all non-(majority ethnic group) who have entered (nation state X) since (tragic date in national history), shall be compelled to leave (nation state X) immediately.
24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the (majority ethnic group) race.
Pretty simple: Deny citizenship to an unpopular minority - and we're already talking about repealing 14th Amendment citizenship and railing against "anchor babies." Next step: deny human rights to non-citizens.
And, just for fun, let's bash the media:
23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press.Losers.
These are, of course, from Adolf Hitler's 25 Point Nazi Party platform. But they're easily recognizable as mainstream points in American political debate today, and it's Donald Trump who put them there, shoving the Overton Window so far to the right that we can turn our head and see the Reichstag burning.
Mass deportation used to be only whispered, not openly discussed. Even Steve King only went so far as to imply it. Now it's been mainstreamed, and as MSNBC's Christopher Hayes noted yesterday. "Pretty soon 'not rounding people up' will be the moderate position." I think we're already there, and I'm expecting the Anschluss of Canada any day now.
Am I hysterical here? Well, we're living in a district where the lone Republican congressional candidate is openly talking about killing people. You know who else...
A small part of me wants to see the Republican Party sink with Trumpism. Let them lose a Goldwater landslide, let President Hillary or Bernie or Martin sweep in with a filibuster proof majority, fix some stuff, and appoint Supreme Court judges who will sit till 2050.
But a bigger part of me wants America to back away from the edge.
One of the best parts of working on the caucuses this year has been building my relationships with the local Republicans. I know they are better people than this.
It's simply not good for democracy to have one of two major parties with less than zero (see what I did there) appeal to large and growing segments of the population. The sooner Trumpism is stopped, the sooner we can regain a more functional political culture.
6 comments:
Thanks John Deeth for saying what needed to be said. Trump is out to destroy our country.
I keep wondering (wishfully) if he's going to suddenly get serious and point out that what he's been spouting is fascism, lifted straight from the third reich, and supporting him makes all those people no better than basis. Then (in my beautiful dream) he'd shout "Wake up, America! We're better than this!", and proceed to actually educate them.
"Basis" was actually "nazis". Thank you, autocorrect.
Thanks for clarifying that returning soldiers who are Muslim would be allowed to actually come home. I did not hear that last night, and was really wondering.
I wonder if Trump isn't all about the Overton Window, he is doing a good job at making Ted Cruz look moderate by comparison. Whether or not that is his goal Trump's popularity underscores the importance of Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary. Trump not only energizes potential voters whose only political concerns are nativist (I know this to be true anecdotally) but without Sanders on the other side of the spectrum Trump would also discourage potential Democratic voters to the left of Clinton who would see the whole process as increasingly corrupt. Republicans have been jerking the window to the right for over twenty years and it has worked to their benefit on both ends of the spectrum, why stop now? Thank God for Bernie Sanders.
You're not going to publish my post?
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