My suspicions began years ago with once and soon to be President Donald Trump during his first campaign with his racist and occasionally antisemitic comments, his encouragement of violence against political opponents, as well as the revelation that his late former wife Ivanna said that he keep a copy of Hitler’s speeches beside his bed. That was followed up by his response to the Neo-Nazis at Charlottesville in 2017, his policy of separating families on the border, locking their children in cages inside warehouses with no climate control, and then letting them disappear into the country never to see their parents again. The children were probably trafficked to church related charities in the United States while most of the parents were sent back to Mexico or the Central American countries never to see their children again.
But that not all. His companions like Steve Bannon, political appointees like Michael Flynn and Sebastian Gorka, and a host of others including the Heritage Foundation, numerous politically motivated Christian Nationalist preachers, and Nazi inspired podcasters and bloggers continually extol Nazi and Fascist ideas and even Hitler. Then, there was the building up to January 6th and the attack on the Capitol, instigating by Trump and executed by a mob of Trump’s supporters that included Neo-Nazi, White Supremacist, and Christian Nationalists, and violent militia groups including the Proud Boys, Patriot National, and the Oath Keepers. All of which support Nazi and Fascist goals.
After Trump began to campaign again, his fascist and violent rhetoric came to the fore, likewise his praise of fascist dictators including Vladimir Putin, Victor Orban and others. I could go on. But then, last week, within hours of each other Elon Musk and J.D. Vance were tweeting their support for the AfD, or the Alternative für Deutschland Party in Germany. From its inception I recognized it as a new incarnation of the Nazi Party. I was in Germany as it began its first campaigns for office and from their advertisements and the speeches and interviews of their leaders. That is an advantage of being relatively fluent in German and extremely knowledgeable about German history, politics and culture. When Musk and Vance tweeted out that the AfD was the “last hope for Germany” and similar language, was an endorsement of Naziism.
Since Trump admires Fascists and Nazis, is supported by them, and speaks in their language I assume that he is a Nazi in all but name. Likewise I had my suspicions about Musk for quite a while. Over the past year he has posted many racist and occasionally antisemitic tweets, and he has deep ties to Putin, Orban, and the Communist Chinese, none of whom are our friends or our democracy. Vance, has bothered me for a while. While he converted to an extremely conservative branch of Roman Catholicism while married to an Indian woman who he never insisted convert to Christianity in any form, but then she hails from the Brahmin caste. They are the top tier of Indian society and have been for millennia, and they despise the lower castes. That kind of fits in Trump’s MAGA leadership, especially his senior advisors and supporters.
Now, Trump, Vance, Musk, Sebastian Gorka, Stephen Miller, and a host of others are descending on the White House. In under a month the they and their Nazi supporters will be there and in charge. Their fascist and Neo-Nazi militia supporters will become sworn deputies of Border Czar Tom Homan, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and the Justice Department.
To paraphrase the words of Jimmy Buffett’s song Fruitcakes:
Nazis in the White House, Nazis on the Streets, Nazis in the media and on old all Wall Street.
History doesn’t exactly repeat itself but it rhymes. Americans chose not to listen to the pleas of former members of Trump’s first administration and knowingly elected a convicted felon to be president.
The question now is whether they will cheer when he begins to implement mass deportations, tariffs, and decides that social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and vaccines are even worth having. None of this will bring down the price of eggs or make housing more affordable. Trump has no plan to help American live better on day one.
There is a whole lot of “obedience in advance” by media moguls like Jeff Bezos (who owns the WP) that was warned of in Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” that we need to wake up.