Comments on: “Never has a party abandoned and fled its principles and deeply held beliefs so quickly as my party did in the face of the nativist juggernaut,” https://www.habitablezone.com/2018/03/15/never-has-a-party-abandoned-and-fled-its-principles-and-deeply-held-beliefs-so-quickly-as-my-party-did-in-the-face-of-the-nativist-juggernaut/ Fri, 03 Apr 2026 22:41:18 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: hank https://www.habitablezone.com/2018/03/15/never-has-a-party-abandoned-and-fled-its-principles-and-deeply-held-beliefs-so-quickly-as-my-party-did-in-the-face-of-the-nativist-juggernaut/#comment-41211 hank Fri, 16 Mar 2018 12:38:12 +0000 https://habitablezone.com/?p=70006#comment-41211 Nativism plays the same role in 21st century America as did anti-Semitism in 1930's Germany. Before any of you self-righteously rush to present detailed examples why it does not, note I did not say it was the same, but that it played the same role. Nativism and anti-Semitism are not the same thing, but both can be used by demagogues to inflame frightened and disoriented masses and used for scapegoating. As in the German analogue, neither Nativism nor anti-Semitism were invented by the demagogues, they both existed in the fabric of the societies, and they were the result of complex historical reasons and processes. But they were both being invoked and embraced in the same way, for the same reasons and with very much the same result. They may differ in detail and virulence, but it is the same disease. It is Fascism. No, we don't have the Nuremberg Laws and Kristalnacht and Death Camps, (or the Gulag, the Cultural Revolution or the Killing Fields) and there is no talk of a Final Solution, but I am convinced that none of these can be ruled out here. Look deep into the faces of those that shout the loudest and you can see it plain as day. Hitler and the Nazis arose in one of the most advanced and culturally sophisticated societies in Europe, the same culture that gave us Bach and Goethe and Einstein. We have no guarantees that it can't happen here, and every reason to believe it can. At the end of the Second World War the world promised itself that evil would never arise again. It has, in several places and at different times, in regimes of both the Right and Left, in both atheistic and religious societies. It has arisen in a variety of different forms, and in different ways, as it adjusts itself to different peoples, places and times. It may be naive to hope it can't happen again, but at least we, as Americans, for the love of our country, must work to make sure that the next time it doesn't happen here. This is not what we want our country to be remembered for. <img src="https://artandresponse.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/alt-reich-1.jpg" alt="." /> Nativism plays the same role in 21st century America as did anti-Semitism in 1930′s Germany. Before any of you self-righteously rush to present detailed examples why it does not, note I did not say it was the same, but that it played the same role. Nativism and anti-Semitism are not the same thing, but both can be used by demagogues to inflame frightened and disoriented masses and used for scapegoating. As in the German analogue, neither Nativism nor anti-Semitism were invented by the demagogues, they both existed in the fabric of the societies, and they were the result of complex historical reasons and processes. But they were both being invoked and embraced in the same way, for the same reasons and with very much the same result. They may differ in detail and virulence, but it is the same disease. It is Fascism.

No, we don’t have the Nuremberg Laws and Kristalnacht and Death Camps, (or the Gulag, the Cultural Revolution or the Killing Fields) and there is no talk of a Final Solution, but I am convinced that none of these can be ruled out here. Look deep into the faces of those that shout the loudest and you can see it plain as day.

Hitler and the Nazis arose in one of the most advanced and culturally sophisticated societies in Europe, the same culture that gave us Bach and Goethe and Einstein. We have no guarantees that it can’t happen here, and every reason to believe it can. At the end of the Second World War the world promised itself that evil would never arise again. It has, in several places and at different times, in regimes of both the Right and Left, in both atheistic and religious societies. It has arisen in a variety of different forms, and in different ways, as it adjusts itself to different peoples, places and times.

It may be naive to hope it can’t happen again, but at least we, as Americans, for the love of our country, must work to make sure that the next time it doesn’t happen here. This is not what we want our country to be remembered for.
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