Friday, June 13, 2014

America as a Nazi state?


We’ve heard it a couple of years, like an innuendo floating around on social media. America is headed the same direction as Germany in the mid-1930s.  This dire prediction comes from all sides and ends of the political spectrum—conservatives blame President Obama; liberals blame the House of Representatives. I sort of ignored the whole thing, thinking “That would never happen in America.”

But a couple of recent incidents have changed my head-in-the-sand denial stance. One was the Congressman who suggested we stone to death all gays. Barbaric beyond words. And wasn’t there a suggestion of the death penalty for women who have abortions (in Texas, I believe—of course). The logic of that defies understanding. Has America sunk that low?

But then the stunning defeat of Eric Cantor caught me up short. I hold no brief for Cantor. He always seemed cold, calculating, and heartless. His defeat was a negative in some ways because, as someone suggested, “The devil we know vs. the one we don’t know.” That would be Mr. Brat I suppose. I have no idea who the Democratic candidate is.

But the really scary thing about Cantor’s defeat is how few votes were actually cast in the election. What that means to me is that if voters don’t wake up, the far right, Tea Partiers, wing nuts, whatever you want to call them, will take over this country. And then we will be headed toward the kind of regime Hitler instituted. They may not hate Jews (so much) but they hate gays, abortion, liberals, etc. It scares me even to think about it.

The key to me is that people have to get out and vote—I don’t care how you vote, just do it. The right-wing fringe is just that—a fringe. But they’re the ones voting. The rest of us seem apathetic—and that indeed is how the German citizenry were!

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