84 Years Ago Today, Adolf Hitler Came To Power After Losing the Popular Vote
The election results appeared at first to be a setback for the upstart candidate. Dismissed as a blow-hard and a rabble-rouser, many refused to take him seriously. Others came to his defense and argued that you shouldn’t take him ‘literally.’ Political leaders felt he could be contained and that even if he ever came to power his impact would be minimal. He lost the popular vote by a signficiant margin — not once, but twice in the preedcing year. Yet a series of events conspired to change the course of history and on January 30th, 1933, Adolf Hitler became the German Chancellor.
Almost immediately he began to crack down on civil liberties, consolodate his power, and reveal himself to be a man of his word — the candidate would in fact do what he preeched while campaigning.
A friend of his, Ernst Hanfstaengl observed: “He could develop grandiose ideas and be primitive to the point of banality. He was able to convince millions that his iron will and strength of character alone would guarantee victory, and yet even as German chancellor he remained a bohemian whose unreliability had those who worked with him pulling out their hair.”
Sound familiar? It should.
The world is recoiling at the blithering stupidity and ignorance of President Trump. His ill-conceived executive order to halt foriegners from entering our country is rooted in his own xenophopia. The President doesn’t read books. Maybe now is a good time to start. He might learn a thing or two that isn’t covered on Fox News. Under the guise of making America safe, he has instead made the world a much more dangerous place.
Make no mistake about it, Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. It would be unfair to say otherwise. Hitler was a virulent anti-semetic who did little to hide his feelings towards Jews. He made his opinions plainly clear in his speeches and in Mein Kampf (maybe that’s a good first book for the President to skim). However, Trump’s tactics, the way he sees the world, his belief in himself (and only himself) as savior of our nation, and his limited spehere of information gathering, all bear a Hitlarian reprose.
But unlike the fledgling democracy of German in that era, ours is much stronger. That arguement will now be put to the test. It must now rise to its greatest test and resist against all that challenges who we are as a people. In the past 10 days we have seen the worst of America from the White House. But we have also seen the best of America from coast to coast. Just as it was in Germany in January of 1933, so it is now with America in January of 2017. A dark chapter in German history was written. We know how it ended. How will this chapter end for us? That is for us to decide. What will you do?
