On the American Front Democrats and small “d” democrats, even in the Republican Party, have consistently underrated the political genius of Donald Trump. He is…
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See, Ross Douthat, “What Is Joe Biden Thinking?”, New York Times, January 15, 2022. Ross Douthat has done an excellent job in summing up the…
Sometimes political situations and their implications are very clear to the objective observer, someone like the Observer who is far removed from the buzz of Washington, Twitter, and the latest “breaking news” on the Cable News networks. The Observer is a keen and unbiased commentator who reads many newspapers, both American and foreign, and who has been paying attention to political developments in the United States for a long time.
Drawing on this experience and his own original analysis, the Observer believes that there are three major problems that pose a challenge to American democracy, and that there are three active measures that the Democrats and “little d” democrats should take, now, in order to save the Republic.
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Taking down Trump is the single most important action the Democrats can take to safeguard American democracy in 2022 and 2024. Together with passing legislation prohibiting the knowing transmission of lies and disinformation on television and radio, and enacting voting rights legislation, indicting Trump is an essential action in any program to protect American democracy against the anti-democratic and authoritarian threat Trump and his supporters represent.
These three problems represent the greatest challenges to American democracy today.
These three urgent actions represent our best hopes for beating back the anti-democratic challenge before it is too late.
See, Michael Gerson, “What if the eventual Jan. 6 report is rigorous, compelling — and doesn’t really matter?” Washington Post, December 16, 2021 (3:17 p.m….
On January 13, 1898, French novelist Émile Zola published his famous letter entitled, “J’accuse” (I accuse), addressed to the President of the Republic, in which he denounced the government and its military command and their antisemitic leaders for prosecuting Alfred Dreyfus, a Captain of Jewish descent, on trumped up charges of treason. Dreyfus had been convicted in 1894, and at a subsequent retrial. Zola’s letter had a decisive impact on democracy and the rule of law in France.
In the United States, we now face a similar if not even graver moment in which the rule of law is at stake. It is a moment in which antisemitic and racist militants actively participate in a fascist conspiracy to overthrow the Constitution and the rule of law.
In these circumstances, the following letter is addressed to “Democrats “and political leaders in the United States, calling on them to act, vigorously and effectively, to defend American democracy.
The United States faces a problem similar in many ways, and different in many ways, to the problem faced by Great Britain, France, and the United States after the defeat of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in May, 1945.
Denazification
In their respective occupation zones, which included parts of Berlin, England, France, and America faced the daunting task of governing a population whose thinking and world view had been altered by 12 years of Nazi lies and propaganda, and the terror with which the Nazi regime had ruled as it seized all positions of power and influence in the country.
The cult of Adolf Hitler was very strong.The Western Allies needed to de-program the German population in their respective occupation zones, as a first step toward laying the groundwork for a future democratic state and society.
The Western Allies held certain advantages, including military occupation and control over all governmental decisions in the British, French, and American zones of occupation and their respective sectors in Berlin.
Importantly, they also held control over all means of mass communication, including newspapers and radio.
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(The Big Lie) is vaguely analogous to the “Stab-in-the-back” (“Dolchstoss”)myth Hitler and the Nazis spread in the 1920’s and early 1930’s in their drive to take power, which was ultimately successful in 1933. The “Dolchstoss” or “stab-in-the-back myth spread the totally false belief that Germany had lost world War I only as the result of betrayal by civilians on the home front, especially Jews, revolutionary socialists, and other Republican politicians.
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Detrumpification: What can be done?
What can be done? What can we learn from Germany’s experience?
The Democrats refuse to prosecute Donald Trump. Moreover, they enforce a conspiracy of silence under which not even the question of whether Trump should be prosecuted can be discussed, or even raised.
Meanwhile, Trump, who appears to have committed numerous felonies in full public view, is left free to hold rallies and breathe air into a growing fascist movement led by the Republican party and his supporters
President Joe Biden continues to stumble, to blow the opportunities his and the Democrats’ narrow victories in 2020 have afforded him.
Neither Biden nor the Democratic leaders seem to understand that fascist threat.
The country faces a fascist challenge supported by 35-40 million voters living in a propaganda universe, an alternate universe where facts and the truth do not hold sway, plus perhaps another 20 million cynical fellow travelers.
Nowhere are their leaders with the courage to stand up and defend our democracy by taking bold actions, such as indicting Trump.
There are people who will take advantage of other people when the latter are vulnerable. There are those who will take merciless advantage of hungry and thirsty people after a hurricane, by price-gouging.
There are those who will extract the last possible advantage from a dying man to give him what he needs to survive.
Senator Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) has shown himself to be such a man, squeezing the last dollar out of unemployment benefits from a poor family in Queens, or Chicago or Houston or Atlanta, to score points with the Trump supporters in his state. He doesn’t need to do this. He is not up for re-election until 2024.
No, there must be some darker motive at play here. Is he looking for a lucrative position in the private sector? The presidency of a university perhaps? Is he beholden to a certain donor or group of donors who hold his future in their hands? Could his motive be related to someone in his family?
Or does he simply enjoy being in the spotlight, and wielding the enormous power political fortune has placed in his hands?
