Conservatives, by definition, are slow to change, if at all. Changes with time and circumstances mark a progressive society. History is its own proof. We once burned so-called witches at the stake, ostracized left-handed people, disallowed a single woman from owning a credit card, and stared at an eclipse. Conservatism is not the sole purview of a political party, as suggested by the Southern Democrats who championed enslavement. Democratic racism during the 1800s was justified in the minds of its practitioners by what they believed was the economic necessity for slavery. In the early 1960s, Republican racism was tolerated by turning a blind eye in favor of political expediency. Being afraid can lead to monstrous decisions. The man some consider the father of liberalism, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was also the parent of Japanese internment.
I have read and heard critics describe Mr. Trump's demeanor in the New York falsifying of documents felony case as scared. Unfortunately, his fear makes him more dangerous to Democracy. When Godzilla, King Kong, and Frankenstein were frightened by villagers, hunters, and torch-carrying townspeople, they became less afraid and more dangerous. Before finally seating a jury, two picked jurors were rescinded, one out of fear she could be identified from published reports about her job and marital status. Judge Merchan refused to turn over the order by which witnesses would be called to Mr. Trump’s lawyers, surely in fear of Mr. Trump sending out a call to his minions to dox, threaten, and generally intimidate the witnesses. Mr. Trump uses the psychological tactic of telling his cult followers, like a Svengali, that he is standing in their place and that his sins are their sins.
A recent video is apropos of the blind loyalty in what I assume were once sane people.
After the grins and giggles subside, the danger of this type of unabashed admission of their lack of integrity and morality is what preceded the Jews to the trains and Blacks into the bowels of slave ships. All of this may sound hyperbolic, but I imagine so did German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller, who warned after Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933,
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
It would be instructive to remember that Hitler did not gain power through a violent revolution. He was elected on a platform of German First Nationalism. Pastor Niemöller, who often altered the victims of fascism in his impromptu speeches, recognized that no one is exempt from ruthless power. As we trudge along to either the road to ruin or freedom, Americans and the media (the fourth estate) need a wake-up call. Not that long ago, one would have thought that on the orders of a would-be dictator, thousands of people desecrating the halls of government and the ideas of liberty and democracy, and had it not been for luck and good fortune, may have hanged the Vice President of the United States, disqualification to run for the highest office in the land would not be a question. Instead, like the people in the video above, Trump’s irrational raves, threats to deport legal residents of the U.S., and cleansing government of anyone who is not blindly loyal to him, the zombie-like normalizing of Mr. Trump would make Pastor Martin Niemöller roll over in his robes.
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