Breaking Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law states that the longer an online conversation occurs, the greater the chance that someone will compare their opponent to Hitler.  There is a corollary to the law that states whenever someone makes the Hitler comparison, the conversation is over, and the person making the Hitler comparison has lost the debate.

I have been very reluctant to call the Trump Administration "Nazis."  Nazis represent a uniquely evil chapter in human history, and there is a strong argument that what is happening to children along our southern border is not, in fact, close to the level of atrocity that Nazis committed.  These aren't death camps; this isn't Auschwitz.

The problem with this is that Auschwitz wasn't Auschwitz to start.  Germans created concentration camps, but they didn't invent them.  The Spanish used them against Cubans during the Cuban war for independence.  America used them against Filipinos during the Philippines War. Various countries have used some form of "reservation" system for ethnic minorities, obviously including the United States. The fact that two of those references - the Philippines War and the reservation system, not to mention Japanese Internment camps - are from American history goes a long way to discrediting the line "this is not who we are."  This is clearly who we were.  And it's also who the Nazis were before the Wannsee Conference of 1942 turned concentration camps into death camps. 

The Nazis of 1933-1938 were considered comical and cartoonish by a lot of people. They were dismissed as a threat; Hitler was a punchline.  And slowly but surely German institutions crumbled before the relentless onslaught of Hitler and the Nazi party.  Trump and his minions are like early stage Nazis.  They use language to dehumanize and "other" racial minorities - yesterday, Trump said America was "infested" with foreigners, language straight from the Goebbel's handbook. 

"This is not who we are." 

That sentiment is clearly going to come under great stress. First of all, it's clearly who we WERE.  We did it to the Filipinos, we did it to Native Americans, we did it to the Japanese. We built our national economy on the breaking up of African families in slavery.  It is very much who we were.

In my life time, we have tried to change that.  We apologized for Japanese internment.  We are trying to reckon with our legacy of brutality towards African Americans and Native Americans.  We thought we were making progress towards what Obama always liked to remind us was a "more perfect union."  Trumpistan has stripped away our belief in progress, which scares me.  The gains we have made in our lifetime are real, but they appear more fragile than I would have hoped for. 

My solace is that I do think that this is a breaking point for many Americans.  It's kids.  The counterargument I've heard is that we shrugged off Newtown, and that was white kids.  The problem with that is conflating the Republican Congress with America as a whole.  Americans ARE in favor of many gun control measures, and each shooting reinforces that.  We have - because of the majoritarian nature of Congress - conflated what the Republican base wants with what America wants.  Obama served as a buffer to shield Republicans from the consequences of catering to their base.  They could and did put forth the worst sort of laws and ideas, but Obama was there as a bulwark.  Now that the anti-Obama is in the White House, the Republican id is laid bare for all to see.

They don't like it. 

Yes, Trump will always retain the support of the Deplorables.  It is mathematically impossible for him to fall below 27% support.  And the more decent people call out Republicans, the more Republicans will cling to these loathsome policies. 

But there will be fewer Republicans.

There are two important things everyone must do. 

First, long term, register to vote and vote like people's lives and the future of this country depends on it, because it does.

Second, if you can get to a protest next Saturday, do it.  I've never been a big proponent of street protests, but this is a clear moment it needs to be done.  (Naturally, I'm working, because of course.)

We need to decide where we are on the road to our own Wannsee Conference.  We need to decide which vision of America must survive.