DER FUHRER TAKES OVER

DER FUHRER TAKES OVER

We can’t get rid of him, now.  He’s everywhere. On all the newscasts, on the Internet, on every page of the newspapers.  Just like prewar Germany.    

Here, I’ve copied a letter from the Los Angeles Times: 

“We judge prewar Germans harshly for not seeing Adolf Hitler’s racism as categorically disqualifying. A large minority of German citizens voted for him because he offered the country hope, and they overlooked his racism.

A large minority of Americans have just elected a president who offered them hope, overlooking an attitude toward race and torture that ought to have been categorically disqualifying.

We should be just as concerned about the one as we were about the other. Neither had any prior experience in governing. Both showed dictatorial tendencies early. Both were persuaded that their passionate followers in effect gave them a blank check.

I can hardly believe that I will be living through the self-destruction of two aspiring empires in a single lifetime.”  Siegfried Othmer (Woodland Hills). 

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I’m with Siegfried Othmer all the way.

I can’t get my head around this.  I’m trying, but I can’t accept it.

Like Othmer, perhaps like half our voters, each day I’m struck anew that as a free society we’ve failed. How could so many “others” be seduced into taking on as our leader a man like . . . well, a man like him?   

It’s not as if Trump was hiding: He never hid at all. Like the Fuhrer before him, he gave us plenty of warning. He shouted, he insulted, he condemned, he lied, he exposed his worst traits (if not on the stump, in taped comments). He tweeted anger, a vicious drive to “get even,”  a deep scorn of women.  He spewed ignorance of science  (think Global Warming), disdain for international treaties, contempt for illegals, admiration of the NRA and Putin, plus his belief that “only I” can solve certain problems--because I know more than the generals  . . .

According to columnist Michael Hiltzik in Wednesday’s Business section of the L.A. Times, our president-elect was lucky to escape his Trump University lawsuit with a $25 million settlement. The facts suggest a fraud so blatant Trump could have been impeached. 

Since then, the news has gotten scarier . . . Last Monday, Trump’s “off the record” threatening of the press.  Next, a stream of re-tread appointments of failed politicians. Now, worst of all, the possible selection of Judge William H. Pryor, Jr., for the Supreme Court. Pryor called Roe vs Wade, “the worst abomination in the history of constitutional law. . . ”  Try to explain this news to our daughters.

I can’t help asking—What can we do to make this go away?