Could IT Happen Here?

By Robin M. Itzler

Could IT happen in the United States?  Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi said, “It happened, therefore it can happen again.  It can happen everywhere.”

Only days after one white Minneapolis police officer used excessive force on a black suspect resulting in the man’s death — condemned throughout the United States — the catalyst for protests, riots, and looting stopped being about that incident.  It quickly morphed into a cultural revolution to destroy America’s Judeo-Christian foundation.  As Black Lives Matter founder “comrade” Patrisse Cullors said in a 2015 Real News Network interview: “We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on ideological theories.”

In a June 19 interview, Cullors reiterated BLM’s Marxist goals, adding that its major objective is to “get Trump out.”

On June 24, Greater New York Black Lives Matter chairperson Hawk Newsome threateningly warned, “If this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it.  All right?  And I could be speaking … figuratively.  I could be speaking literally. … I just want black liberation and black sovereignty, by any means necessary.”

Timid Republican elected officials mistakenly believe that removing Confederate statues from the Capitol will quell rioters.  The Grand Old Party’s overall silence emboldens anarchist organizations like Black Lives Matter the way silence emboldened Germany’s Nazis.  As Albert Einstein said, “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” 

The Jewish Einstein would know.  In 1933, he renounced his German citizenship for political reasons before emigrating to America.  Had Einstein remained in Germany, he probably would have been made into a lampshade at a Nazi death camp, his genius lost.

Sadly, the Republican Party and many of its elected officials are quieter than a child waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.  They seem to have collectively decided that ignoring anarchists is the best route to a quick return to posh country club fundraisers.

Ignoring the mob didn’t work so well in Germany in the 1930s.  Too many Germans disregarded the vicious mob attacks (on people and property), hoping the violence would eventually fizzle out.

Surprisingly, German Jews did not take Hitler seriously during his early years.  In 1925, only a few German Jewish newspapers even bothered to review Mein Kampf.  As Raphael Ahren wrote in The Times of Israel article “Why Jews Didn’t Blink an Eye When Mein Kampf First Came Out”:

When Mein Kampf came out for the first time, German Jews hardly noticed it.  They certainly did not view it as a threat to their existence, or even as a harbinger of a changing political climate in the Fatherland.

Rahel Straus, a physician who grew up in Karlsruhe, Germany and emigrated to Palestine in 1933, wrote in her memoirs:

We passed by the boxes of the Volkisher Beobachter (the official organ of the Nazi Party), read the incendiary articles and indignantly continued working.  We didn’t realize that this Volkisher Beobachter was one of the most read newspapers in Germany at the time.  We saw Hitler’s Mein Kampf on display in every bookstore; none of us bought it, none of us read it.

Yet everything Hitler planned to do was detailed in Mein Kampf just as everything anarchists plan to do in the United States is available online and in books, starting with the anarchist bible: Saul Alinksy’s 1971 book Rules for Radicals.

Alinsky wrote, “It’s not enough to persuade them of your competence, talents and courage. … They must also have faith in your courage to fight the oppressive establishment.”  Alinsky stressed the importance of continually changing the end goal so there is never a resolution to the conflict.

• Removing Confederate statues quickly became toppling presidential statues and desecrating military monuments.
• “Reform the police” was quickly replaced with “defund the police,” and now it’s “abolish the police.”

Should police departments disband (due to budget cuts and/or officers leaving), crime will go up.  Eventually, something would have to replace the hodgepodge of citizenry efforts to maintain law and order.  In 1936, all German police forces — traditional police, the SS, and the Gestapo (then the SD) — were centralized under Heinrich Himmler, who was the head of the SS and chief of all German police.  The German people welcomed this action, believing that less law meant more order.

Laugh or cry?

One reason Hitler wasn’t taken seriously during the early 1930s was because the world media presented Hitler (and Mussolini) as caricatures to be laughed at more than feared.  In “How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler,” Dr. John Broich wrote in the December 13, 2016 issue of Smithsonian magazine:

But the main way that the press defanged Hitler was by portraying him as something of a joke.  He was a “nonsensical screecher” of “wild words” whose appearance, according to Newsweek magazine, “suggests Charlie Chaplin.”  His “countenance is a caricature.”  He was as “voluble” as he was “insecure” stated Cosmopolitan magazine.

Others erroneously believed that if they gave Hitler some of what he wanted, he would mellow and curtail the violence.  For example, in 1931, political writer Dorothy Thompson interviewed Hitler during the presidential campaign and asked what he would do if he won.  Hitler responded:

I will get into power legally.  I will abolish this Parliament and Weimar Constitution afterward.  I will found an authority-state, from the lowest cell to the highest instance; everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below.

Following her interview, Thompson ignored what Hitler told her and concluded (emphasis mine):

It is highly improbable that in this case he will succeed in putting through any of his more radical plans in respect to the Constitution.

Thompson and others dismissed Hitler as a fringe politician making over-the-top radical statements just to get elected.  When he lost the 1932 presidential election to Paul von Hindenburg, there was a short-lived sense of vindication until the aging Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor in January 1933 — just as today some spineless Republicans think a few fallen statues will placate violent anarchists.

Americans made excuses during Hitler’s rise to power, and the result was World War II and the Holocaust.  Where will today’s excuses lead us?

Most law-abiding Americans shake their heads in disgust at what is happening.  Some view anarchist antics as more comical than threatening.  For instance:

• Weirdly designed pink vagina hats that look like props from a 1950s sci-fi movie.
• Garage door pull that had been used for months suddenly seen as a KKK noose.
• Bizarrely named autonomous zones that are declared separate countries.
• Young white girls yelling at older black cops that the black cops do not understand racism.

Preserve the American way of life!

To preserve the American way of life, Republicans should proudly join President Trump in strongly condemning “cancel culture” insanity.  For the short term, have national statues and landmarks protected by the National Guard and the military.  This would affirm America’s belief in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, both founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs.

Speaking about the lack of a unified response by fellow Republicans to the violent riots where innocent Americans are attacked, businesses are looted, statues are toppled, and landmarks are defaced, President Trump said, “They’ve got to get much tougher.”  He later added that “Republicans need to be fighting.”

If Republicans do not re-elect President Trump, keep the Senate, and take back the House, “Trumplicans” will abandon the party of Abraham Lincoln!  One way to galvanize the Silent Majority of Trump-supporters is for elected Republican officials and organization leaders to stop kowtowing and kneeling to anarchist demands.  Make no mistake: silence is kneeling!  As Edmund Burke said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Some Americans reading this column will disagree.  That’s fine — let’s have this conversation now, not when we’re standing in a crowded cattle car on our way to a re-education camp!

This article is dedicated to 92-year-old Piri Katz, who was born in Tibiva, Czechoslovakia.  On Erev Pesach in 1944, Piri and her family were taken by the Nazis to the Munkács Ghetto.  From there, they were shipped by cattle car to Auschwitz.  Her parents, her brothers, and all but one sister were murdered in Auschwitz.  She and her sister were marched to Geislingen and finally Dachau, where she was liberated by the American Army in April 1945.  A proud member of West Orange County Republican Women Federated, Piri often speaks to groups about her support for President Trump and her love for the United States of America.

Republished with permission by author.  This column first published in The American Thinker

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.

Robin Itzler: Columnist, speaker and author, Robin Itzler has been involved in marketing and communications for more than 35 years. Her Marketing and More columns in the Orange County Breeze often blend marketing, politics and motivation to offer unique perspectives about topical headline issues.