A German Crisis
Prior to Adolf Hitler coming to power, the Nazis, though gaining in popularity, couldn’t attract the votes needed to gain power in the Reichstag (German parliament). Their leader, Hitler, however, was a masterful speaker who knew how to appeal to the masses and attract a wide following.
In the 1932 German election, no party received enough votes to win a majority. In January of 1933, in a politically expedient move, President Paul von Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler to chancellor in hopes of exploiting Hitler’s popularity and forming a majority cabinet with the Nazis.
This turned out to be a fatal move that would alter the course of history.
The Reichstag Fire
Less than a month after Hitler’s appointment, Germany’s parliament building was set on fire. Hitler and the Nazi party used this event to convince President von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree to thwart what was perceived to be a communist plot against the German government.
The Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of the People and State, or the Reichstag Fire Decree for short, was passed the day after the fire.
Under the guise of “protection of the people and state,” the decree gave the government sweeping power that suspended most civil liberties their constitution guaranteed.
Article one of the decree read thus:
“Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124, and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. Thus, restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press, on the right of assembly and the right of association, and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communications, and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property are permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”
Thousands of arrests were immediately made, and people were imprisoned and tortured by the Nazi SA (Storm Troopers). Why did they arrest so many so fast? They had carefully prepared lists of opposition, and the decree gave them cover to go after them.
By March, only one month later, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, giving Hitler absolute power.
For years historians have debated whether the fire was set by a lone arsonist, or whether it was a planned operation with involvement from the Nazis in hopes of leveraging a catastrophic event as a means to gain power and snuff out opposition.
The truth will remain shrouded in mystery, but the outcome is the same regardless.
An American Crisis - The Capitol Siege
Let’s fast forward 88 years to January 6, 2021, siege on our Capitol.
Let me make my position clear. The ability to assemble and peacefully protest is one of our fundamental rights; however, violence is unacceptable and should be condemned, and those found guilty of those actions should be held accountable.
With that said, I want to point out the frightening parallels between the Reichstag Fire and subsequent loss of Germany’s freedoms, and the eerily similar attempts by those in positions of power and influence, seeking to strip us of our freedoms.
As I write this, we are just over three weeks removed from the day the Capitol was stormed, and new evidence seems to surface daily about what really happened.
Was it a false flag? Was Antifa responsible? Was QAnon responsible? Was it overzealous patriots who thought the only way to stop a socialist takeover was to takeover themselves?
Who knows? My guess is, it was likely a combination of all of the above.
In the same way, historians have debated the truth of the Reichstag fire, they will likely debate for years to come what really happened at the Capitol on January 6.
It’s often said that history repeats itself. I like how Mark Twain put it: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
Whether repetition or rhyme, if history is any indication of what’s to come, our nation is in for a rough ride.
Personally, I believe now that the Leftists have control, they will use January 6, (and every other opportunity from this moment forward) as a pretext to subvert our freedoms, much like the Nazis did after the Reichstag fire.
That’s not just empty rhetoric on my part. They are not hiding it. I’m simply listening to what they are telling us.
Misleading the Masses - Censorship and Propaganda
People often wonder how such atrocious ideas and actions as those in Nazi Germany were tolerated, much less adopted by the German people. In large part, the answer is censorship and propaganda.
Once Hitler took power, he had unyielding support from a longtime friend – support that would be monumental in the spreading of Nazi ideology.
Joseph Goebbels had been by Hitler’s side since 1926 and had proven to be a valuable asset with his intellect, powerful voice, and dynamic speaking skills.
When the Nazis took control in March of 1933, Hitler appointed Goebbels to the position of Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, giving him total control of communication media – radio, press, cinema, books and magazines, theater, and other arts.
Anti-Nazi newspapers were either forced to close or were taken over. Information dispensed by newspapers, radio, and newsreels was under complete Nazi control.
By May of 1933, Goebbels oversaw a massive book-burning campaign. Any literary work considered subversive or un-German was to be destroyed in an effort to bring art and culture in line with Nazi goals and ideologies. By 1934, it was illegal to even criticize the Nazi government, and telling a joke about Hitler was considered treachery.
Censorship prevented any negative light from shining on Hitler or his party. Propaganda sought to convince Germans that Hitler was wonderful and the Nazi cause was just.
Hitler was glorified through imagery on postcards, posters, and in the press. Radios were made more affordable to enable more Germans to hear Nazi news, and Nazi speeches were broadcast over public loudspeakers. Additionally, large celebratory Nazi party rallies were organized.
Under Goebbels’ leadership, censorship and propaganda were used to control the masses.
Goebbels Methods in America - Joseph Goebbels Incorporated
While Hitler had Joseph Goebbels, the liberals have mainstream media (MSM) and Big Tech. My coworker, Abe Hamilton, of AFR’s Hamilton Corner, describes the MSM as Goebbels, Inc. I think that’s an accurate description, as the MSM has become nothing more than the censoring and propaganda arm for the Leftists.
Could what happened in Nazi Germany happen in our wonderful nation? Consider what Goebbels said about propagating a lie. He said it is
“vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Let that sink in as you read the following examples. They’ve wanted to do these things for some time; January 6 simply provided the excuse to push full steam ahead.
- Calls for Purging and Cleansing
The desire to control our thinking is best summarized by CNN’s Stephen Collinson, who wrote that Trump leaves “a legacy that will take years to purge from the American psyche.” They want to purge our minds, and fill them with what they want us to “know.”
In similar language, ABC's political director, Rick Klein, expressed the same sentiment by tweeting “The fact is that getting rid of Trump is the easy part. Cleansing the movement he commands, or getting rid of what he represents to so many Americans, is going to be something else.” (That tweet has been removed of course, but you can see it here.)
“The application of force alone…can never bring about the destruction of an idea or arrest the propagation of it, unless one is ready and able to ruthlessly to exterminate the last upholders of that idea even to a man, and also wipe out any tradition which it may tend to leave behind” (Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf).
- Calls for Deprogramming, Deradicalizing, and Reeducating
In early January, a recording of PBS attorney, Michael Beller, was released expressing his hopes that the children of Trump supporters can be reeducated before it’s too late.
“Even if Biden wins, we go for all the Republican voters, and Homeland Security will take their children away. …We’ll put them into the reeducation camps.”
Steve Hassan, a supposed cult expert, told CNN recently “all of America needs deprogramming” due to President Trump’s negative influence.
Regional director for California DNC, David Atkins, tweeted shortly after the election, “No seriously...how do you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook? We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan…”
Former “Today” host, Katie Couric, on Bill Maher’s show, said, “The question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”
Washington Post columnist, Eugene Robinson, said recently on MSNBC “there are millions of Americans, almost all white, almost all Republicans, who somehow need to be deprogrammed, it’s as if they are members of a cult…”
Darling of the Left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said in a virtual town hall meeting on January 15,
“There are people who are radicalized right now. It’s going to take a very long time to deradicalize these people and a lot of effort.”
Ocasio-Cortez said there was funding for the effort, just not enough: “We need to double, triple, or quadruple the funding for these programs.”
I wonder what their idea of deprogramming and reeducating consists of. Post WWII Germany, as David Atkins alluded to, consisted of the Nuremberg Trial of war criminals, political cleansings removing Nazis from office and restricting them from future office, as well as arrest and detainment in internment camps.
Is this what is being suggested? Should Trump supporters suffer the same fate as Nazis? Or maybe they like the way Communist China reeducates their citizens.
- Censorship and Canceling
If they can’t get us into deprogramming or reeducation camps, they’ll just censor and cancel us.
Editor of Forbes, Randall Lane, on January 7, in response to the Capitol siege, wrote,
“Let it be known to the business world: Hire any of Trump’s fellow fabulists above [Trump’s communication officials], and Forbes will assume that everything your company or firm talks about is a lie.”
Alex Stamos, former chief security officer at Facebook, expressed his desire to censor conservative voices to CNN’s Brian Stelter. “We have to turn down the capability of these conservative influencers to reach these huge audiences,” Stamos said. “There are people on YouTube for example that have a larger audience than daytime CNN.”
Representative Ocasio-Cortez shares the sentiment, stating on Instagram Live, “we are going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can't just spew disinformation.”
Ben Rhodes, former Obama foreign policy adviser told Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC,
“I think from a policy perspective, there are big questions about the future of social media in this country, whether or not someone has to step in and regulate these platforms so that it’s not left to the CEO of Twitter to make a decision to kick President Trump off a couple of weeks before his term ends.”
He went on to question, “Can government work with these tech companies to determine how they can at least slow the spread of this poisonous disinformation?”
Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican who objected to certifying the Electoral College results on January 6, suffered the punishment of having his book contract canceled by publishing company Simon & Schuster.
Curt Schilling, former major league pitcher, an outspoken conservative, and Trump supporter also fell prey to cancel culture. Schilling tweeted on Jan 12, “We will be just fine, but wanted to let Americans know that @AIGinsurance canceled our insurance due to my ‘Social Media profile.’” (It should be noted that Schilling’s profile at the time had the 2nd Amendment in the background and he had a Trump T-shirt on.)
Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow, suffered backlash over his support of President Trump. Newsweek reported that “Lindell said Bed Bath & Beyond, Kohl's, H-E-B, and Wayfair are all dropping My Pillow.”
In addition, Lindell, along with President Trump, Michael Flynn, Sidney Powell, and many other conservative voices have been banned from Twitter and other social media platforms.
There are even calls in the Senate for Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley to resign, simply because they questioned the integrity of the presidential election.
The message is clear: If you support Trump, face censorship, cancellation, or both.
- Labeling and Accusing
Words matter. Labels matter. Accusations matter.
Some of the more recent labels you’ve likely heard are terms like white privilege, white supremacy, racist, extremist, radical, domestic terrorist, and many more.
To be clear, I believe the vast majority of Americans, especially conservatives, would happily denounce those terms and anyone truly deserving of the label.
The problem is, who gets to define to whom those labels apply?
Let me illustrate why it can become problematic.
One America News reported on January 20 that the “Biden transition officials and his incoming national security team are seeking to shift government resources for counter-terrorism to fight domestic threats.”
Who are these domestic threats? Human traffickers? Drug dealers? MS-13, perhaps?
In light of the 20,000 plus troops sent to secure D.C. for the recent inauguration, Democrat Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said in an interview with CNN that some of the troops may pose a threat.
“The [National] Guard is 90 some-odd% male, and only about 20% of white males voted for Biden,” Cohen said. “You've got to figure that in the Guard, which is predominantly more conservative…they’re probably not more than 25% of the people there protecting us that voted for Biden. The other 75% are in the large class of folks that might want to do something.”
Representative Cohen is insinuating that being a conservative white male in the military makes you a threat.
Former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe claimed in a CNN interview that pro-Trump supporters have been radicalized, even comparing them to ISIS militants who raided the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya 2012. “They’ve clearly been radicalized and it explodes in an orgy of violence and mayhem,” McCabe said. “And just insanity…it has all the hallmarks of a riot of extremists.”
South Carolina Representative James Clyburn, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos defended impeaching President Trump a second time saying, “There's a cancerous growth on this country, and you do not get rid of a cancerous growth unless you cut it out...And that's what we were doing.”
In an interview with MSNBC, former CIA Director John Brennan said,
“[T]he members of the Biden team…are now moving in laser light fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about what looks very similar to insurgency movements we’ve seen overseas. Where they…gain strength, and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”
After Brennan likened religious and patriotic people, and even libertarians, to overseas insurgency movements, he went on to lay the blame at the feet of President Trump and some unnamed members of Congress:
“I think there has been this momentum that has been generated unfortunately I think of the demagogue of rhetoric of people that’s just departed government but also those who continue in the halls of Congress. So, I really do think that the law enforcement, homeland security, intelligence and even the defense officials are doing everything possible to root out what seems to be a very, very serious, and insidious threat to our democracy and our republic.”
Ben Rhodes, in the same interview mentioned above with Nicole Wallace, implied Trump supporters were an “issue of Homeland Security.”
“It’s going to take many years to detox the disinformation, the lies, the hate that has been spread,” said Rhodes. "A whole segment of the American population has been radicalized over what’s happened the last four years, and by the fact that Donald Trump is no longer there…representing their grievances in the highest office.”
With Trump out of office, Rhodes believes “those grievances are going to go back underground,” which will leave “a lot of work to be done” for national security officials.
In a stunning video, filmmaker Don Winslow suggests
“The greatest threat facing America today comes from within: radical extreme conservatives, also known as domestic terrorists. They’re hidden among us, disguised behind regular jobs. They are your children’s teachers. They work at supermarkets, malls, doctor’s offices, and many are police officers and soldiers.”
“I’m proposing we form a citizen army,” Winslow says. “Our weapons will be computers and cell phones. We who are monitoring extremists on the internet and reporting their findings to authorities.”
There you have it, in their own words, what they think of conservative Trump supporters. We are religious extremists, cultists, radicals, and domestic threats that need to be deprogrammed, deradicalized, and reeducated. Then if that doesn’t work, we must be cut out like cancerous growths.
This mentality leads down a dangerous road.
Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat, even recognizes the threat. While she rightly denounced the violence on January 6, she also warned of efforts by the likes of Representative Adam Schiff and former CIA Director John Brennan as well as the oligarchs in Big Tech who are attempting “to undermine our constitutionally-protected rights and turn our country into a police state with KGB-style ‘surveillance.’”
Gabbard said they “are also domestic enemies—and much more powerful, and therefore dangerous, than the mob which stormed the capitol.”
Where We Are; Where We’re Headed
How long will we be able to voice our opinion?
If the Leftists have their way, conservatives will only be able to speak if they kowtow to a predetermined narrative.
Nicole Wallace made this clear in the aforementioned interview with Ben Rhodes. Wallace said,
“It would be my policy that a Republican must assert the truth before they’re allowed to share any other views.”
A recent exchange about the presidential election between George Stephanopoulos and Senator Rand Paul shows where we’re heading. Stephanopoulos began with a “threshold” question for Senator Paul: “This election was not stolen. Do you accept that fact?”
Early in the heated interview, Stephanopoulos interrupted saying, “Can’t you just say the words, ‘This election was not stolen?’”
As Senator Paul attempted to present the facts, Stephanopoulos interrupted again, “Why can’t you say President Biden won a legitimate and fair election?”
It reminds me of the pressure put on VP Pence last summer in an interview with news anchor Brian Taff to say “Black Lives Matter” at the height of the BLM movement. Three times Taff pressed Pence. “Can you say those words?” “So why will you not say those words?” “And yet, one final time, you won't say the words…?” Pence maintained his position that all lives matter.
Moving forward it seems the option will be to either accept the MSM narrative or be silenced.
Don’t Be Fooled
Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf,
“The public, which is mostly stupid and has a very short memory, is not capable of recognizing the real instigator of the quarrel in the midst of the turmoil that has been raised. Frequently it does not remember the beginning of the fight and so the rogue gets by with his stunt.”
President Trump is not perfect, and I certainly don’t condone everything he did or said. However, Trump is not the real instigator here. In fact, this is not about Trump. It never was. It’s about who and what he represents.
Trump knew that. He once tweeted, “In reality, they’re not after me. They’re after you. I’m just in the way.”
For Hitler to succeed, he needed a scapegoat, someone to blame for all the ills Germany faced. He turned his ire toward the Jews and was able to convince an entire nation Jews were the problem. And you know how that turned out.
Trump has been the scapegoat for the past 4 years. For the Left, every perceived ill – racism, economic problems, China virus, etc… – has been his fault. With Trump out of office, they need a new scapegoat.
For Hitler, it was the Jews. For the Leftists, it’s us. Patriots. Conservatives. Bible-believing Christians. They are coming for us. And if you’re paying attention, they are not even hiding it.
