History is full of irony and is often predictable. George Santayana wrote in his book, The Life of Reason, or The Phases of Human Progress, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Anglo-Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke wrote in 1790 in his book, Reflections on the Revolution in France, “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors,” which is not quite the same that Santayana wrote more than a century later, but there’s a connection.
As a young expat, I worked as an apprentice bookseller in an antiquarian bookshop in Marburg, Germany. During that time, I received not only an education about the German book industry, but also about its literary, philosophical, and political history. The job also enabled me to buy books by diverse German authors across several disciplines. In addition, I bought political publications, including pamphlets of historical significance. Among my finds, was a book originally published in the United States in 1932 as German Crises and The German Crisis by H.R. Knickerbocker. The German translation by Franz Fein, was published the same year in Berlin by Rowohlt Verlag.
Knickerbocker was also known as Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, or simply Red, because he had red hair. He was an American journalist who reported stories from Berlin from 1923-1933. As a reporter for Hearst Press, he traveled wide across Europe covering the political aftermath of WWI, focusing on the rise of fascism and communism, among other topics. While overseas, he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1931 for his articles, which appeared in the Philadephia Public Ledger and the New York Evening Post about how the Soviet Five Year Plan functioned and its practicality. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Nazi government deported Knickerbocker for his anti-Hitler writing. In 1936, he covered the Spanish Civil War until he was deported in 1937 by the rebel forces, who apparently took issue with his reporting.
Perusing Deutschland: So oder So?, the reader could argue that Knickerbocker was guilty of bothsidesism, as he presented the reader with the threat of an authoritarian Germany from both fascism and communism. He lamented how divided the country was politically from both sides and how the divisions and its fragile economy presented a threat to stability in the rest of Europe, as well as to U.S. economic interests. Knickerbocker understood the overall frustration among Germans following WWI, and how the country could not pay the reparations demanded according to the Treaty of Versailles. The war had brought Germany economically to its knees, and millions throughout the country were challenged by poverty and unemployment. Inflation had exploded to such an extent that its currency was next to worthless. Knickerbocker thought the United States, with its wealth, could help alleviate the situation and bring stability to Europe and especially to Germany.
What does any of this have to do with the United States today? We’re not faced with the aftermath of losing a world war and the challenges of meeting draconian reparations demanded by the victors. Nor are we faced with the dilemma of choosing between one form of authoritarian rule over another. But we are faced with deep divisions, which have led to toxic hatred and increasing threats of violence. Yes, there is much to criticize in how past administrations governed or not. Our two-party system and its representation is in disarray, if not broken. Would a multiparty parliamentarian system, such as is the practice throughout Europe, Scandinavia, and other countries, provide a palliative? Does our Constitution need further revision or a rewrite? Some people might think so.
Meanwhile, we need to look deeper into history and not just ours, and consider what has worked and what hasn’t in the past. Our leaders need to avoid making the same mistakes and faulty decisions others made in the past. We’re currently challenged with an election in November and whether we can preserve our tradition as a representative democracy within the framework of a constitutional federal republic.
This challenge is the greatest test for our republic since the American Civil War. Voters must not only choose between the two dominant parties and their candidates, but also the platforms and political goals of each. Looking at this choice objectively: one party strives to preserve what we’ve always had and to fix what needs to be fixed, whereas the other party advocates a more radical alternative. That party’s actions and rhetoric since 2015 eerily echo that of Germany’s NSDAP, the Nazi party, leading up to the election of 1932. Those who know history, know how that election and its aftermath turned out.
Unfortunately, too many people have forgotten or prefer to ignore history’s lessons. Too many of us have become complacent and too easily distracted by too many choices through a potpourri of information and entertainment available though TV or the internet’s social media 24/7. This media overload contributes to forgetfulness. If you ask someone about an event that occurred even a year or two ago, he or she may barely remember it, if at all.
Many adults forget much of what they learned in school shortly after finishing their education, especially history and civics lessons. This phenomenon threatens our democracy and its future because party propagandists can influence and manipulate such voters more easily. They exploit the ignorance, fears, and prejudices of voters to vote for their candidates as the only solution. This is a well-known and tactic often used by authoritarians.
Another tactic is projection, that is, accusing or blaming the other party for committing offenses, which they themselves commit. But their favorite tactic is “divide and conquer,” turning the public against each other to create an “us vs. them” scenario. WE are the good guys who’ll help you; THEY are the bad guys who won’t help you. While doing this, they also create a boogeyman and scapegoats to instill more fear and hatred: typically, this is the other, i.e., people who are different by race, ethnic origin, religion, gender, sexual preference, political ideology, or another attribute.
Worst of all, they reject truth and factual evidence, Instead, they turn the counterarguments against them upside down. Their lies are the truth, and the opposition’s truths are lies. They create a lie so great, so unbelievable, that the audience no longer knows what to think or what to believe. The lies continue with more lies and are repeated so often until people can no longer distinguish between truth and lies. Ultimately, even the difference between right and wrong also becomes blurred. Once the perpetrators of this duplicity are successful, it’s too late. Enter authoritarian rule, such as in Germany, where the Nazi party used the slogan, “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer—one people, one realm, one leader.
This phenomenon happened in Germany, beginning in the 1920s. Those of us, who paid attention during history and civics classes in school, remember the lessons of Nazi Germany’s rise and fall. We know that it led to World War II and the horrific devastation and deaths, not only from the war but also from the crimes against humanity and the Holocaust, which began already before the war began.
In November, remember to vote responsibly so that we don’t repeat that tragic chapter of history. Also, think critically. Ignore the babel of social media with baseless speculation, conspiracy theories, and arguments that don’t stand up to fact-checking. Think of Socrates and question everything, even your own arguments. Finally, remember the old adage, attributed to a story Edgar Allan Poe wrote: “Believe nothing of what you hear, and only half of what you see.”
My greatest concern and fear is the threat of an authoritarian dictatorship in the U.S. led by a psychopath.
Bravo! I have scars from autocratic regimes of the right and the left— beware of -isms.