Adolf Hitler’s Proud Boys: The Schutzstaffel (SS)

“Hussars of the leader in black robe, so they overran France in storm …”
“Husaren des Fuehrers im schwarzen Gewand, so haben sie Frankreich im Sturm ueberrant.”
Excerpt from the Nazi propaganda song “Hot over Africa’s soil”

“If you look closer, the enthusiasm even seems understandable.
That does not change anything about its danger”
(the author).

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Any Comparison is flawed, it was often said in the German vernacular. Hence, history, so people subtly think, cannot repeat itself, at least not in the same vein – provided the same people’s political thinking is guided by historic knowledge at all. In most cases, it is certainly not, which is humanly understandable. And so it comes that certain events from the human past remain unnoticed today, despite their educational character to manifest an intriguing scale of similarity to events occurring in our time. These phenomena, indeed, happen repetitiously over and over again, at least in their infant stages, which, however, does not mean their final outcome in any case will always be the same. Nonetheless, for the very same reason we learn from history as a helpful guidance in order to avoid scenarios of horror from the past.

In a more scientific approach, it is also possible to establish a probability calculation by use of historic knowledge, which, of course, can neither serve as the proverbial crystal ball, nor replace it. For that, too many aspects at different times under different circumstances in different situations come into play for each single event that eventually becomes history. It is as if five balls were in the air above our head, and we can only follow the trajectory of two balls at most with our eyes in the split of the second we have available. We now certainly can get at least an idea of what we could do to prevent dangers from arising in the first place: we can place two or three of those balls safely on the ground, thereby removing them from the game before they spin even more out of control and smash the valuable crystal vase. Projected on a society, this means: we should have the ability to distinguish the difference when something has a tendency to slip away in a direction that might, very likely, prove harmful to the human society as a whole – meaning, people do have an opportunity to influence and change the direction of the course, but the process of change must first start in people’s heads with an “inner protest” toward the defects, and before it is too late.

In the author’s view, the United States of America has maneuvered itself into a precarious situation, certainly not for the first time in its history, but this time mainly through 74 million intransigent voters in the recent presidential election, sending all five balls up in the air at once, most of them now dangerously out of control. It is eminently notable for a democratic system that the loser of an election is subsequently endowed with a plentitude of power in a way that he can keep the country literally in suspense. In the present instance, an intersection has already been reached, where the looming danger calls for a widely distributed rethinking within the entire society in order to avoid an even steeper slide into radicalism as we have seen so far. For this time, equations in an incipient stage to a tragedy that happened in the history of my own country, exhibit similarities that are as startling as they are fascinating, in particular for the observing historian.

In this context: Especially if you are a German citizen, which this author is, and if you have a link to such a past through your own relatives, which this author has; if you have listened to the ones who escaped the hell of Stalingrad, the ones who have spent years of imprisonment in Siberia, the ones who went through air raids, burning infernos, concentration camps and the rubble of a lost war, with whom this author has spoken – you then should have more than just a glimpse where insanity can end by noticing the breaking of windows at the Capitol in Washington D.C. on 6 January 2021; because this is how it all started back then in the history of my country: with broken glass.

The Waffen-SS (Weapon-SS) originated from a pathetic rabble
of an orientation-seeking mob founded by Adolf Hitler

To be continued (don’t know where, don’t know when)

“Behind Me are Millions”

A German warning to America from History

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

It would be a mistake to assume that Donald Trump, the mob-president, depends on the Republican Party. Instead, it must be feared that the bulk of his 74 million voters will foolishly follow him, if not within the GOP, so in any other political movement – after all, idiocy is sufficiently established in this society to serve as the trailblazer. No law will be an issue anymore.

This man with limited intellectual faculties, stricken by pathological egotism and vindictiveness, will very likely be back in public “in one form or the other”, as he himself put it in his last hours in office. America’s democracy, including a shocking number of citizens, has failed in the most despicable manner, which will result in more consequences for this country.

Of course, Trump is not Hitler, who once boasted “Behind me are Millions.” Unfortunately, it was true. And yet, the situation is insofar comparable as Trump, still supported by millions, can play cat and mouse with the Republican Party, and, as the attack on the Capitol has proven, challenge the American democracy and its institutions to the core, virtually at will and without being punished. This fact will not have escaped his followers.

In 1932 and before, when Hitler did pretty much something very similar even before he became Chancellor in the following year, the illusory “Cabinet of the Barons”, the stirrup holders of the Austrian corporal, had degraded itself to powerlessness, because after all the assurances it was now too late to do something against Hitler – for millions were following him in ecstasy, spurred on with simple paroles against the establishment. Notice something?

To be sincere: If there had not been an American 1 June 2020 (when local law enforcement cleared peaceful demonstrators from Lafayette Square) and a 6 January 2021 (when the Capitol riot occurred), any comparisons with Hitler would not have even remotely entered my mind. As an historian, like so many Americans, I would have never thought such events possible as it happened in Washington D.C.

The darkest chapter in German history will certainly never repeat itself in an American way. For this, in retrospect, not least the foreign and domestic policy accents are as different as day and night, not to mention the historical and economic situation of both countries – Germany back then and the US today. But the danger that something more entirely atypical by American political standards could happen on a grand scale, can no longer be considered impossible. Much will certainly depend on the outcome of the next elections, and also if any of the various criminal investigations against Trump as a private individual will derail him.

It is much to be hoped that Nikki Haley, former Republican South Carolina governor and UN ambassador, who broke with Trump, is right about her prophecy: that Donald Trump will not return.*

But, how does she know that?

Note: *Nikki Haley, interview with “Politico”, 12 February 2021.

Complicitous

The Capitol riot – a sanctioned crime?

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

There is no excuse for that much irresponsibility: Everybody who has voted for Trump has become an accessory to the crime conducted by the mob on 6 January 2021 in Washington D.C., if involuntarily or not. And they – his voters -, who made the untold Trump-saga after all possible, are also jointly responsible for furthering the radicalization of the United States of America.

Cluelessness won’t serve any evasiveness, either; and much less for a wretched failure of this magnitude: Going to the polls and having the nerve to vote for such an idiot. These people in their anti-socialism and Antifa-mania – without even having a historic clue about the origins of “Antifa” in Italy and Germany and what it really constituted against Fascism and Nazism – have intensified America’s advance towards a society of extreme excesses and, consequently, have violated the minimum standards set for decent citizens belonging to a civilized country. The same people commonly love to talk about “those liberals”, mentally obviously not capable to understand the historic facts about the liberal roots of their own country, not to mention to define what “Liberalism” actually stands for.

The country is in urgent need for changes virtually impossible to implement with confused people of such dimension. Changes typically originate from the human brain before any materialization within a society as a whole can occur. However, an alarming number of ignorant people residing in certain areas of the United States, far remote from the slightest ability for straight reasoning, give little hope for the future of a country already frighteningly divided and politically polarized.

Those in the belief that the events of 6 January 2021 were staged by Democrats and Antifa groups consequently must also assume that then-president Trump, when he addressed and incited the crowd to walk down on Pennsylvania Avenue, thus was talking to thousands of left-wing radicals. It was nothing of that sort. But maybe it was not even Trump himself talking, but an Antifa-Double instead?

There are really people on the loose in this country believing and spreading such nonsense, despite the fact that none of the lunatics detained by security agencies after the assault on the Capitol could be linked to Antifa, or any other left-wing movements. Also a conspiration?

And for all of this, for all the tremendous damage done to the country through the myth of a “stolen election”, bred by those who stupidly fell and voted for an empty-headed charlatan – there won’t even be any punishment for Trump himself and his minions?

If so, it would degrade the events of 6 January 2021 to a government sanctioned crime – and nothing else.

An American Catastrophe

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Up until this hour I am puzzled as to why there were and are people assuming that Donald Trump of all people would be the cleaning service against corruption and patronage. A socialite and gambler who lied, played the corona virus down initially, made ludicrous statements almost on a daily basis, and contradicted his own words the very next day. A president of the United States of America who incited an antisocial mob to invade a symbol of American democracy.

A self-check for Trump-voters should be a cakewalk, provided there are still some honest people: How had they reacted if Barack Obama had done all of this? What would they have said?

How is it possible that people are so mendacious, without any self-respect? Trump’s base, interspersed with believers – shameless hypocrites who not even shy away from praying to a God. How pathetic.

Trump himself not only stems from a dubious past, which was known long before he even became president, but he also recruited people with corrupt, corporatist background for his administration, including his own family. For sure, there are plenty of people in Washington receiving their money from the same sources as Trump, be it Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi. But a charlatan like Trump, who acted like an autocratic despot, fuming abnormal, ludicrous conspiration theories, is certainly the last person sound people would entrust their country. And yet, they have voted for him twice, giving him even more votes in the past election than in 2016.

Now, America can count the cost. Elected screwballs like Marjory Taylor Green with QAnon fantasies are sitting in Congress, and the Republican Party cannot get rid of the spirits they themselves have cited by allowing Trump to become their frontrunner. The Grand Old Party is facing a potential weakening of her political importance through a conceivable split-up of her radical member section. The consequent pinnacling polarization could pose an uncontrollable peril for the future with immeasurable consequences for the United States.

What have those people turned into who were capable of voting for Donald Trump? Did they ever read a history book in their life? Do they even have a clue what is really going on in this world?

Not for the first time in history: Sordid, partisan fanaticism coupled with fallacious patriotism, all blended with unsubstantiated and often parroted opinions, have led to a widespread, clueless and ideologically infiltrated thinking – especially on the political right of the electorate.

It is an American catastrophe.

The Myth of the Second Amendment

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

The Second Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud’, on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.” [1]
Warren E. Burger, Republican, 15th Chief Justice of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1986

Americans who think they have Second Amendment rights are deluding themselves, and they do so either knowingly in their blindfolded, uncompromising passion for guns, or in blunt ignorance of their own country’s history. The latter, in all probability, may present the larger segments of the population fascinated with gun smoke.

On that score, it is not easy to ascertain the mindset of a sole, highly educated county commissioner who found himself in the position to publicly expressing his personal support for the Second Amendment per resolution – as if his district of responsibility, Union County in North Georgia, had all of the sudden ascended to the hub of the universe. More likely, as an alleged Democrat in charge of an area where 81 percent of the constituents chose Donald Trump, the local man named Lamar Paris might have felt pressure from several sides alike to assure the gun freaks that nobody will take their toys away – just like a kindergartener would comfort her little flock.

In a packed meeting on January 21, 2021, the riflemen’s ardor took on overheated forms in such a way that Paris seemingly had to press every button of his appeasement skills to prevent his county possibly named a “Second Amendment sanctuary county.” Festus, Marshal Matt Dillon, Miss Kitty, and Doc Adams – that’s for sure – would have gotten a real kick out of so much rampant devotion, had they only been able to attend such exceptional meeting.  

The alleged background of the commotion constituted fearful gun owners emotionally backfiring on imaginary government attacks directed at their “Second Amendment rights”, particularly after the political signals in their home state had just recently turned from red to blue.

In such an atmosphere, it is hard to imagine that historic facts, let alone rationality, will play any role to people still roaming through the woods in search for animals like once Daniel Boone. These folks take nothing but their own version of truth to their heart and will never be convinced about the functionality of any logical mechanisms in the human brain. And they will always and with all possible self-confidence stick to their own convictions or whatever they were told by their deluders, come hell or high water, and no matter how surreal these convictions to others might appear.

But, as is mostly the case, historic facts speak a different language and seldom neither match nor serve ardent escapist’s wishful thinking. The Second Amendment, written 232 years ago by a founding father named James Madison, who later was to become the nation’s fourth president, never gave any American citizens the right to bear arms – neither back then, nor today. The infamous lines were clearly born out of necessity, namely, the state’s then-insistence to maintain their own militias, responsible for their defense themselves in preference to a standing, federal army. At the will of the states, the state militias were to constitute the foundation of the national defense.

As a result, the draft for the Second Amendment Madison was working on, originating from Virginia, read as follows: “The people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper national, and safe defense of a free state. That standing armies in times of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided.” [2]

Warren Burger was not the first chief justice expressing his truthful interpretation of the Second Amendment. Alluding to the groundbreaking 2008 “District of Columbia versus Heller” decision by the Supreme Court, US-Historian Professor Joseph Ellis writes: “The Heller Decision by [Justice Antonin] Scalia purports to be an originalist interpretation of Madison’s meanings in the spring of 1789 and the meanings ordinary Americans at that time shared concerning ‘the right to bear arms.’ It is nothing of that sort. And no federal or Supreme Court between 1789 and 2008 ever reached the conclusion. Scalia did. Indeed, the true originalist opinion in Heller is by Justice Stevens, who argued that “bear arms” meant serve in the militia.” [3]

In this context, legalistic legerdemains within the branches of the US-government, conducted by some if not many of their representatives influenced by lobbying, have made this fraud possible and turned the Second Amendment and its true meaning literally on its head.

Epilogue: To me, chief justice’s Warren Burgers remarks from 1991, very likely aimed at the National Rifle Association (NRA), left an even deeper impression since he used the term “special interest groups” – an extremely applicable term from the beginnings of human history on, and distinctive as always. For thinking Americans living in present times, a careful observation of these special interest groups might lead them closer to a more realistic perception about the true reasons for the misfortune in their country. These are the groups (institutions) of interests (the few versus the many – see John Adams) that – undisturbed by law and government – take advantage of people’s widespread simplemindedness, and in addition they are perfectly skilled to clandestinely line their own pockets with billions, sometimes under the pretense of the Good Samaritan, and even referencing to God on their holy Sunday morning sessions. Restraining the veritable, greedy sources that cause bitterness for the majority in this society, is a better approach than according credibility to conspiracy theorists and any other blabbermouths – no matter where they place themselves in front of a seducible audience.

Notes

[1] The quote is taken from “Six Amendments – How and Why we Should Change the Constitution”, page 127; John Paul Stevens, former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Also available in “American Dialogue – the Founders and Us”, Joseph J. Ellis, page 161. – On the subject: Interview Warren Burger/PBS News Hour on 12/16/1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eya_k4P-iEo

[2] See Joseph J. Ellis, “American Dialogue – the Founders and Us”, page 147.

[3] US-Historian Professor Joseph J. Ellis in a letter to the author of this article, dated 04/10/2018.

Game without Referee

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

I once lived in both Germanys [1] and have watched and listened to (West)-German news from my childhood on to this day, now on the Internet: Over there – at least ever since the wall came down – I have never seen news channels contradicting each other with facts and “alternative facts” to a degree it has long become daily routine in the US. One American station offers its audience a sometimes completely different story about one and the same topic than the other, with the clear intention to affect and often manipulate public opinion. Needless to emphasize that these brainwashers do not fit any category of “independent news.” Americans, it seems, are so used to it that many of them have surrendered their ability for differentiation, inconsiderately choosing the source of information closest to their perceptions best match.

The only weapon against such delusion is knowledge: historic knowledge, in this case. If people in their majority would only – no matter whether they prefer CNN or Fox News – think more for themselves, and, most importantly, ignore everything tossed at them carrying bogus dummy-labels like “Socialism” or “Liberal”, clueless about the fact that their own country has nothing but liberal roots. Instead, leave party ideologies aside and take the time to listen to the history of your own country. The examples are innumerable: 26th President Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt, a Republican, used the power of government to regulate the market and implement measurements in support of the little guy from the street. He openly sided with the Unions and deemed every American worker the right to join them. Did it make him a Socialist? Certainly not. Franklin Delano Roosevelt created social security and public work programs to pull millions of Americans out of the despair of the Great Depression. Read George Washington, even better: the writings of John Adams and his vision and apprehensions about the American society, and make up your own mind if developing and implementing ideas in support of the ones in need has anything to do with things like the “radical left”, “radical socialists”, or anything else associated with it.

This polarized country could be easily united if certain people would make use of common sense instead of letting ideology determine their political alignment. Opinion can differ and find its expression in arguments – that is part of a democracy in a fair contest of ideas to find the best way possible. But if unsubstantiated and plain rhetorical remarks, not seldom paired with a lack of knowledge, are the result of a different intuition about which course the society should take, then the result can only be an irreconcilable, often even hateful nation. Since the emergence of a party system in the infant USA, stemming from the days of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, this country has endlessly suffered from ideological division – and back then, newspapers were occupying the places of CNN and Fox News to play both ends against the middle. It was already bad at the very beginning of this nation.

The maltreated United States of modern days runs under a free, uncontrolled, exploitative market economy with millions of its citizens subsequently being left behind, virtually without any option to protect themselves at their work place [2], not to mention the ability to obtain adequate health care insurance. The correction of both issues should constitute a basic right, not a privilege. Why does a system of more equal justice works relatively well in other western countries? Why can’t a more fair distribution of wealth be arranged in the United States?

Every football- and soccer game comes with a referee, who is in charge of the unbiased observance of the rules, ensuring a fair outcome of the contest. Without the referee, there would be chaos, and club law would be the order of the day. In a democratic society it is the task of the parliamentary bodies and the government to establish protective rules (laws) for its citizenry; rules that also reach into the work environment, and thereby serve as a referee. This would move the United States’ economy from a wild-west system to a civilized Social Market Economy, whereby “Social” should not to be confused with “Socialism.” [3]

But, the economic and social system in the United States thus far never knew such a full-time referee. Regulation seems to run counter with the American notion of unlimited freedom. And too many Americans will always fall into the trap of dividing populism – a sinister trump card played at the service of the ruthless gentry, taking shameless advantage of the many.

Notes:

[1] After World War II and mounting divergences among the three western powers and the Soviet Union, a free, democratic Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) under the protection of the United States was founded in September 1949 in the west. Sixteen days later, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was established in the eastern zone, controlled by the Soviets. The GDR disappeared from the world map after a peaceful revolution in 1989/90, tolerated by a transforming Soviet Union under the leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev. 

[2] The author has worked eight years for America’s largest retailer, Walmart.

[3] For a more optimistic outlook, it is my prediction that the United States of America will slowly move toward that direction. Otherwise, the country as a unity would have no chance for survival. With more demographic changes in the future inevitable, I am sure the younger generation will confront the challenges of the 21st century with more progressive determination and a sound sense of reality than most self-declared, conservative farts living in certain hillbilly-regions of the US. Movements like “Fridays for Future” certainly give rise to that hope.  

A Herculean Task

From my Writing Room
Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

This was a perfect inauguration, despite the pandemic and the fragile status of the country. And Joe Biden, as expected, offers a conciliatory, modest tone. The question is: How many Americans that have not voted for him, can he reach with his unifying message?

With the populistic, nationalistic spook coming from the White House in the past four years now being over, there were really and still are Americans convinced that the election was rigged; that the new president would never be inaugurated, and, if he did, would instantly evoke marshal law and take away social security from the people. Even the corona pandemic would miraculously come to an end on 20 January, 2021, finally exposed as a hoax. This is the pathological extremism affecting the heads of conspiration ideologists and circulating worldwide; a dark, ancient theory merely revived and radicalized by Donald Trump. 

How could it happen that so many people have fallen for something like this? How is that much stupidity on one pile possible? That just can’t be true, one might assume. And, this appalling movement is not going to disappear from now on anytime soon.

In addition to this fairly bleak outlook, it is hard to imagine that Trump will now sink into obscurity, but brooding on revenge instead. In America, everything is possible. He might emerge as the populistic whip on his own TV-channel. Even more dangerous: He did already announce his intention to found a new political organization; the Patriot’s Party. If successful, the destruction of the GOP is indeed conceivable, for most of Trump’s proponents will go with him. Only a slight minority, if at all, of his 74 million voters will finally come to their senses, able to return to the true definition of American patriotism.

The history books tell us that the United States has always been a country divided by populism, coming more than just once close to civil war-like conditions. And sometimes, history even repeats itself: If Joe Biden, like once Franklin Delano Roosevelt at the outset of his first term and in the midst of the Great Depression, succeeds in adopting measures the people will profit from, he might be able to reach into the Republican faction, which will be necessary to pacify the country. A sheer Herculean task among all the other huge problems the new president faces. He does not have much time to produce success.

Are They Done Praying?

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

Are Trump supporters and voters done praying for a peaceful country?

It was Holy church people who like no other group have allowed and enabled with their vote a clown and criminal to occupy the highest office and who are, of course, thus morally complicit in the hideous insurrection that happened at the Capitol.

By supporting Trump, they have also indirectly fueled the reemergence of a white supremacy, right-wing extremism, which was made socially acceptable through the widely applauded hate speeches (“Send them back”, “Proud Boys: Stand back and stand by”) from the outgoing president. This phenomenon will not disperse overnight considering that a civilized administration is going to take the White House back in a few days. On the contrary: It must be seriously feared that the United States will be confronted with existential domestic terror threats in the foreseeable future.

Let it be understood: Any potential and imminent danger the country faces neither originates from a considerable, extreme political left nor from “radical socialists,” as preferably propagated by advocates of the Republican party. The events of 6 January 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, DC, speak for themselves. The American Republic miraculously escaped a carnage by a right-wing mob showing aspects of a military approach. It was the Republican party and their Trump-mania that have called the ghosts.

In view of the shocking violence and what the country still might be in for – can anyone expect some sort of introspection from those lost characters who have cluelessly trusted an even more clueless charlatan named Donald Trump?

written 2000 years ago to make illiterate people submissive and willing followers of the authority, the Bible to this day, quote: “instructs us to pray for our leaders” (Franklin Graham[1]). If humans living in the 21st century are naïve enough to fall for such elusive nonsense no matter what, then they might as well nail the Bible to their shin.[2]

Independent from that – the clerical instruction manual obviously must have reduced itself a long time ago to a matter of random interpretation. How else could all the evil in the world of Christianity, now and then, possibly happen? I am sure, this Holy Booklet also contains a frivolous paragraph allowing, if not urging, pious people to possess guns and support entire wars – but we are against any abortions. To compare such aberration with a mix of thought disorder and shameless hypocrisy might pass as a generous understatement in the minds of those still able to develop a rational, independent chain of thought.

A person with a minimum level of knowledge and decency did not vote for Donald Trump. But the following is the most devastating part of the American tragedy: Allegedly, 40 percent of those who did vote for the deranged crook think the assault on 6 January was either justified or a logical consequence of “stolen elections.”

That comes pretty close to my estimate: At least half of the American citizenry is unfit for the realities of the 21st century, not even aware of the challenges their country is facing – from a wretched social system to the facts of man-induced climate change, which many are in denial about.

How will you govern your country with people further away from reality than the backside of the moon, Mr. President Biden?

Notes:
[1] Graham, a known American Protestant, evangelist, supporter of the Iraqi war in 2003, and also an instigator of the deepest dye since the days of Joseph Goebbels, a short while ago compared ten Republican lawmakers supporting to impeach Donald Trump with “Judas” – the same lawmakers who are trying to respect American law and the constitution to avert further damage from the United States.

[2] When I attended the millions of people in the fall of 1989 in East Germany kicking the leading members of the socialist political system to the curb, there was not a single person getting the idea of “praying for our leaders.” I considered those leaders back then the most criminal and dumb clique I have ever lived under until I witnessed the emergence of Donald Trump and his hate speeches in the so-called “freest country of the world.”

Doomed To Fail

The GOP is preparing their next booby trap

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

As it was expected, Vice President Pence does not fulfill the lawful duty that his office demands to act for the good of his people. For spurious reasons he will not invoke the 25th amendment to remove a dangerously unhinged, criminal president from the White House instantly – the most un-American president the history of this country has ever seen.

The true reason for his complicit conduct is obvious. 75 million Trump-voters – most of whom will recur, although they might currently feel like stateless Muppets after losing their American La-La-Land – are a too powerful base of the Republican electorate to be alienated for the foreseeable future. But, in this way, the next Republican calamity has been commenced already: Instead for the GOP to at least demonstrate strength toward American law and justice, possibly with an emerging new and true conservative leader (the potential is available), the basis for another deception of the American public is already looming underneath the surface. This once more foreseeable design of a moribund Republican strategy forces two questions: How much more has to happen before a sufficiently educated and civilized part of the American society takes decisive, peaceful action for progressive changes stringently required in this country? And how is it, time and again, that nearly everything in the United States is measured by the shortsighted prospects for swift success and profit?

Before the future can even begin, the presence is daunting: Security authorities are apprehensive of more violence in the wake of the political change, potentially in all 50 States. The United States of America is a sick country because at least half of its populace is mentally unstable, to put it in rather friendly words. How else can the appearance of somebody like Donald Trump as president be explained?

A collective mass stultification in their churches, an adolescence obviously left forsaken and uneducated about the liberal foundation of their country, millions of presumably literate people not knowing the definition of expressions like “left wing radicals” or “socialism”, instead seriously referring to a manipulated second amendment completely taken out of historic context and written in candlelight 232 years ago – these are perfect conditions to delude a populace and, over time, result in millions of people becoming a mental pitfall for any future administration to deal with. And all of this in a society of blatant racial unrest, social injustice and unfair distribution of wealth not seen in any other western country to this extent.

Who will protect the country from further waves of domestic violence? A police recruited with tens of thousands of Trump supporters? Or maybe even a “proud military”, infiltrated with ex-convicts and drug addicts?

Update: Just hours after I had published this article, several senior US military leaders “reminded US military service members of their obligation to support and defend the Constitution and reject extremism” in a statement that “underscored the unprecedented challenges facing the country in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection attempt by President Donald Trump’s supporters.” Source: CNN
The author: Just like the statement of ten former secretaries of defense reminding the military of “basic democratic principles” only days before the mob invaded the Capitol, the latest exhortation proves that there is cause for concern that the US-military as a whole obviously cannot be entirely regarded as a reliable factor of American democracy – otherwise such statement would hardly be necessary.

Deserting a Sinking Ship

America’s radicalized Ideology

From my Writing Room

Copyright © 2021 by Uwe Bahr

I call it feigned innocence that so many of his former supporters – both politicians, but also average citizens – now all of the sudden cannot distance themselves from Trump fast enough. Alternatively, how is it possible that I am, a common fellow and conservative for most of my life, belonged to a minority in 2016, realizing that this man should never become president?

One can change his mind, new realizings can lead to new insights, for sure – but, I am sorry folks: the Trump saga was too obvious from the beginning as if anybody could have been surprised to the extreme about what happened the last few days.

Nobody carries a crystal ball with him, but the fact that Trump was unfit for the job was undeniable and clear from day one.

But, any American situation in general seems different compared to the prevalent culture of western European countries. The political opinion within large parts of the electorate in the United States has long assumed dangerous, ideologized traits, namely among Republican proponents, oftentimes leading to hate-filled thoughts and verbal outbreaks toward any opponents of the Republican perception what the American society should look like. In worst case scenarios, as seen in Washington, DC, on 6 January 2020, the ideologic aberration can lead straight to radicalization.

From day one of his presidency Donald Trump had made it clear that this path was his agenda (America first), thereby instigating the white radical mob long looming under the surface. Most members of the Republican leadership had actually already shelved such disused alignment, but then followed willingly in light of Donald Trump’s gloomy success. For that, the Republican Party will have to pay a high price – to the detriment of the Republic’s political system.

If any attempt to send Trump packing in the last few days of his presidency fails, he will end up a martyr in the eyes of all denialists of truth and reality who are still with him and for everything that might possibly fail during the next administration. However that be – the fact that Trump was president just like Washington, Adams, Lincoln, both Roosevelt’s … will emerge as a stain in the history of the United States for the next hundred years.