Category Archives: Random Blogging

Hitler And Greenland–Who Knew?

It turns out that Trump isn’t just copying Hitler’s fascism and White Supremacy–there are other parallels. Hitler also believed in tariffs and evidently also wanted Greenland.

Who knew? I certainly didn’t.

If I had read about this anywhere but in the Atlantic, I’d have dismissed it out of hand. (And even then, despite my longtime respect for and reliance upon that publication, I did some limited research that confirmed the article.) The article was titled “Hitler’s Greenland Obsession” and the subtitle read “After creating an economic mess with ill-advised tariffs, Hitler looked north in pursuit of resources and national security.”

Tariffs?? I hadn’t known about that similarity, either. Perhaps our mentally-limited President actually can read–I’d previously dismissed the assertion that Trump kept a copy of Mein Kampf on his nightstand–a charge made by his first wife, Ivana, during their divorce proceedings–because it seemed obvious that even an elementary literacy was beyond him.

According to the article, Greenland was “a lifelong preoccupation of Adolf Hitler’s.” The article cited stenographic notes from a lunchtime conversation in 1942 in which Hitler said that he’d been fascinated by Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer who  led the first team to cross Greenland’s interior. Hitler’s personal copy of History of the Expedition is in the rare-book collection of the Library of Congress, and it bears his personal bookplate—ex libris, eagle, and swastika. When Hitler rose to power, that early interest became strategic; in 1938, he sent Hermann Göring to Greenland, “ostensibly to explore the island’s flora and fauna. However, Hitler’s true intent may have been not scientific, but economic.”

In a drive to move Germany toward economic self-sufficiency, Hitler had imposed draconian tariffs, refused to honor foreign-debt obligations, and sought to wean the nation off Norwegian whale-oil consumption. The problem was that Germany used whale oil not only for margarine, a staple of the German diet, but also in the production of nitroglycerin, a key component for the munitions industry.

It wasn’t only Greenland. In 1939,  Germany dropped weighted steel rods stamped with swastikas and Nazi flags on Antarctica.

Hitler dismissed those who opposed the acquisition of land on the grounds of human rights as “scribblers.” No divine authority dictated how much land a people possessed or occupied, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: “National borders are made by men, and they are changed by men.” A country’s claim to territory was based on its ability to impose brute force over another, a principle that dated back, Hitler continued, to days of the “might of a victorious sword,” when Germanic tribes asserted themselves with blood and iron. “Und nur in dieser Kraft allein liegt dann das Recht,” Hitler wrote, a maxim that, distilled into English, translates as “Might makes right.”

After Nazi Germany occupied Denmark, Hitler made moves on Greenland, prompting the U.S. and Henrik Kauffmann, the Danish ambassador in Washington, D.C.–who distanced himself from the German occupiers in Denmark–to sign an “Agreement Between the United States of America and Denmark Respecting the Defense of Greenland.” The preamble of that document warned of “the imminent danger that Greenland “may be converted into a point of aggression against nations of the American continent.” The agreement allowed the United States to “improve and deepen” harbors and to “construct, maintain and operate such landing fields, seaplane facilities and radio and meteorological installations as necessary” in order to protect North America against aggression.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt publicly hailed the agreement the next day. In America, Ambassador Kauffmann, as the defender of “free Denmark,” was proclaimed “king of Greenland”; in Nazi-occupied Copenhagen, he was charged with treason…

When the war was over and the democratically elected government in Denmark was restored, it willingly reaffirmed this American protection in the 1951 Defense of Greenland agreement, which remains in effect today.

The article contains many more details, and those interested in this bit of little-known history will find it fascinating. What I am finding both fascinating and very disconcerting, however, are the constantly emerging similarities between MAGA and Nazism, between the preoccupations of Adolf Hitler and those of Donald Trump.

Historians have pointed out the striking similarities between the slogans increasingly being employed by the Trump administration and those of the Third Reich. The social-media channels of the Trump administration have been turned into “unrelenting streams of xenophobic and Nazi-coded messages and imagery.”  Historians have long noted the extent to which “borrowing” went both ways– Hitler modeled his anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws on America’s Jim Crow. Comparisons of ICE to the Gestapo are growing, and not without reason.

It absolutely can happen here–unless We the People say NO.

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The Cult Analogy

Americans who follow politics often refer to the MAGA movement as a cult. (As one wag has put it, the only difference beween Jim Jones and Trump is that Trump would charge for the Kool Aid…). Most of us, however, use the term without recognizing its explanatory power. In a recent essay for Lincoln Square, Kristoffer Ealy did–and it was eye-opening.

The essay is lengthy, but I encourage you to click through and read it all. Its primary focus was on the staying power of the Epstein files, and how–despite Trump’s frantic efforts to distract–the files are still there, undermining his hold on the cult, which had been promised disclosures that would (surely!) hurt those “others.” But it was Ealy’s examination of cult behavior that explained so much that I have found inexplicable.

Calling MAGA a cult isn’t simply an analogy or clever putdown. It IS a cult. And that explains why the true believers continue to support an obvious madman.

As Ealy explains, cult rules aren’t designed to govern–they are loyalty tests.  Followers don’t follow the rules because they’re fair or rational. They follow them “because the act of following becomes proof that they belong.”

Which is why cult rules can be humiliating. Contradictory. Pointless. Even self-destructive. It doesn’t matter. In fact, the more irrational the rule is, the better it works—because nobody makes sacrifices like someone trying to prove they’re still in the inner circle.

This is how you get the classic arrangement where the leader can do the kind of thing that would get a normal person fired, divorced, indicted, or laughed out of town—then turn around and demand strict purity from everyone else. The hypocrisy isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. The point isn’t “rules.” The point is hierarchy. The point is demonstrating there is one set of consequences for the faithful and another set for the sovereign.

In other words, the lack of criticism isn’t because everyone is stupid, or hypnotized. It’s in the nature of cults, which Ealy tells us are “engineered environments where speaking plainly comes with penalties.” Criticism–no matter how mild–can trigger “exile, retaliation, or humiliation.” Even asking the wrong question will bring charges from other followers that one is disloyal, divisive, or working for the enemy. The leader doesn’t need to censor everyone directly.

A cult leader isn’t simply “charismatic.” A cult leader is someone who turns emotional weather into governance. If he can make his approval feel like oxygen and his disapproval feel like exile, he doesn’t need policy. He doesn’t need evidence. He doesn’t even need coherence. He just needs followers tuned to his moods the way sailors stay tuned to the sky.

So everything becomes personal. Every critique is treated as an attack. Every investigation is framed as persecution. Every consequence is recast as betrayal.

But there’s a downside. Cult leaders who are constantly surrounded by people who applaud the indefensible and treat the leader like a religious figure start believing their base is  the whole country.

And here’s the crucial psychological mistake: after living in a loyalty-based world for long enough, the cult leader assumes every other world is loyalty-based too.

So he steps outside the cult and looks at outsiders—critics, journalists, investigators, the opposition—and he can’t process a simple possibility: these people might not be organized around worship the way his followers are. He can’t imagine a political tribe that doesn’t have a sacred figure whose protection overrides all principles. He can’t picture a coalition where people argue with each other openly and survive it. Because in his world, disagreement is disintegration.

And that leads to miscalculation.

For years, Trump promised his followers an Epstein “big reveal.” It was, as Ealy says, “a promise made to people who want the world to be simple enough to fit into a villain plot.” It was a sacred prophecy–thus Trump’s distractions haven’t worked.

In such situations, Ealy says cult leaders reach for “hostage logic,” believing that the “other side” must have an equally sacred figure that it will protect no matter what. So MAGA cult members threaten to investigate Bill Clinton.  “But Democrats are not organized around a single sacred figure in that way. They are a coalition that can barely agree on lunch.”

Trump and his supporters believe the world outside MAGA’s bubble is a cult too. But it isn’t. The response Trump keeps running into is brutally simple: If there’s evidence, bring it. If Clinton is guilty, release the files and prove it. It’s okay with us.

Read the whole thing.
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Fringe Groups And Collective Action

Why is it that so-called “fringe groups” are able to drive political discourse and elect people who are clearly non-representative? What accounts for the successes of MAGA, for example, when all credible research confirms that the movement represents a minority of Americans? (Granted, it’s a depressingly larger percentage than I would have guessed, but still a minority.) 

It’s a phenomenon I’ve encountered in other situations.

Back in 2007, a bipartisan group of Indiana leaders–the Kernan-Shepard Commission–was formed to study the structure of Indiana government. Among the recommendations issued by the Commission, led by former Governor Joe Kernan and Chief Justice Randall Shepard, was one that mirrored a proposal issued by former Governor Paul McNutt—in 1936.  (Never let it be said that Hoosiers rush into anything–the Hoosier legislature is finally considering consolidation of Indiana’s 1008 townships into a more workable number– this year.) 

The Kernan-Shepard proposal was supported by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the Central Indiana Corporate Community Council, the Indiana Realtors, and the Professional Firefighters Union. All of those organizations agreed that Indiana’s inefficient and bloated governing structure was strangling us, driving up property taxes while starving service delivery. As the campaign for reducing the number of townships pointed out at the time, Indiana citizens pay for, and are governed by, more than 10,300 local officials. The state “boasts” 3,086 separate governing bodies, hundreds of which have taxing authority. 

This bloated superstructure (much of which remains) made it nearly impossible to follow through on the perennial promise of political candidates of both parties to root out waste–much of that waste is a result of overlapping and outmoded units of government. It’s certainly not in service delivery. As I wrote at the time, in Indiana, we don’t put tax revenues to work enhancing our quality of life. Instead, we use a significant portion of them to pay for 1008 Township Trustees and other officeholders we no longer need.

Despite polling that showed a large majority of Hoosiers in support, that 2007 campaign to consolidate failed. It was my introduction to a longstanding axiom of political science: small, highly concentrated interest groups are more politically effective than larger but diffuse groups. 

The reason is salience– the importance we attach to a particular issue. 

In 2007, townships were an artifact of the days when travel to the county seat (by horseback) took half a day. Their responsibilities had steadily shrunk; they did little but run (some) fire departments and administer (with documented inefficiency) poor relief. Poll after poll confirmed that most Indiana voters agreed with the Commission that those duties should move to the county level. Convincing the legislature to consolidate them should have been a no-brainer.

But it didn’t happen.

Although majorities of voters agreed that townships should go–that they wasted money better used elsewhere–it was a rare individual for whom this was a burning issue. For the Township Trustees and members of their Advisory Boards, however, it was issue #1. Eliminating townships would eliminate the livelihoods of the Trustees (and the relatives many of them employed). It would eliminate the inflated fees paid to Advisory Board members for attending three or four meetings a year. The individuals for whom townships were issue #1 focused like lasers on lawmakers, marshalling their forces, bringing in people to testify, hiring lobbyists and calling in political favors. For them, the issue was salient. And we still have 1008 townships.

Before there was MAGA, there was the Tea Party.. Both movements were more politically effective than their numbers would have predicted, because the grievances that members shared were so salient to them. It reminded me of a famous quote from Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.” Unfortunately, it is also true that committed small groups that aren’t so thoughtful can also change the world, and not for the better.

There is no honest way to ignore the shared White Christian nationalism and deep-seated hatreds of MAGA adherents. Their war on DEI and “woke-ism,” their attacks on “elitists,” science, and expertise of all sorts are evidence of the salience of their resentments and hatreds–a salience that has allowed them to marshall their forces and “punch above their weight.”

MAGA’s cult-like behavior, and Trump’s buffoonery and incompetence, has had one arguably encouraging effect. It has vastly increased  the salience of constitutional and democratic principles to the “diffuse” majority of Americans. The Resistance is coming out in force.

And this year, Indiana may actually consolidate some townships, although I’m not holding my breath…

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Speaking Up

A couple of weeks ago, I read a media account about a Pennsylvania man who’d sent an email to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), urging the use of “common sense and decency” in an upcoming case. Within hours of sending the email, DHS issued a subpoena to Google for the man’s information. Two weeks later, two DHS agents and a local police officer visited his home to interrogate him about the email. 

When my husband and I discussed the incident, he admitted to worrying about similar reactions to the sentiments I express in these daily rants….

A few days later, in a conversation with my younger grandson, we addressed the issue from another angle: not whether citizens have a First Amendment right to criticise the government (we absolutely do, as the ACLU evidently reminded DHS after that interrogation), but whether patriotic citizenship implies a positive duty to speak truth to power, to defend American principles when they are under attack. We concluded that such a duty exists, even in situations when speaking up may involve a measure of risk.

I thought about those conversations when I read one of Robert Hubbell’s recent newsletters. Hubbell was clarifying his previous reaction to the way in which Anderson Cooper had departed from Sixty Minutes. His criticism wasn’t about the departure; it was about Cooper’s muted explanation of the reasons for that departure. Hubbell went on to make a point that directly addressed the immense importance of speaking up at times like these.

Here’s what he wrote:

We live in a fraught moment in which we have three choices for responding to Trump’s attempt to end democracy: capitulation, remaining silent, or raising our voices.

In reality, there are only two choices because capitulation and remaining silent are the same. Both advance Trump’s agenda, even though they involve different degrees of cooperation. But, in the end, dictators count on most people shrinking into the shadows. When good people remain silent, it becomes easier for the dictator to target those who raise their voices.

Let’s use Mark Kelly and the five other members of Congress who participated in the video about the duty to refuse illegal orders (Sen. Slotkin and Reps. Crow, Goodlander, Deluzio, and Houlahan). They made a brave choice. Rather than remaining silent as the US military murdered helpless civilians clinging to a shipwreck, they spoke out. Their leadership by example illustrates why they were good soldiers and commanders, and why they are good members of Congress.

As expected, Trump directed his ire at the six legislators, going so far as to seek indictments against everyone in the small group. They might still be indicted; they might still lose their retirement rank and pay. They remain at risk for speaking out.

Let’s imagine an alternate scenario. Suppose the day after Trump accused Kelly and others of sedition and called for the death penalty, the 93 additional members of Congress who are retired military veterans released the same video. And then the next day, 100 retired generals and admirals released the same video. And the next day, another 100 retired generals and admirals made the same video. As the number of those speaking out mounted, Trump and Hegseth would have retreated into sullen silence.

But because good and honorable men and women have chosen to remain silent, they are abandoning their colleagues during the most important fight of their lives. The other retired military members in Congress and retired generals and admirals are leaving Kelly and the others exposed to enemy fire, even though they have the capacity to provide cover merely by ending their silence.

Anderson Cooper quietly left CBS as it was being censored at the hands of Bari Weiss, paid for by Larry and David Ellison, to please Donald Trump. Anderson Cooper remained silent when he could have spoken the truth. That was a choice. Just like it is a choice for retired military members of Congress who send private text messages of encouragement to Kelly and the others but lack the courage to speak the same truth. Their silence is a choice.

 The simple but profound act of bearing witness to the truth by standing on a roadside or an overpass with a protest sign is a choice. It is the right one. It is a choice that inspires others. It tells them there is strength in numbers. It tells them not to lose hope.

Kelly, Slotkin, Crow, Goodlander, Deluzio, and Houlahan made a choice.

Their retired military colleagues in Congress made a choice.

Anderson Cooper made a choice.

We are being called upon to make a choice. Let’s make the right one.

I couldn’t agree more!

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Vice Signaling

The Guardian recently published an article addressing the degraded rhetoric ushered in by MAGA and employed non-stop by Trump.

We all are familiar with the concept of “virtue signaling”–-defined as publicly taking progressive positions that can seem performative–efforts to burnish one’s moral credentials, or demonstrate “right-thinking” (with a lower-case r.) As the article says, it can be easy to lampoon. (When I purchased my first Prius, a colleague suggested that driving a hybrid fell into that category.)

Trump, of course, has exhibited the opposite–what the article calls “vice signaling”–a penchant for dehumanisation that is the  opposite of decency. They’re not in the same rhetorical category. It began with his campaign launch, when he announced that he would build a wall between the US and Mexico in remarks the article described as ungrammatical with a vocabulary that was vague and repetitive. (The embarrassing third grade level characteristics of “Trump speech” that we have now come to expect.)

This is classic vice-signalling, breaking taboos in this case both general (against hate speech) and more specific (against falsely associating base or criminal traits with a race or ethnic group). He was signalling that he was prepared to go there –- say what the establishment would not allow, and assert himself as a politician who is authentic and courageous, who cannot be muzzled.

The recent video depicting the Obamas as apes was consistent with the racism he’s been signaling for decades. The linked article points out that such behaviors garner media attention and “break down established barriers to entry.”

What is far too infrequently discussed is what a society loses when civility of discourse is abandoned, and insults and hateful rhetoric displace respectful disagreement.

Research confirms that civil discourse leads to greater institutional trust– that tone strongly influences whether citizens view institutions as legitimate, even when they disagree with specific policies or outcomes. Without trust, compliance with the law declines and, as we are seeing, polarization deepens.

In “How Democracies Die,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt argued that democracy depends on “mutual toleration” and “forbearance”—both rooted in civility. Studies in social psychology show that civil environments increase people’s willingness to listen to each other and increase cross-ideological understanding—even when opinions don’t change.

Other research suggests that civility is economically consequential–high-trust, low-conflict environments attract investment, and reduce both transaction costs and regulatory friction. Social scientists like Robert Putnam have demonstrated that social capital–trust and reciprocity–leads to stronger economic growth.

There are also personal costs to marinating in an increasingly hateful and uncivil society. Medical scientists warn that chronic exposure to hostile rhetoric raises cortisol levels and increases anxiety; political science tells us that civility increases the likelihood of participation in civic life. Political science also tells us that rhetoric routinely delegitimizing elections, courts, journalists and civil servants leads to a greater tolerance of violations of important social norms, to institutional weakening, and ultimately, tolerance of violence.

As we’ve seen in our dysfunctional Congress, inflammatory rhetoric makes compromise difficult, if not impossible. It increases policy gridlock; worse, it creates a situation in which expertise is belittled and dismissed as partisan. (If you doubt that, just look at what RFK, Jr. has done to public health, or consider the consequences of Trump’s dismissal of climate change and embrace of coal mining.)

Civility isn’t silence. It isn’t the absence of protest or disagreement. It’s fundamentally a recognition of civic equality, in the sense that civil discourse implicitly recognizes that every citizen has a right to express an opinion. When discourse and even very strong disagreements are voiced in a civil and respectful manner, governments (and all institutions) benefit.

I’m not naive. I understand that individuals will often express themselves in dismissive or vulgar terms. (I am not exempt.) But when the people we have empowered–those we’ve elected to public office, or those whose celebrity means their comments will be widely shared–use demeaning and ugly rhetoric, “punching down” on those of lesser authority or status, the negative results don’t just fall on the people being demeaned. They are felt society-wide.

Every day, we learn of the profound, concrete damage this administration is doing. We learn of the corruption, the assaults on the rule of law, the efforts to reinstate Jim Crow…on and on. These assaults understandably consume our attention, but while we are compiling our lists of things we must correct once these horrible people have been ejected from our public life, we need to put “restoring civility” near the top.

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