FUELING XENOPHOBIC HYSTERIA FEEDS FASCIST ELEMENTS

On December 7 Donald Trump, Republican frontrunner in the presidential election contest, announced that he was calling for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on." His words elicited a firestorm of reaction from domestic as well as foreign pundits. Leaders in both political parties chastised him for making un-American statements. The British Parliament is considering a motion banning him from entering the U.K.. Business associates operating in the Middle East are removing Trump's name from branded properties . A previously scheduled meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was cancelled. And across the globe the GOP frontrunner is being referred to as a Fascist demagogue. Donald Trump says that he does not care, that what he said needed to be said. Upwards of 60% of potential Republican voters appear to agree. He apparently anticipated some of the reaction, and his proposal was obviously designed to feed into a growing Islamophobia permeating the country.

While Trump may have unleashed a political firestorm among mainstream politicians, his remarks mirrored similar utterances coming out of a growing number of far-right populist, nationalist or outright Fascist parties dotting the political landscape in Europe. Many of the elements leading to the development of Fascist parties across pre WWII Europe  are again in evidence. During the run-up of World War II political movements were focused on similar concerns far-right parties agitate about today: The economy, unemployment, immigration, a loss of national identity, and a loss of traditional values. While anti-semitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties during the first three decades of the 20th Century, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor during the early part of the 21st Century.

In our country political demagoguery may eventually be absorbed in platforms of one of the major political parties. In most European countries electoral systems allow fringe movements to organize their support in to political parties with real power. Today in Europe proto-Fascist parties that are anti-Islam, anti-Semitic, and anti-European Union have already become the second or third largest parties in a belt of formerly liberal societies that runs from Norway and Finland  to The Netherlands and France. In Hungary, where the nationalist Fidesz Party already governs, Jobbik, the more extreme and most obvious neo-Nazi party in Europe continues to gain in strength. Prime Minister Viktor Oban , already referred to as a dictator and the "Donald Trump of Europe," continues his movement to the extreme  right in an effort to thwart Jobbik's ascendance. In Poland a new right wing populist government controlled by the "Law and Justice Party" recently took steps to cancel previous appointments of judges to its Constitutional Tribunal, which rules on all legislation. In France Marine Le Pen's Nationalist Front took 30% of the vote in recent regional elections, positioning herself well for an anticipated challenge  in the upcoming 2017 presidential elections. It took collaboration between President Hollande's Socialists and past President Sarkozy's center-right "Les Republicains" to keep her from dominating the election.

The point is that the world is a dangerous place today, but our reaction to the dangers that seem to be lurking around every corner is potentially as dangerous as what we are trying to protect ourselves from. What we may now look at as political theater fed by powerful demagoguery can quickly deteriorate into mass hysteria and morph ideas into political power and control over public resources. While we yearn for a rebirth of traditional values, we tend to lose track of our core values. Witness Europe where ideas similar to those expressed by Donald Trump ultimately developed into political parties with real power running on platforms specifying desires to expel their Muslim population, register Jews and Muslims alike, stop the flow of refugees, reverse the influence of the European Union and its Parliament (one-third of which  now consists of far-right ant-E.U. representatives), restrict democratic values, and essentially reverted to the situation after the Weimar Republic in 1933 Germany. The Nazis who took over never won an election. However, their demagoguery acquired the support that eventually led us to World War II and the deaths of over 60 million people.

Political bluster and grandstanding can produce outcomes we don't imagine, and over which we could easily lose control. If you think that that can't happen here, just remember: we used to ostracize Catholics, we shamelessly allowed anti-semitism to fester and sent thousands of would-be Jewish immigrants back to Germany where most were exterminated, we interred our Japanese citizens, and if we follow Donald Trump's suggestions we will soon make life for our Muslim citizens a living hell.

Hitler's brown shirts were not very educated. They were storm troopers. When he released them  during the night of November 9, 1938 to execute a coordinated attack on Jews throughout Germany - during what was later dubbed as "Kristallnacht" - he destroyed the lives of millions of people and set the stage for what would become his "final solution." When I observed the raucous standing ovation Trump received in South Carolina when he announced his proposal I could not help but feel that he could have asked these people to do anything he wanted, and they would have complied. As we read this mosques are being firebombed,people are attacked, knifed and killed, businesses are being defaced and destroyed, and patriotic Americans are having their lives ruined.

My parents were living 300 miles from the center of activity in Germany in 1938. They were helpless to do anything about it, but they suffered the eventual consequences when my grandfather was enslaved and ultimately killed by the Nazis. We still have a choice. We need to use it, or we may wake up one morning regretting we didn't.