HISTORY’S LESSONS

On January 30^th 1933, a teary eyed Adolph Hitler swore to protect the German Constitution and became Chancellor of Germany. The Weimar Republic, an experiment in democracy which the politicians didn’t like and in which the people had little faith was failing. The onerous Treaty of Versailles that disarmed Germany after World War I and the disastrous Great Depression had taken its toll. The German people needed wheelbarrows of Deutschmarks to buy a loaf of bread and were disgusted with their self-serving elected politicians that had brought government to a standstill. The old aristocracy and the wealthy “knew” they could control Hitler. He was a joke they were sure would soon would be pushed to a back corner while they reinstated the monarchy with a descendant of the Kaiser. Even the military was sure of this and to make certain, only three Nazis, including Hitler himself held government office in the eleven person Cabinet. They elected a “strongman” they were sure to be able to control, who told each group of people what they wanted to hear. A man who promised to rebuild the military, subdue the terrorists who burned the Reichstag building and “Make German Great Again.” A man who told them that they were not at fault, it was European nations like England and France as well as the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. We all know how that story ended.

Fast forward, now, to the United States; summer of 2015. The nation is just recovering from the most economically disastrous period since the Great Depression. People have been losing their homes, their jobs and are swimming in debt while the majority of the wealth in the nation, once belonging to a vast and prosperous middle class, now flows to and resides in a few hundred families – the “1%.” These people buy and own the self-serving politicians in Washington DC and state capitols around the country. People are disgusted with the gridlock that has kept government from functioning at all. While the economy threatens people from within, terrorism and rogue nations threaten them from without. People are in search of a strong leader; a man of action rather than words. A plain spoken man who will tell them what they want to hear and “Make America Great Again.” After all, it is really the fault of those nations like Mexico, China and Korea that are talking their jobs away and, what they don’t take, the illegal immigrants flooding across the border do. He is promising to rebuild the military to a point where no nation would dare fight us, eliminate the immigrants (thus purifying the Homeland) and bring jobs back to this country. An increasing number of naïve people with short memories are grabbing the coattails of Donald Trump. After all, even as President, he would be surrounded by good people who could control him when needed and maybe he can change the way things work (or don’t).

Those who fail to learn from histories lessons are doomed to repeat its mistakes.

Hail Trump!