Grass Roots

As the human wreckage of World War II and the Holocaust was laid bare with the complete surrender of the Axis  powers, there was an innate tendency to centralize blame for the catastrophe. Particularly in Europe, where the perpetrators weren’t part of a notably rigid Far Eastern culture, who demonstrated their fanaticism time and again on the battlefield, the fallback conclusion was to lay blame from the top down, start and mostly stop at the Wolf’s Lair. After all, Hitler was from the beginning the Reich’s international face, and Allied war propaganda campaigns had always signaled his elimination as synonymous with final victory. 

How much easier it was to simply assume a diabolical aberration, now dead by his own hand, bore most all of the responsibility for modern history’s ugliest episode. Bring his inner circle to justice, let the Russians handle their business their way, and turn the page. Streamlining priorities in line with progress, rather than getting bogged down in the how and whys of the past, offered a more direct path forward into a future filled with gargantuan economic, political and military challenges. 

The major problem with that approach lay in the fact that every hour our “ally,” Uncle Joe Stalin, whose army occupied vast tracts of Eastern Europe, was acting increasingly like a principle adversary, and those who paid attention understood his type of leadership was very similar to Hitler’s, which we ignored at our peril. US Diplomat George Kennan’s “long telegram” would soon detail the origins of Soviet authority, and how incompatible its “jealous need for power” was with any Western hopes for post-war cooperation. Moreover, as the previously unimaginable number of Holocaust victims kept climbing, it began to dawn on many that such an event could never be allowed to happen again and that a field of study devoted to all of its ugly aspects might not be a bad idea. 

German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt moved into this vacuum to become the leader of 20th century totalitarianism scholarship. Her first book, The Origins of Totalitarianism, was published in 1951. It was groundbreaking work that explained in detail the unique characteristics and essential social dynamics behind total centralized control of a modern society exemplified by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. 

But her masterpiece was published in 1963 titled Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Its point of departure was the trial for crimes against humanity of Nazi deportation director Adolf Eichmann in Israel. Eichmann had escaped to Argentina after the war, but was kidnapped by Israeli intelligence operatives and brought to face justice in Jerusalem. 

The clear theme prosecutors pursued during Eichmann’s trial was the incomparable evil of the Final Solution and the necessity that the world must not allow architects like Eichmann to escape accountability. However, Arendt was not at all willing to leave it at that. She proceeded from a thesis that spread responsibility for the historic number of Holocaust dead with a far wider net.  

Arendt’s principle contention was that the level of “success” the Reich achieved in wiping out European Jewry could only be possible if they were granted an extraordinary level of cooperation at every step along the way. Occupied populations and their politicians, local bureaucrats and police, even Jewish Councils (judenrate), all contributed to a symmetry essential to kill so many people so quickly. Hungary, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed within months, most while Germany was in full retreat and certain to lose the war, was used by Arendt as the epitome of how atrocity can succeed when nobody resists.

In contrast, occupied Denmark, where King Christian X committed himself to protecting the nation’s Jews, and France, which supported an extensive partisan network, were cited by Arendt to show how ineffective Nazi extermination efforts were when confronted with even modest resistance. Although her contentions were controversial, the tremendous scope of her research, which literally tallied casualty numbers down to the very last victim, proved beyond a doubt that cooperating with totalitarians only produces worst case results. 

Flash forward about 80 years and America now suffers at the nihilist whims of a MAGA GOP,  an unapologetic totalitarian entity that no longer even bothers to deny its disdain for the rule of law, or its preparedness to sanction atrocity. In less than two months this regime has worked overtime to erase any doubts about how nefarious its agenda is. This time around “promises made, promises kept” could not possess darker overtones. Trump brazenly checks off every relevant box to confirm he gratuitously committed perjury when taking the oath of office January 25th on the same Capitol steps his servile minions stormed four years early at the behest of his stochastic terrorism. 

MAGA, like the Third Reich, is the embodiment of the worst collective human impulses that exist, ennobled for 30 years by Fox/AM. It is a nihilist ideology based in large part on the validation of jealousy, greed, petty resentments, self-inadequacy and disunity. It is anathema to everything the American experiment was supposed to embody, and is devoted to reversing the full breadth of our societal progress. The Republican Party now conflates being an insufferable asshole with courageous contrarianism, icky creepiness with out-of-the-box leadership, abject cruelty with long overdue “common sense.” In short, decent individuals with any degree of empathy need not apply. 

MAGA’s principle mission is to destroy victim groups Fox/AM has scapegoated for more than three decades, starting with immigrants and political opponents. On immigration, the regime has wasted no time pursuing atrocity, enthusiastically deporting victims masked ICE thugs grab off the street to Guantanamo and El Salvador’s notorious “terrorist confinement center.” It is clear Trump’s campaign assurances that criminal aliens would be the principle priority was just another lie, horror stories are already the common denominator. America is now unapologetically committing human rights violations as a matter of policy. Trump literally sets quotas he expects ICE to meet. 

As for dissidents Trump is not mincing words, even as he approaches full cognitive failure. His recent speech at the Department of Justice was nothing less than a clampdown manifesto. Speaking to a crowd of people sworn to be apolitical, Trump received rapturous applause when he promised that “we will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred…” by predecessors who “tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third world country. But in the end the thugs failed.” 

There is no doubt the goal is to create a deportation bureaucracy Eichmann would admire, employed to detain whoever the regime targets. Since incompetence is what Trump does best, it stands to reason that, even more than its Hitlerian forebears, MAGA criminal ambitions will require cooperation and passivity from all involved. Shamefully, thus far he has no reason not to be emboldened on that score. 

Across the board, American institutions are throwing in the towel before the first round even gets started. From the corporate media headed by the big three news networks which, since our election catastrophe has eased into a complicity comfort zone, to universities like Columbia that might as well put up signs saying “extort us for government funding.” From the disgusting spectacle of major law firms such as Skadden, Arps giving Trump a blank check on pro bono work to non-profits, school districts, even Major League Baseball becoming DEI-free Pleasantvilles, going along is now the go-to.

Any hopes a leading light emerges from Democrats we have relied on in the past flickers dimmer each day, as disunity and refusal to even recognize the full severity of our plight continues to characterize the party’s response to a thousand cuts the Project 2025 play book inflicts. Bernie and AOC are not Obama and Harris, whose continued disappearing act becomes more unfathomable by the day. Hakeem Jefferies was born to seize this moment; why he refuses to do so is deeply perplexing. A national general resistance simply can’t thrive without leaders who possess gravitas and are willing to put all of their skin in the game. Trump tells us daily how ugly he is and how repressive he wants his government to be; those at the top he threatens most must look him in the eye and demand he bring it on. 

Finally, there is us, everyday people on the ground. We who are fully cognizant of the disaster at hand. What can we do? What must we do? What should grass roots resistance look like? Incredibly, most Americans remain inattentive, wedded to routines that can still be carried out until MAGA nihilism renders them the nostalgia of a time before calamity. Protest, great. Call feckless lawmakers en masse, ok. But the ruinous catastrophe of last November was a collective failure. 

More than 75 million voted for a convicted felon who spent four years promising to be a fascist pestilence. Those who don’t understand that, don’t really care, or worst of all, embraced the results, must come to understand the price they will pay. They must hear the truth before we all suffer its consequences. They must understand the choice is now clear… good or evil, madness or sanity. However unpleasant things get telling them, they must be told, again and again, by all of us, whether it ruins the picnic or not. Resistance equals clarifying the options and refusing to be ignored. That is now the price of freedom; anything less is cooperation. BC.