A Time for Choosing

Black is the new brown: Stormtroopers enforcing early cancel culture.

Have you ever wondered how you would have behaved had you lived in Weimar Germany, as the Nazis rose to power? Would you have been one of the true believers, falling into line? Or would you have fought at any cost for human decency?

No need to wonder. You are there.

The parallels between Weimar Germany in its death throes and the USA today are obvious. The only difference is the name the Nazis use. Now they call themselves, disingenuously enough, “Antifa” or “Black Lives Matter.”

But the critical elements are the same:

1. The Nazis/Antifa believe that power is the only issue and the only goal. There is no truth but power; there is no morality but power. There are no common values to appeal to. This has long been explicit in postmodernism, and was bound to lead here. Hitler made it plain in Mein Kampf: the objective of the state or the movement or the individual is to get whatever advantage it can for itself. One large arm of Antifa enshrines it in their name: BAMN, “By Any Means Necessary.”

2. Since everything is about power, it is all only a matter of who gets to be on top. There is no equality; there is no fairness. There is no question of compromise, dialogue, or shared interests. Black lives matter. All lives do not matter. Say so, and you may get shot.

3. The action has moved into the streets; it is now moved, inevitably, to a test of strength and resolve. In this atmosphere of chaos, the general populace will immediately crave order, and will gravitate to whichever faction looks stronger in hopes of getting it. We are seeing this everywhere. This is how you make good Germans. This is the strategy we can expect from most people, allowing the worst to take command. For now, BLM and Antifa look stronger. It may be that a strong man on the right may emerge, instead of Antifa or BLM taking over. It makes no difference: it would be a choice between Hitler and Stalin. In fact, the situation automatically favours whichever side is least principled, and the worst will rise to the top, whichever side it is.

4. As in Weimar Germany, it has become a matter of race and of searching for scapegoats. Hitler fixed on the Jews and the Freemasons, and so forth. BLM and Antifa and their acolytes have fixed on “whites,” Republicans, and so forth. The selection is more or less automatic: if the only value is power, you target whomever you suspect of being powerful or potentially rivals for power for elimination. Similarly dire consequences for the targeted are only too likely.

5. As in Weimar Germany, we see the authorities tacitly favouring one side in the battle in the streets. The bias in favour of power that infects the streets has already infected the elite. In both Weimar Germany and contemporary America, it had its main power base in the universities and in the bureaucracy. Those sophisticated sorts who had read Nietzsche and considered themselves supermen; those sophisticates who have read the French postmodernists and consider themselves much cleverer than the common rabble who believe in morality.

6. In Weimar Germany, the authorities generally looked the other way when Nazis acted illegally. When Hitler attempted a putsch, he got a comfortable prison term with writing materials. We see this today in the grossly preferential treatment of leftists both in the popular culture and in the law courts. Witness the prosecution of General Flynn, how figures on the right are not permitted to speak. This may in part be explained by the influence of the postmodern assumptions on the bureaucratic and academic class that feeds the bureaucracy at all levels.

7. Any authorities who are not themselves Nazis seem paralyzed. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity,” as Yeats described the 1930s. This is ordinary human denial in the face of evil. We do not want to accept the presence of evil, because we know we are ourselves sometimes guilty. Given an essentially unprincipled new movement, one which has embraced evil. this allows them free rein, as it did at Munich. We watch Mitt Romney march with Black Lives Matter. Everybody, even right-wing commentators, is giving them far too much credit.

And so it goes.

Except that the Nazism of the 1930s infected only one power, and only one of the great powers. Hitler appeared and rose when Germany was intrinsically weak, militarily and economically. Even so, thanks to appeasement, he got shockingly far.

Imagine what the Nazis could do if they arose in the world’s most powerful country, or even in a number of countries simultaneously.

Last time, the primary scapegoats were the Jews, only about 6% of the German population. This time, it is “white males,” 30% of the US population. Not to mention the ongoing holocaust of the unborn—and the certainty that white women will be next. Last time it was Freemasons, only a fraction of the German population, surely. This time it is Republicans, essentially half the population.

The Nazis may have bitten off more than they can chew, leading to their rapid collapse. Let us hope so. Because, if not, the potential for carnage and general destruction is exponentially higher.

Which side are you on?