The post below was published by an online friend Joshua Zacharia Ellis.
This is an interview with a writer who has researched Hitler's rise to power, and he suggests that most of the mythology about the early NSDAP is bullshit: it was the 1930s elections where they suddenly shifted from being fringe buffoons to beginning their rise, and Hitler wasn't a candidate because he was still an Austrian citizen who was threatened with deportation for trying to start a coup. Nor were the Nazis even the most virulently antisemitic party in Germany in that election.
He suggests that what made Germans vote for the Nazis was that they were explicitly offering violence. They didn't have good marketing - that came later - they didn't have any plans for restoring the economy; they just wanted to punish the "corrupt" leaders, who probably really weren't, and, of course, Make Germany Great Again by hurting or killing outsiders... like the Jews.
We see this time and time again. People don't want good governance; they don't even want dictatorship particularly. They want to see other people punished for their own lot in life. If you understand that, they are easy to manipulate, as Göring himself pointed out.
The problem is that humans are not nearly as bright as we give them credit for, nor does education or any of that stuff breed enlightened voters. Western European education is excellent, but there are still far right parties popping up all over Europe in the midst of these social democracies that take better care of their people than any other countries on earth. But human are resentful angry primates and they're never satisfied with what they have and they always want to blame someone for their problems.
Nobody likes to hear that they're to blame for their own problems... but if you want to *really* piss someone off, no matter their political leanings or education or anything, tell them that their problems are nobody's fault. There is no one to point a finger at. Your spouse didn't die because the hospital was negligent, your kid didn't die because the school metal detectors weren't working, your farm isn't drying up because of some coastal elite who doesn't care about the working man: it just happened because it happened, and no one in particular is to blame. No one did anything wrong. The skies just open and shit rains down and today was your turn under the spigot, kid. Sorry.
So whenever bad things happen to people they want someone to come for with the torches and the pitchforks, or the noose and the tree branch - I'm speaking both metaphorically and quite literally here. There's always an Other and the Other is always too blame.
Some groups are easier to make the Other than, well, others; particularly groups who have a big cultural investment in maintaining their own mores and traditions regardless of where they are. It's great for preserving things you think are important but, if we're being objective, a really shitty strategy for long term survival. In Europe in the early 20th century it was the Jews; in 21st century Europe, it's the Muslims. In Texas right now, it's South Asians, who are better at assimilation than other groups but still wanna go to mosque or mandir depending, who still want to maintain a connection to their home.
And you can see this in MAGA. It's fine to be Indian if you change your name to Bobby or Nikki and don't go around with a dot on your forehead and bring chicken and dumplings to the potluck instead of paneer dosas and spinach aloo. It's OK to be queer if you don't, y'know, throw it in everyone's faces by bringing your spouse around. You can be black as long as you're not *urban* black. You can be Hispanic if you want people to come to America the "right" way. And so on.
But this only works for so long too, and this is the mistake that assimilators make. As far as I can tell, there were a ton of Jews who assimilated into German culture and changed their names and cut their pays and threw away their beaver hats and tried to just be German. And it didn't matter in the end. Because there is never enough blood to satisfy the citizen animal, the pyres never burn high enough to satisfy their need to annihilate and purify. And like Göring said, it works in every country... especially the ones that believe in preserving their own ethnic purity at the expense of others.
And so I think there might be no way to avoid what's happening now everywhere. It's not a white thing or a Christian thing or a Western thing; the whole world is convulsing and everyone wants a bloodletting. Even the leftists and peaceniks want guillotines on Wall Street. Even me.
But I think things are different now. This isn't the 1930s. The threat of actual annihilation is quite real this time. Humanity has finally accumulated enough power and agency to actually end itself, or at least its domination of the Earth. We're doing it every single day as a byproduct of the bad ideology that has come to dominate the earth as thoroughly as the old ideas of kings and emperors: capitalism without brakes. It is the source of both our power and our discontent, but like junkies we refuse to accept that the real problem isn't the cops or the dealers or even the needle and spoon; it's what's in them. As long as we keep trying to make deals with the universe - which does not bargain - to hold on to fossil fuels and our ability to concentrate ungodly amounts of wealth and power - in our hands this time, surely, it will be different - we are going to be heading down the hill into the dark.
That great spasming of anger and resentment and a simple desire for violence and bloodletting... if it is allowed to come this time, might not end in anything as mild as the industrial murder of millions. It might be the end of us all.
He suggests that what made Germans vote for the Nazis was that they were explicitly offering violence. They didn't have good marketing - that came later - they didn't have any plans for restoring the economy; they just wanted to punish the "corrupt" leaders, who probably really weren't, and, of course, Make Germany Great Again by hurting or killing outsiders... like the Jews.
We see this time and time again. People don't want good governance; they don't even want dictatorship particularly. They want to see other people punished for their own lot in life. If you understand that, they are easy to manipulate, as Göring himself pointed out.
The problem is that humans are not nearly as bright as we give them credit for, nor does education or any of that stuff breed enlightened voters. Western European education is excellent, but there are still far right parties popping up all over Europe in the midst of these social democracies that take better care of their people than any other countries on earth. But human are resentful angry primates and they're never satisfied with what they have and they always want to blame someone for their problems.
Nobody likes to hear that they're to blame for their own problems... but if you want to *really* piss someone off, no matter their political leanings or education or anything, tell them that their problems are nobody's fault. There is no one to point a finger at. Your spouse didn't die because the hospital was negligent, your kid didn't die because the school metal detectors weren't working, your farm isn't drying up because of some coastal elite who doesn't care about the working man: it just happened because it happened, and no one in particular is to blame. No one did anything wrong. The skies just open and shit rains down and today was your turn under the spigot, kid. Sorry.
So whenever bad things happen to people they want someone to come for with the torches and the pitchforks, or the noose and the tree branch - I'm speaking both metaphorically and quite literally here. There's always an Other and the Other is always too blame.
Some groups are easier to make the Other than, well, others; particularly groups who have a big cultural investment in maintaining their own mores and traditions regardless of where they are. It's great for preserving things you think are important but, if we're being objective, a really shitty strategy for long term survival. In Europe in the early 20th century it was the Jews; in 21st century Europe, it's the Muslims. In Texas right now, it's South Asians, who are better at assimilation than other groups but still wanna go to mosque or mandir depending, who still want to maintain a connection to their home.
And you can see this in MAGA. It's fine to be Indian if you change your name to Bobby or Nikki and don't go around with a dot on your forehead and bring chicken and dumplings to the potluck instead of paneer dosas and spinach aloo. It's OK to be queer if you don't, y'know, throw it in everyone's faces by bringing your spouse around. You can be black as long as you're not *urban* black. You can be Hispanic if you want people to come to America the "right" way. And so on.
But this only works for so long too, and this is the mistake that assimilators make. As far as I can tell, there were a ton of Jews who assimilated into German culture and changed their names and cut their pays and threw away their beaver hats and tried to just be German. And it didn't matter in the end. Because there is never enough blood to satisfy the citizen animal, the pyres never burn high enough to satisfy their need to annihilate and purify. And like Göring said, it works in every country... especially the ones that believe in preserving their own ethnic purity at the expense of others.
And so I think there might be no way to avoid what's happening now everywhere. It's not a white thing or a Christian thing or a Western thing; the whole world is convulsing and everyone wants a bloodletting. Even the leftists and peaceniks want guillotines on Wall Street. Even me.
But I think things are different now. This isn't the 1930s. The threat of actual annihilation is quite real this time. Humanity has finally accumulated enough power and agency to actually end itself, or at least its domination of the Earth. We're doing it every single day as a byproduct of the bad ideology that has come to dominate the earth as thoroughly as the old ideas of kings and emperors: capitalism without brakes. It is the source of both our power and our discontent, but like junkies we refuse to accept that the real problem isn't the cops or the dealers or even the needle and spoon; it's what's in them. As long as we keep trying to make deals with the universe - which does not bargain - to hold on to fossil fuels and our ability to concentrate ungodly amounts of wealth and power - in our hands this time, surely, it will be different - we are going to be heading down the hill into the dark.
That great spasming of anger and resentment and a simple desire for violence and bloodletting... if it is allowed to come this time, might not end in anything as mild as the industrial murder of millions. It might be the end of us all.
The interview mentioned in the top paragraph can be found here in the Guardian. I recommend subscribing to the Guardian.
And Joshua's site can be found here.
