Some academic internet interlocutors recently tried to stick some historical parallels on Donald Trump and American Evangelicals. They were attempting to link the precedent set by the German Christian movement and its support for Hitler, to that of American Christians and their support for Trump.
While I don’t disagree that there are slight similarities within the rhetoric, their conclusions were too easily settled upon.
Hitler was a seducer with a total grasp on the passions and faith of a people. Trump on other hand appears incoherent and at other times inconsistent in his message. To put it simply, he’s proven more to be kryptonite than an advocate for any “Aryan super-race filled with the Übermensch – superman”. As most people would agree, Trump repels rather than attracts.
I wont go into more precise differences because I believe that anyone with a basic education in social etiquette, even before its takeover by the parochialism of the excessively politically correct, knows the truth in the axiom, that “you catch more flies with honey, than with vinegar.”
Hitler put this into practice and seduced a nation. Eventually bending that nation towards his, and his political movement’s libido dominande (will-to-dominate). The German Christian Movement utilised similar tactics in gaining support for the NSDAP, which was in turn used against the remnants of the German Evangelical Church, the Pastors Emergency League and their justly rebellious descendant, the Confessing Church.
Instead of Trump and American Evangelicals, there are a spate of more relevant current events to choose from. The loudest of which concerns Islamism and the growing militancy of Leftists.
Both of which do violence to classical liberal rights, such as free speech, freedom of religion, and, in the case of the Left, families and thousands of unborn children every day. It’s concerning that academics are falling over themselves to denounce Trump. Yet fail to acknowledge the more pertinent historical parallels, which share a closer affiliation with a Nazified Germany and the compromised Church of the 1930s and early ’40s.
The most significant parallel’s being Islamism’s closeness to the doctrine of “blut und boden – blood and soil” and Leftism’s selective outrage. Outrage that is often positioned between one selective set of protests and another. The targeted call to inclusion, for instance, shows up as a front for the more sinister goal of picking and choosing those who will have to be excluded; which is potentially those who disagree. It’s not far to jump from this to the assumption that such selectivity could result in the doctrine of “Lebensunwertes Leben – life unworthy of life.” (or in a more milder dosage, people unworthy of an opinion)
The secular and sometimes Christian left, for example, are quick to write-off and then propagandise any dissent against its position. Anyone who does is automatically treated with the suspicion, or worse, the accusation, that their questioning is rooted in a “phobia” of some kind. As is well established, the pattern of behaviour is to denounce any disagreement and then shame anyone who raises honest questions about serious social, theological or political issues, that the Left would claim to be the only answer to.
The pattern is consistent. Shame into silence anything that challenges Leftism. Intimidate and then threaten all who speak out against its narratives. Such as, the use of a politics of diversion and evasion, when it comes to the dangers of Islamism and their bizarre placating of those who’s own self-interests lie in controlling the debate over gay marriage; and in controlling those who oppose the Leftist construct of “gender fluidity.”
The pattern is clear. The Leftist will allow all criticism and violence against those things Leftism hates, but will remain complacent in the face of more urgent historical parallels that demand fair attention.
I get the criticisms of Trump, but as far as historical parallels go, only the short-sighted, given the contexts, would be ignoring the relevance of those historical events to the intolerance of Leftism, ISIS, Islamism and the connection of the latter to these more recent developments:
1. Turkey seizes ALL Christian churches in city and declares them ‘state property (Express.uk)
2. Attacks on Christians in Egypt raise alarms (USA Today)
As Churchill, C.S Lewis, and George Orwell pointed out in regards to pacifism and appeasement; and for Dwight Eisenhower, complacency:
“The handicaps were many. The greatest obstacle was psychological— complacency still persisted! Even the fall of France in May 1940 failed to awaken us— and by “us” I mean many professional soldiers as well as others— to a full realization of danger.
The commanding general of one United States division, an officer of long service and high standing, offered to bet, on the day of the French armistice, that England would not last six weeks longer— and he proposed the wager much as he would have bet on rain or shine for the morrow. It did not occur to him to think of Britain as the sole remaining belligerent standing between us and starkest danger. His attitude was typical of the great proportion of soldiers and civilians alike.
Happily there were numerous exceptions whose devoted efforts accomplished more than seemed possible.
Despite the deepening of congressional concern, the nation was so unprepared to accept the seriousness of the world outlook that training could not be conducted in realistic imitation of the battlefield.
We had to carry it on in soothing-syrup style calculated to rouse the least resentment from the soldiers themselves and from their families at home. Many senior officers stood in such fear of a blast in the headlines against exposing men to inclement weather or to the fatigue of extended manoeuvres that they did not prescribe the only type of training that would pay dividends once the bullets began to fly.
Urgent directives from above and protest from the occasional “alarmist” could not eliminate an apathy that had its roots in comfort, blindness, and wishful thinking.” [ii]
It must be said, then, that the path to the resurgence of fascism doesn’t begin with Trump, or the rhetoric of Trump’s campaign. Nor does it rest in the endorsement of American Evangelicals.
Granted there are small similarities in rhetoric between Nazism and the German Christian movement, Trump and American Evangelicals. That link, however, if it can even be called that, is weak. No more so then when it is compared to the greater examples of Islamist ideology and Leftist militancy, which appear on the horizon as this century’s very own gathering storm.
References:
[i] Erogden Stages Mass Rally In Turkey sourced August 8th 2016 from Skynews.com
[ii] Eisenhower, D.D. 1948 Crusade in Europe: A Personal Account of World War Two Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Ed. (Loc. 251-256;260-262 ).
Rod Lampard 
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