Life & Culture

Who Goes Nazi?

I recently came across Dorothy Thompson’s 1941 Harper’s piece, “Who Goes Nazi?” In it she describes a party game in which you look around the room and decide who at the party would embrace Nazism in America. Thompson had been a correspondent in Germany during the 1920s and 30s before being expelled by the Nazis, so she was in a good position to make the call. In the article she plays out an imaginary round, describing various guests and then delivering her verdict.

From a 21st century liberal perspective, it’s not hard to stay one step ahead in her game, but I wonder how obvious it was at the time. Elsewhere Thompson said that dictatorship is not something you vote for or even see coming. We will have our own version. “When our dictator turns up,” she said, “you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.” He will promise to “fix it,” and certain types of people will enthusiastically embrace him.

The types, in Thompson’s view, are varied, but they share something deep in their character that causes them to be ruled by their fear, frustration, and anger. The trick of the game is to spot that character trait in our friends and relations. Who Goes Nazi? might have been better played back in the Obama era. Today it’s like we’ve seen the answer sheet. No, I’m not implying that Donald Trump is Hitler—or Mussolini or Milosevic. The piece isn’t about these men, anyway; it’s about the people who, given the right provocation, would support them. They are the ones who would elevate a charismatic celebrity to power despite his constant, outrageous, and obvious lies, despite revelations that he has assaulted women and cheated employees, despite his dismissive refusal to reveal his business dealings, and despite campaign promises whose primary effect would be to punish minorities and political opponents. Despite all—and, for some, because of all—they would embrace him in the belief that he is the only one who can “fix it.”

Image: A lone German, August Landmesser, refuses to salute Adolf Hitler at a 1936 rally. Landmesser was, in fact, a Nazi, but he had fallen in love with a Jew. Found at “The tragically powerful story behind the lone German who refused to give Hitler the Nazi salute,” Business Insider, http://www.businessinsider.com/the-lone-german-man-who-refused-to-give-hitler-the-nazi-salute-2015-6

Posted on February 28, 2017 at 5:47 pm under Life & Culture

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