Really nice column today. Your writing gives color to bleak times. And I look forward to reading the memoire of the "young German."
Though you profess to have faith that our movement opposing the regime has teeth, I have recently felt that we might be losing a race against time. But today, the "stone-faced generals" (as many commentators have described them) showed zero warmth to the two despots who stole some of their valuable hours on this earth, ranting and raving about masculinity and enemies within. It is to them that I now look for support. Will they, or won't they, consider our American cities as training grounds for training troops with fresh shaven faces, lean bods, and a warrior ethos?
Micah, I certainly hope you are right (actually left) about the current moment. Am I optimistic, but the hope you inspire is a call to action. Thank you also for speaking out about the farce of Trump Peace Plan to end the war Gaza. I am amazed at how many mainstream commentators want to give it a chance (seemingly persuaded that Arab states and the PA are signing on). Netanyahu knows and says that this is simply the terms of surrender for Hamas to allow Israel to reconstruct at someone else's expense, the status quo ante in Gaza (i.e., the ghetto with controlled nutrition for 2 million Palestinians) while continuing the ethnic cleansing and annexation in the West Bank. He will sell this to his right wing. He will remind them of the value of Gaza as a holding tank for millions of Palestinians that will enable a Jewish Democratic Israel from the River to the Sea (except for Gaza). As an added bonus perhaps a new resistance movement will rise up for them to crush in the name of security. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
There's a whisker of a chance that with real pressure from the Arab states (and Turkey, don't forget, which is an important backer of Hamas along with Qatar) that Trump actually has to make Netanyahu follow through. Given the horror of what is still happening, we all have to want something that ends the bombing, gets aid in, and frees all the hostages. Not to mention a substantial number of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. As Ben Franklin said, ""There never was a good war or a bad peace." If the people of Gaza are given a chance to rebuild, how can we oppose that? (Also I doubt Hamas would win an election there now.) But assuming Israel just continues the occupation and expansion of settlement in the WB, with the hilltop youth running wild and Israel bombing cities like Jenin...it's hard to see how the cycle doesn't continue.
Micah, if I may be the pessimist to your congenital optimist: are you not concerned that the biggest push back to this fascist regime is not his brutal treatment of immigrants, and anyone remotely looking brown, his weaponization of the justice department and federal funding, his demonization of Trans people and DEI, etc. but the cancelation of a late night comedy show? Doesn't that seem fucked up to you? I guess I am worried that everyone will go back to watching Jimmy Kimmel on their screens and stay at home.
Well, if you put it that way, I agree. But actually I think there’s a tremendous amount of pushback happening around what ICE is doing, but most of it is highly local and in many cases hidden from view. Los Angeles and Chicago both showed real spine and so far they have held the line. Have you noticed how President Metamucilini hasn’t sent troops to Portland after promising he would? The Kimmel thing was a big juicy target; the other horrors you mention are more diffuse. Why can’t we be more positive when we make gains instead of hunting for the negative?
On Yom Kippur I am going with, "it's a Jewish thing." Or maybe it's being a red diaper baby and seeing my parents' history and how everything they worked for either erased or fail to come to fruition, while people suffered.
Yes, I agree. Germany in the 30s was not a country with any real history of Democracy... And they were 10 years or so from extremely punitive ww1 peace retribution.
Unfortunately, I see very few leaders emerging now in the USA.
Even worse?
Don't listen to the NYT the daily podcast today unless you want to puke. Almost zero change in trump's polling from April. GOP base loves him. Dems only up 2 points in generic ballot (were up 8 in 2018). Biden won by 4 in 2020.
As I live in Germany, I recognise in your story much of the atmosphere, especially in the remote areas. I would like to claim that it is comparable to the atmosphere in Florida or Texas. Social control is a big thing, because everyone knows everyone. Nobody wants to stand out. Put a few men in charge and nobody dares to protest. Thankfully the States are united and that fact keeps absolute power until now in check. However, with a Supreme Court that is hacked by the GOP, I have the feeling that they want to divide by giving Trump admin the power to punish blue states. That is a macro model of the mini 30ies Germany. Divide, punish, silence, conquer. I hope that the good people in the US will be able to stop this. I agree that the protests are a good sign and an inspiration for those suppressed in red states. Thank you for this wonderful essay.
1) When people in Germany did push back, Hitler caved. If he did something horrific and everyone kept quiet, he upped the ante and went full steam ahead. Perfect example: T-4 program. No one complained when “the government” gassed mentally ill Germans. So Hitler knew it was all right to gas Jews and others he deemed undesirable.
When, for example, Bavarians protested the removal of crucifixes from schoolrooms, Hitler punished no one. He ordered them reinstated. When students marched in Munich on January 13, 1943 protesting the denigration of female students, no one was arrested. The Rosenstrasse protests in Berlin were likewise extraordinarily effective.
2) People who participated in resistance efforts tend to have a much darker view of “good Germans,” usually contending there were none. During the second of several interview and research trips in 2002, we stayed at a lovely inn in Tutzing, on Starnberger See. It has been in the same family for hundreds of years.
The owner’s wife complained about American misbehavior immediately after the war. GIs getting drunk, shooting up the pier.
An hour or two later, we sat with Herta Probst and her son Micha. Herta’s husband (Micha’s father) Christoph was executed in 1943 for resisting. Herta’s father Harald Dohrn was executed in 1945 for resisting. Her stepbrother was exiled to England in the mid-1930s for resisting.
We told Herta and Micha the Tutzing story. Herta drew up her small frame. *No! They got what they deserved. There were no good Germans.*
Over and over in interviews we heard the same thing. The people who took action refused to accept “inner emigration” as excuse.
I recently read Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 and came to the same conclusion. The Nazis came to power in the wake of a worldwide depression with unemployment rates over 20%, a population still reeling from a catastrophic defeat in war, with a flawed nascent constitutional democracy. There are parallels with the US 2025 but Hitler had a leverage that Trump has not e.g. the Reichstag fire, the violence & lawlessness of the Brownshirts & the extra-judicial murders of the Night of the Long Knives. But there is no room for complacency.
Really nice column today. Your writing gives color to bleak times. And I look forward to reading the memoire of the "young German."
Though you profess to have faith that our movement opposing the regime has teeth, I have recently felt that we might be losing a race against time. But today, the "stone-faced generals" (as many commentators have described them) showed zero warmth to the two despots who stole some of their valuable hours on this earth, ranting and raving about masculinity and enemies within. It is to them that I now look for support. Will they, or won't they, consider our American cities as training grounds for training troops with fresh shaven faces, lean bods, and a warrior ethos?
This isn't an either/or choice. There is opposition on display and growing in many quarters.
Micah, I certainly hope you are right (actually left) about the current moment. Am I optimistic, but the hope you inspire is a call to action. Thank you also for speaking out about the farce of Trump Peace Plan to end the war Gaza. I am amazed at how many mainstream commentators want to give it a chance (seemingly persuaded that Arab states and the PA are signing on). Netanyahu knows and says that this is simply the terms of surrender for Hamas to allow Israel to reconstruct at someone else's expense, the status quo ante in Gaza (i.e., the ghetto with controlled nutrition for 2 million Palestinians) while continuing the ethnic cleansing and annexation in the West Bank. He will sell this to his right wing. He will remind them of the value of Gaza as a holding tank for millions of Palestinians that will enable a Jewish Democratic Israel from the River to the Sea (except for Gaza). As an added bonus perhaps a new resistance movement will rise up for them to crush in the name of security. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
There's a whisker of a chance that with real pressure from the Arab states (and Turkey, don't forget, which is an important backer of Hamas along with Qatar) that Trump actually has to make Netanyahu follow through. Given the horror of what is still happening, we all have to want something that ends the bombing, gets aid in, and frees all the hostages. Not to mention a substantial number of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. As Ben Franklin said, ""There never was a good war or a bad peace." If the people of Gaza are given a chance to rebuild, how can we oppose that? (Also I doubt Hamas would win an election there now.) But assuming Israel just continues the occupation and expansion of settlement in the WB, with the hilltop youth running wild and Israel bombing cities like Jenin...it's hard to see how the cycle doesn't continue.
Micah, if I may be the pessimist to your congenital optimist: are you not concerned that the biggest push back to this fascist regime is not his brutal treatment of immigrants, and anyone remotely looking brown, his weaponization of the justice department and federal funding, his demonization of Trans people and DEI, etc. but the cancelation of a late night comedy show? Doesn't that seem fucked up to you? I guess I am worried that everyone will go back to watching Jimmy Kimmel on their screens and stay at home.
Well, if you put it that way, I agree. But actually I think there’s a tremendous amount of pushback happening around what ICE is doing, but most of it is highly local and in many cases hidden from view. Los Angeles and Chicago both showed real spine and so far they have held the line. Have you noticed how President Metamucilini hasn’t sent troops to Portland after promising he would? The Kimmel thing was a big juicy target; the other horrors you mention are more diffuse. Why can’t we be more positive when we make gains instead of hunting for the negative?
On Yom Kippur I am going with, "it's a Jewish thing." Or maybe it's being a red diaper baby and seeing my parents' history and how everything they worked for either erased or fail to come to fruition, while people suffered.
Yes, I agree. Germany in the 30s was not a country with any real history of Democracy... And they were 10 years or so from extremely punitive ww1 peace retribution.
Unfortunately, I see very few leaders emerging now in the USA.
Even worse?
Don't listen to the NYT the daily podcast today unless you want to puke. Almost zero change in trump's polling from April. GOP base loves him. Dems only up 2 points in generic ballot (were up 8 in 2018). Biden won by 4 in 2020.
#lolnothingmatters
As I live in Germany, I recognise in your story much of the atmosphere, especially in the remote areas. I would like to claim that it is comparable to the atmosphere in Florida or Texas. Social control is a big thing, because everyone knows everyone. Nobody wants to stand out. Put a few men in charge and nobody dares to protest. Thankfully the States are united and that fact keeps absolute power until now in check. However, with a Supreme Court that is hacked by the GOP, I have the feeling that they want to divide by giving Trump admin the power to punish blue states. That is a macro model of the mini 30ies Germany. Divide, punish, silence, conquer. I hope that the good people in the US will be able to stop this. I agree that the protests are a good sign and an inspiration for those suppressed in red states. Thank you for this wonderful essay.
Two quick comments.
1) When people in Germany did push back, Hitler caved. If he did something horrific and everyone kept quiet, he upped the ante and went full steam ahead. Perfect example: T-4 program. No one complained when “the government” gassed mentally ill Germans. So Hitler knew it was all right to gas Jews and others he deemed undesirable.
When, for example, Bavarians protested the removal of crucifixes from schoolrooms, Hitler punished no one. He ordered them reinstated. When students marched in Munich on January 13, 1943 protesting the denigration of female students, no one was arrested. The Rosenstrasse protests in Berlin were likewise extraordinarily effective.
2) People who participated in resistance efforts tend to have a much darker view of “good Germans,” usually contending there were none. During the second of several interview and research trips in 2002, we stayed at a lovely inn in Tutzing, on Starnberger See. It has been in the same family for hundreds of years.
The owner’s wife complained about American misbehavior immediately after the war. GIs getting drunk, shooting up the pier.
An hour or two later, we sat with Herta Probst and her son Micha. Herta’s husband (Micha’s father) Christoph was executed in 1943 for resisting. Herta’s father Harald Dohrn was executed in 1945 for resisting. Her stepbrother was exiled to England in the mid-1930s for resisting.
We told Herta and Micha the Tutzing story. Herta drew up her small frame. *No! They got what they deserved. There were no good Germans.*
Over and over in interviews we heard the same thing. The people who took action refused to accept “inner emigration” as excuse.
I recently read Volker Ullrich's Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939 and came to the same conclusion. The Nazis came to power in the wake of a worldwide depression with unemployment rates over 20%, a population still reeling from a catastrophic defeat in war, with a flawed nascent constitutional democracy. There are parallels with the US 2025 but Hitler had a leverage that Trump has not e.g. the Reichstag fire, the violence & lawlessness of the Brownshirts & the extra-judicial murders of the Night of the Long Knives. But there is no room for complacency.