One people with oneempire and one leader

“Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!” Tom Brokaw’s “Greatest Generation” landed on the shores of Europe to fight back that mantra from a frustrated and angry World War I German corporal. Today, on the soil of our own country, we are called “To Make America Great Again.”

Trump rallies his legions around a propagandized and distorted siren song that America is damaged and in danger. Germans in the 1930s sought succor from a view seen through the National Socialist lens that Germany had been betrayed and sold out within the Versailles Treaty.

Trump bullies his opposition; offers to pay the legal fees for those who get into physical altercations; distorts facts and truths, whipping his followers into frenzied and fanatical theatrics. Hitler elicited young, out of work men, gave them “Brown Shirts” (and black ties!), and sent them into the streets to assure his rallies guaranteed the message of a “new order” was heard. Hitler’s use of symbolism, ritual, and bullied pulpit swept him by 1932 to the chancellorship, and later dictator of the German people. Germany later, in ashes.

Republicans now coddle Trump. They, I suspect, believe can control him. The industrialists that financed and fell in behind Hitler also believed the same. Too late though, did they realize that the fuhrer’s machine had become so well oiled and onerous to be controlled.

Please America, awaken; don’t hide in the sand. The greatest generation must certainly feel betrayed; and the world continues to watch in stunned and shocked amazement!

This story was originally published June 7, 2016 at 3:38 PM with the headline "One people with oneempire and one leader."