The time did not fly. Over the last four years I could hit the mute button during Trump’s White House lawn interviews and refuse to follow him on Twitter but he routinely beat my outrage down to near exhaustion. Working on voter outreach campaigns during the election renewed my hope for a return to less self-centered American values, but now, on this final weekend of Trump’s presidency, after the assault on the Capital, we all must face the damage done.
I know that I am locked in my bubble of like-minded liberals but I really want to better understand the motivations of his unmovable base. Who are these Americans that continue to stand with Trump, believe his lies and enable his trampling of our institutions?
This last weekend of Trump happens to coincide with my completion of book #955 of #1001; Primo Levi’s “The Drowned and the Saved”. The author was an Italian Jew who lived through WWII concentration camps and, u ended the forward to the first German translation of previous book, Survival in Auschwitz, with an appeal to better understand the German people who embraced the Nazis. He wrote:
“I was not interested in revenge…my task was to understand them. Not that handful of high-ranking culprits, but them, the people, those I had seen from close up, those from among whom the SS militia were recruited, and also those others, those who had believed, who not believing had kept silent, who did not have the frail courage to look into our eyes, throw us a piece of bread, whisper a human word.”
I am NOT equating Trump loyalists to the system of SS Militia and Nazi enablers who killed six million Jews in the holocaust, but I do find Primo Levi’s assessment of the German people’s motivation and culpability in their government’s actions timely as we evaluate the morality and responsibility of our own leaders as they mislead the public by clinging to Trump’s political coat tails despite his lies, mismanagement and impeachable acts.
“They were for a greater part diligent followers and functionaries, some fanatically convinced of the Nazi doctrine, many indifferent or fearful of punishment, or desirous of a good career, or too obedient…..behind their responsibility stands that great majority of Germans who accepted in the beginning, out of mental laziness, myopic calculation, stupidity, and national pride, the “beautiful” words of Corporal Hitler, followed him as long as luck and the lack of scruples favored him, were swept away by his ruin, afflicted by death, misery, and remorse, and rehabilitated a few years later as a result of the unprincipled political game.”
Who are these 74 million Americans who experienced the same four years as me but came to a different conclusion in the voting booth? What were their reasons for supporting the “best words” of Donald J.Trump? Myopic calculation or misguided Make America Great Again national pride? How can we regain respect for a common truth, debate our different approaches to that truth and move forward together.
Notes: Photo Samuel Corum, New York Times. Title of article subliminally taken from a link sent to me, but not viewed (tech issue) of a Youtube post where the words to this Sound of Music were adapted to celebrate Trump’s departure.
