Bystanders at the Night of Broken Glass

Eighty years ago: November 9, 1938.

On a day known as Kristallnacht, across Germany mobs of state sanctioned hooligans set synagogues on fire, damaged store fronts and looted Jewish businesses, beat Jews in the streets, murdered 91, and rounded up some 30,000 Jews to send to concentration camps.

Hitler had defined Jews as dangerous outsiders, not real Germans. They were an infection poisoning Germany, he said. A lot of people agreed. 

Or didn't disagree.

1938

There had been oppression since Hitler became Chancellor in 1933. They were made second class citizens. Some fled. Some endured and stayed. After all, Germany was among the more modern, cosmopolitan, open minded countries in Europe. Surely this would pass.

Kristallnacht unleashed an era of state sanctioned physical violence against Jews. A young Jewish man from Poland had assassinated a German diplomat, justification for now treating Jews as a mortal threat to German safety.

There were no widespread public protests.  Jews were identifiable as a group, there were stories of conspiracies and cabals, and there was an economic incentive to confiscating their property. And the German leader was so decisive. Besides, the bystanders weren't Jews, so it was happening to someone else.

In America this month Donald Trump made a bold political decision in the buildup to the mid-terms. He focused on immigration and invasion by outsiders, not the economy. 

"Mass invasion." "Leprosy." "Smallpox."

He found an excuse, the caravan. He said those brown skinned Latin American walkers were an invasion force! They were criminals, rapists, drug dealers, and they were hiding among them Muslims from the Middle East! The ones who aren't criminals are freeloaders. 

It worked. 

The blue wave was matched with a red wave. Republicans turned out in the socially conservative states. 

The GOP electorate is not energized by policy. Trump reversed course on policy and voters went along. GOP voters are energized by sentiment for a traditional America that has disappeared over the past fifty years and resentment that new people with new legitimacy are changing America. The again in Make America Great Again, looks back to postwar America, when un-bombed intact American manufacturing was the most productive on earth, before black civil rights, women's liberation, and substantial immigration from Latin America and Asia. It was a white, Christian nation, and men were the head of the household.

Trump's language of contempt for outsiders is not a bug. It is a feature. He openly mocks and picks fights with people outside the core team: sons of bitches NFL players, lying women, criminal Mexicans, cheating Chinese, terrorist Muslims, phony transgenders, low IQ Maxine Waters, Pocahontas Warren. He knows who his enemies are. 

Charlottesville: "Jews will not replace us."

This is the fundamental fault line in the culture war. Democrats perceive blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, the LGBTQ community as fully part of America. Democrats consider this inclusive coalition to be our demographic future, both inevitable and benign. Democrats, in their own urban political and social bubbles, think that everyone agrees with them, and certainly should. But everyone does not. 

Kristallnacht is a warning bell: ethnic fear and resentment are a potent political force--real then and real now.   Trump leads majorities in many states. Audiences cheer Trump's speeches, and a great many share Trump's sentiments on targets of contempt.

Trump is not Hitler, but Trump has tapped into something powerful in America.  

What to do? 

I would like Republican officeholders and opinion leaders to protest Trump's language and dig in their heels at language of ethnic division. They have the power to stop Trump, but do not. He is too popular with too many. And they like his judge nominations, so they pretend the race talk isn't audible. GOP Leaders are quiet bystanders, which makes them enablers of Trump. 

I would like Democratic officeholders to address immigration in a way that reassures Americans that their borders are secure and laws are enforced, and that therefore language like Trump's is not just un-American, but also utterly unfounded and ridiculous. That, too, has not yet happened.

Note: I have learned I need to say this. I do not agree with anti-semitic or anti-immigrant language. I am pro immigrant. But I recognize that America and Europe are facing an emerging tide of ethno-nationalism especially among its rural and working class populations, and Trump (and the GOP) is exploiting it. I want our political process to get in front of this and turn it around. That means Democrats need to be smart and reduce concerns. If they do it badly--"deplorable"--they make things worse.