Less Than Human

Jewish people and Immigrants being coerced onto trains headed for concentration camps

“Think,” says Professor Carl Hermann, who never left his homeland, “that even now the outside world does not realize how surprised we non-Nazis were in 1933. When mass dictatorship occurred in Russia, and then in Italy, we said to one another, ‘That is what happens in backward countries. We are fortunate, for all our troubles, that it cannot happen here.’ But it did, worse even than elsewhere, and I think that all the explanations leave some mystery. When I think of it all, I still say, with unbelief, ‘Germany—no, not Germany.”

― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933–45

During the run-up to the 2016 election and onward to the present day, Donald Trump unleashed, and continues to unleash, rhetoric into the American political conversation that is dangerous, destructive and dehumanizing. It was, and still is, dangerous propaganda designed to convince entire demographics of voters that their political opposition are not people. During his presidency, parallels to the Holocaust and Nazi Germany were brought up by critics,and then almost immediately dismissed by fervent supporters as well as critics alike, as being much too extreme a comparison, since the Trump administration wasn't actively gassing their mutual enemies.

Well, they didn't get the chance too.

Not yet, anyways.

Long before the Nazis concentrated power in Germany, and ended up sparking the second world war, which revealed the atrocities that they committed against Jewish people and minorities, by the millions, that inevitably shaped the worlds memory of them, the Nazi party wasn't considered to be radical, extreme, or deadly by anyone in Germany.

The Nazis considered themselves to be true Germans, and they were interested in saving Germany from rabid outsiders, as well as Jews, who were entering into the country "illegally" and taking jobs from "real" Germans, occupying housing that should have been afforded to these "real" Germans, and tainting the blood and culture of the German people.

In other words, the Nazis, purely and genuinely, believed that they were good people being replaced. That they were doing good things, that the rest of the world would take examples from them. Once the Nazis executed the Final Solution to the Jewish Problem, the world would recognize them as a super power, that finally provided a blueprint for other countries on how to preserve a countries history and the purity of its blood lines, saving it from dangerous invaders.

That was until American soldiers overseas discovered the existence of concentration camps, and the entirety of the Final Solutions horrific and inhuman methods were brought to the forefront of the worlds attention via the Nuremberg Trials.

So how did the Nazis convince Germans, even Germans that weren't fully on board with the ideology, to ignore atrocities committed against Jews and minorities, before World War 2?

The existence of concentration camps, and the crimes against humanity that the Nazis committed, are what they are remembered for historically. However, when Adolf Hitler was legally appointed as the Chancellor of Germany on January 30th of 1933, concentration camps didn't spring up the next day. In between Hitler legally winning in 1933 and the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945, Germany was living under the rhetoric of the Nazi regime.

A regime that specialized in propaganda, the "us" vs "them" rhetoric that was specifically designed to dehumanize and criminalize the existence of Jews and immigrants, with the intention of convincing enough of Germany to look the other way when they were inevitably rounded up and slaughtered at the camps.

Untermenschen is what they called the Jews. In German, it means sub-human. Inferior.

As in, not a person. They are not people. They are invaders, outsiders, leeches, cockroaches, animals, criminals, all manner of things.

The Nazis made sure that the average Germans perception of the Jew was simple: The Jews are not human beings. It was a concise message that the Nazis permeated into the fabric of German society over the course of years, by way of propaganda that was featured in the newspapers and the radio in a way that the average German couldn't ignore it. They simply could not ignore the constant headlines, the constant radio messages that the Jews were coming to get them, to the point where they started forming opinions about things they ordinarily would have never thought about, because the existence of Jewish people didn't negatively impact their lives, until the Nazi regime convinced them that they did.

The Nazi party, through hyper-normalization of radical political messaging, convinced enough of Germany that outsiders and Jews were coming to kill them, take their business's, take their homes, and destroy their culture.

And so, the Nazis went about mass killing Jews, and Germany didn't stop them.

The rest of the world had too.

Republicans and Dehumanization

So, with that out of the way, lets have a conversation about Republicans in America in 2022.

Lately, the Republicans have been very, very afraid.

Terrified, actually.

Terrified of Immigrants

Terrified of LGBTQ+ people

Terrified of Socialism

Terrified of Liberals/Antifa/Democrats

The modern American Trump supporting republican is fear stricken.

Frightened.

Afraid.

Petrified.

Intimidated.

Panicking.

Terrified. Of. Everything.

So they buy guns. Big guns. Lots of guns and ammunition. They do this because even though the liberals and ANTIFA and the immigrants and the LGBTQ+ have supposedly invaded every aspect of American culture, they'll be goddamned if the liberal culture war is going to walk itself into their homes, and influence their children.

But that's not enough. Keeping the liberals, and the gays, and the inner city poor people off their front door step with the threat of gunfire, simply isn't enough. The enemy is out there, and they are slowly encroaching onto the fresh cut grass of Real America.

See, The Republicans consider themselves to be true Americans, and they are interested in saving America from rabid outsiders, as well as LGBTQ+ people and immigrants, who are entering into the country "illegally" and taking jobs from "real" Americans, occupying housing that should have been afforded to these "real" Americans, and tainting the blood and culture of the American people.

Sound familiar? It should.

Republicans have *a lot* of enemies in the United States.

LGBTQ+ people, poor people, gang members, Democrat politicians, hollywood celebrities, immigrants.

How are these enemies typically referred to in Republican media?

Rapists, murderers, pedophiles, welfare queens, caravans, snowflakes, groomers, gangsters.

Anti-Americans.

You know what they aren't?

People. Human beings.

You will never hear Republican media refer to their domestic and foreign enemies, as people.

You will never hear the likes of Tucker Carlson, or Laura Ingraham, or Alex Jones, or Ben Shapiro, or anyone on NewsMax, or just about any elected Republican representative in government, refer to their political opposition, as human beings.

For all intents and purposes, if you are not a white, god fearing, pro-lifer whose base political beliefs are nationalism and idolatry, you might as well consider yourself the outsider that these people believe is coming for them. Because it won't be long before you actually are the outsider, and they are coming for you.

Because, well, you aren't human.

You're saying things that are actively destroying the country.

You want to teach kids about slavery, and acceptance of people who have a difference in lifestyle, difference in culture, difference in opinion, difference in experience, difference in religion, difference in God.

You are a threat to "Real Americans".

The "Real Americans" are mad. Scared, mad, and heavily armed. They are constantly inundated by social media, televised news, and radical forums on the internet that have convinced them that these people, who they would have never thought about before, are coming to take everything from them.

Just like the Germans did. Just like, well, almost any population through the course of human history that eventually justified crimes against humanity so that they could feel safe in their own skin again.

If history is any indicator, this inciteful and dangerous rhetoric has the ability to destroy the most powerful nations in the world. Slowly and methodically, by convincing the nations people to destroy it from within, out of fear of the ethereal enemy that just...never seems to show up.

The fearful and armed destroy their homes, destroy their relationships, destroy their country.

All in the name of protecting it from an enemy that was placed in their minds.

It's the Great Replacement theory all over again, and there is a high probability that America won't live to see the other side of it. We will destroy ourselves in an effort to stop an enemy, sight unseen.

And since it appears we haven't learned from history, it seems we're doomed to repeat it.

First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me