feeding the poor in Germany (1931)



   

                                                Hitler addressing crowd in Germany (1934)


   

                                                Mussolini and fellow fascists march on Rome (1922) 



   

                 demonstration in St. Petersburg, Russia just as troops open fire on crowd (1917) 



Extremists of every kind love chaos because it makes the vast majority of citizens long for order, no matter what the price tag attached to that order may be.

In some countries, it is true that cooler heads still prevail after the riots have ended. But in many, once the riots and street battles have gone on for a while, the majority of citizens simply long for order. They get fed up with the uncertainty. 

Tyrants know this and, in fact, count on it. They direct their followers to foment riots, especially if these can be stirred up on a mass scale, and then feed off of the fear. They offer security if you will just give them a chance to bring order out of the chaos. And sometimes they then even do bring order, but at a terrible cost in the long run.

Turn race against race and generation against generation. Then you will have raw material to work with. So reads the tyrant's handbook. Hitler quietly said a prayer of thanks when the Depression hit Germany. He had been a fringe politician up to that time. But he knew that in hard times, people long for scapegoats and he knew whom he could set up in that role in Germany. The Depression was a win-win for him. 

I fear for us in our times. There are just too many politicians still around who stir up hatred and then feed off of it to gain political weight. Trump and Putin pose as realists, but my fear is that they are the worst kind of tyrants: the "realists" who look to get power in the short term at any cost. 

Democracy, on the other hand, requires work. Involvement. Debate.  Consensus-building. Compromise. To too many in our times, it seems that democracy requires too much patience. Let's just get on with it, they say, "it" being any action that seems to be moving toward order. 

It was Ben Franklin who said: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

My prayer is that in the next four years we are not going to be called upon once more to prove how far he saw and how right he was. 

Please, American friends, push, pull, or drag your fellow voters out to the polls. This is not a year for a protest vote. There is just too much at stake.