History rhyme time

 Eighty-five years ago yesterday, German troops invaded Poland, the event we usually describe as the beginning of World War II.  (The Japanese had already been fighting in China for two years.)  Coincidentally the German states of Thuringia and Saxony held elections yesterday, and the far-right party known as Alternative fur Deutschland did frighteningly well, coming in first in Thuringia (33%) and second in Saxony (31%).  The leaders are demanding to be included in coalition negotiations.  This is the first time since 1945 that such a party has won a state election.  Its leader in Thuringia, Bjorn Hocke, has "used Nazi rhetoric in his rallies and called into question Germany's atonement for the Holocaust."  You know, one of those.  Both of these states were part of the German Democratic Republic.  Voters may not remember the Nazis but they could be nostalgic for dictatorship.

Most Americans are too concerned with domestic politics to notice European elections, or even that Germany has states, but it's hard not to think about the mid-twentieth century when you pay attention to Republican plans for the future.  On the topic of housing, for example, the New York Times gave equal attention to the competing plans on offer, as if they were both worthy of thought.  According to them, Kamala Harris offers a "cocktail" of solutions for first-time home buyers including a tax credit and a $25,000 down payment benefit.  The Trump plan is much simpler, though potentially more expensive:  Simply deport all the undesirables and move real Americans into their houses.  Apart from the cost of rounding people up, presumably by night, herding them into detention centers and finding transport for them, it sounds an awful lot like the Nazis' program of encouraging Jews to emigrate through increasingly restrictive laws and, when they didn't take the hint or couldn't afford do, grouping them in "Jew houses" and giving their homes to party members and other faithful adherents of the regime (along with most of their property).  The Times does not call attention to this.

It could be a coincidence.  Or it could be completely congruent with blaming immigrants for "poisoning the blood" of the nation, making cities filthy and dangerous and taking "Black jobs" from the deserving poor.  Calling for women to find fulfillment in marriage and children instead of careers, proposing to cull the civil service of the independent-minded, politicizing the courts, intimidating the "fake news" ("lying press") and promising to lock up political opponents while characterizing them as communists and Marxists -- how much of the Nazi blueprint do we need before the Times can see the parallels?  

Trump said, "I'd like to think that God thinks that I'm going to straighten out our country."  Hitler also believed in his genius and his destiny, especially after surviving a number of assassination attempts.  Forty million dead later, he turned out to be wrong.  The world is still trying to undo that catastrophe.