Too much historical deja vu in alt right racism

When we think about the pogroms and genocides in recorded history, the perpetrators are motivated by a self righteous zeal to somehow cleanse the world of a particularly targeted population. 

In recent history, the Holocaust was the planned extermination of the Jewish people in Europe because they apparently created a jealousy among the population that envied their financial successes and their ownership of the visual arts, among other things. 

Although the Nazi movement towards "the final solution" managed to heinously murder millions of Jews, this genocide did not just happen without warnings. There was a methodological build up to the Holocaust that began with simmering antisemitism and became verbalized by Adolf Hitler in his autobiographical writings in "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle).

Antisemitism incited by the lead Nazi, Adolf Hitler, was described in his autobiographical rants in Mein Kampf

At the root of genocides, pogroms and leading to the Holocaust, the terrible movements began with unchallenged words put forth by zealots who accumulated followers by creating fear about a particular group of people. Of course, the Jews suffered greatly throughout the first and second millennia; but gypsies, homosexuals, intellectuals of any doctrine and journalists were also targeted.

In fact, this historical deja vu seems to be happening all over again with the terrible decision made to elect the cult leader Donald Trump as leader of the United States.  

Here's what the Washington Post wrote about this subject in the feature Acts of Faith By Julie Zauzmer

‘The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words.’ Museum condemns alt-right meeting.

Just south of the national Mall, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum stands as a grim reminder of what the Nazis did.

Directly across the Mall from the museum, white nationalists were shouting Nazi slogans Saturday in a meeting at the Ronald Reagan Building.

They shouted “heil” and called the media “lügenpresse” just as the Nazis did, and leader Richard Spencer quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German.

The same sort of propaganda that’s exhibited as a memorial to humanity’s worst conduct on one side of the Mall is held up as a model for celebration on the other. The museum said in a statement Monday that it’s “deeply alarmed.”

“[Spencer] said that America belongs to white people. His statement that white people face a choice of ‘conquer or die’ closely echoes Adolf Hitler’s view of Jews and that history is a racial struggle for survival,” the museum said. Then it offered a history lesson to anyone who has forgotten: “The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words.”

Those words eventually led the Nazi party, which came into power legitimately in Germany, to kill 6 million Jews and millions more Communists, Gypsies, Poles, gay people and people with disabilities.

Jewish organizations have been divided in their response to Donald Trump’s white nationalist supporters, who call themselves the alt-right — in particular, to Trump’s decision to appoint Stephen Bannon, the head of the alt-right’s most prominent website, as one of his top advisers. Some have demanded that Trump drop Bannon and denounce his racist supporters, while others have stayed quiet for the time being in the hope of developing a working relationship with the new administration. (As I recall from reading my pre-World War II hitory, there were those among the German Jewish population who were apologists for the Nazi Chancellor....for a little while.)

But on the subject of racial hatred, the Holocaust Museum argued Monday, there should be no disagreement. It asked all leaders, political and religious, to denounce hatred in America. Anyone who wants to see where the worst hatred can lead can walk half a mile from the Reagan Building to the museum.

Including Maine Writer.  

A list of my meager and unworthy Holocaust study experiences:

1.  Ann Frank Haus in Amsterdam

2.  Holocaust Museum in Washington DC

3.  Holocaust Memorial in Baltimore Maryland

4.  The Killing Fields in Phnom Penh Cambodia

5.  Read the Holocaust histories by Leon Uris and William Styron

6.  Care for Holocaust victims when I worked with patients who had their concentration camp number tattoos on their forearms, while working as a student nurse in Baltimore, Maryland.

Although I am unable to experience what the victims of the Holocaust endured, I know enough to despise the evil energies that caused this genocide. Consequently, I do not want to see our alt-right forces in the United States, including the Ku Klux Klan, to have access to any power that gives these groups any legitimacy- and that means Steve Bannon.

In other words, Steve Bannon must go. He's a slob who, in my opinion, represents the concept of the reincarnation of the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Donald Trump built a political campaign on building fear in Americans, that somehow Muslims and minorities will take over our American way of life and change our culture.  

In fact, Trumpzi is no different than "Nazi" and the hire of the drunken sailor Steve Bannon is all the proof I need to convince me about how dangerous the Donald Trump leadership will be, unless we stop the incendiary words he has used to incite his cult following. 

I seek the faith of Ann Frank and pray that "in spite of everything, I believe people are really good.....", even (please God) those who were delusional enough and without cause, voted for Donald Trump.