"Enemy Within" is Trumpzi Nazi speak

Echoes 🔊- Two opinion letters published in the Los Angeles Times:

To the editor: Former President Trump’s use of the phrase “the enemy within” channels the propaganda that flourished in Germany after World War I. (“Trump is escalating his anti-democratic rhetoric. It’s time to listen,” column, Oct. 15)

The idea explained to Germans why they were defeated. After all, it had to be an inside job, because the vaunted German military’s defeat could not be explained by failure on the battlefield. Instead, it had to have come from enemies from within. “They” were the ones who crept up to deliver the “dolchstoss,” or the stab in the back, to Germany.

And who do you think the propagandists mean by the enemy within? How about Jews, Democrats, disloyal Republicans and the usual subjects that Trump is threatening to round up?

Someone in the Trump camp who knows this propaganda has Trump’s ear. It’s time to wake up, because the danger is real.

From: Richard Leslie Brock, Indio California

📢To the editor: There is a cultural conversation that is infecting the planet. The speech of hate, bigotry and division is being normalized all over the world.

It reminds me of what my grandparents must have gone through in the 1930s in Germany. They were decent, hard-working farmers in the Rhine Valley. I imagine Germany was a country filled with people just like them, similar to folks all over America today.

A narcissist and convicted felon rose to power in the 1930s by using the speech of hate and fear. He pandered to the very worst of human emotions. The conversations in social clubs, taverns and across fences in Germany focused on how evil the Jews were.

It was all made up. The collective speech normalized hate and resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews.

But as with hate, kindness can be normalized. The goal must be to normalize kindness as an antidote to the pandemic of hate. Experience the joy available as you make a difference in someone’s life by being kind.

From: Sid Fey, in Warrenville, Illinois