You can’t trust a Nazi

A Republican friend worries about my outspokenness.

I proudly display political signs in the front yard for Democratic presidential candidates. You know all their names. Most of them are unpopular with Republicans in this region. Well, all of them.

So every 4 years he asks me, “does anyone ever give you a hard time about your sign?”

Now, don’t get ahead of me here. My friend is not a Nazi, so despite the title of this post being about Nazis I’m not talking about him. He’s a nice guy. Unlike me everybody likes him. Unlike me he doesn’t publicly express his political point of view. But everyone knows he’s a Republican from a Republican family who votes for Republicans. He’s run his own successful business, he’s in the volunteer fire department, he is friends with a lot of local Republicans, so unlike me he knows the stuff Republicans say among themselves. And he knows what they say about me. Which I suspect is why he seems so surprised that I haven’t had any trouble over my signs.

Well, except for the Hillary sign. Every single morning there was a Stewart’s coffee cup thrown at my Hillary sign. People really hated Hillary.

Sure, I had some Obama signs stolen, driven over, pulled out and thrown in the ditch. Some local people didn’t like Obama much either. But Hillary seemed to make them angrier. And I think that is why my friend appears to have some concern for my safety when I display my signs.

Not that he’s the only one. A number of people have said, “you’re brave to put THAT sign in your yard.” Or words to that effect.

I don’t think it is a matter of bravery, but maybe that’s because I don’t hear what people say about me behind my back.

My friend does.

Last week we had breakfast together and he asked about my Harris-Walz sign. Then he confided that he won’t be voting for Trump again. He just can’t do it. He knows I won’t out him. I think he feels like coming to me is a sort of political confession. He felt like he had to tell someone, but not a fellow Republican.

He also told me about talking to a local Republican organizer who knows him and his wife. The organizer asked him how he can stay with his wife. He was taken aback. He knows that the organizer knows that his wife is a Democrat, but it was never an issue. Love is love.

Suddenly he realized that his Republican friends and acquaintances might be saying the sorts of things he hears them say about me about him.

“I don’t know what is wrong with these people,” he said.

So my friend is not prepared to go down the full Nazi road with them. I think he is afraid.

Earlier this year was the 90th anniversary of the Night of the Long Knives in which Adolph Hitler “purged” the Nazi Party of top officials who he worried might oppose him. “Purge” is a nice-Nazi way of saying Hitler ordered maybe around a hundred of his close allies to be assassinated so he could consolidate power. I had considered writing an essay about the Night of the Long Knives on the anniversary, but decided not to at the time.

Lately, though, both Donald Trump and JD Vance have been openly talking about brief nights of violence. Maybe like the nights of June 30 - July 2, 1934.

In 1934 retired German officer Erwin Planck warned General Warner von Fritsch, "If you look on without lifting a finger you will meet the same fate sooner or later."

1934 was still a long way from the roundups of Communists, Jews, Roma, gays, the handicapped … no, Nazis started with their friends first.

Hitler defended himself, basically saying he had to do it! For the nation. He was their protector. He was their retribution:

“If anyone reproaches me and asks why I did not resort to the regular courts of justice, then all I can say is this. In this hour I was responsible for the fate of the German people, and thereby I became the supreme judge of the German people. I gave the order to shoot the ringleaders in this treason, and I further gave the order to cauterise down to the raw flesh the ulcers of this poisoning of the wells in our domestic life. Let the nation know that its existence – which depends on its internal order and security – cannot be threatened with impunity by anyone! And let it be known for all time to come that if anyone raises his hand to strike the State, then certain death is his lot.”

I suspect that if Trump wins election I won’t be among the first ones rounded up, so I’m not afraid. They already know who I am, where I live. They can come and get me later. I’m more afraid for my friend who is seen to be sleeping with the enemy.

That’s really dark, and I don’t believe it is a real possibility. Because Harris is going to win and our military is still in the hands of Joe Biden and our state National Guard is in the hands of Gov Hochul.

Don’t panic. Not yet.

Just vote.