Members of the National Socialist Movement in Washington

Are Nazis as American as Apple Pie?

Aug 17, 2017 James Q. Whitman

Notwithstanding recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, any sober observer can see that the United States is still a long way from the fevered atmosphere of Germany in 1933. But just because US institutions are holding up does not mean that they can't be put in the service of vicious political programs.

NEW HAVEN – Is the United States threatened by Nazism? The short answer is no, notwithstanding the frightening events in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend.

In Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia, founded by Thomas Jefferson, white nationalists, separatists, neo-Nazis, members of the Ku Klux Klan, and other likeminded groups rallied behind Swastika banners and marched in a Nazi-style torchlight procession. By the end of the next day, there had also been thuggish violence. One white supremacist went so far as to drive a car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one and injuring 19 others.

The groups responsible for the violence in Charlottesville reveled in US President Donald Trump’s election last November. And Trump has often hesitated to disavow them; during the election campaign, when former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke publicly backed him, Trump was scandalously slow to reject Duke and his followers. Trump also repeatedly incited violence during the campaign, while evincing a bottomless affection for authoritarian leaders such as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

We hope you're enjoying Project Syndicate.

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Already have an account? Log in

Support High-Quality Commentary

US President-elect Joe Biden may have promised a “return to normalcy,” but the truth is that there is no going back. The world is changing in fundamental ways, and the actions the world takes in the next few years will be critical to lay the groundwork for a sustainable, secure, and prosperous future.

For more than 25 years, Project Syndicate has been guided by a simple credo: All people deserve access to a broad range of views by the world’s foremost leaders and thinkers on the issues, events, and forces shaping their lives. At a time of unprecedented uncertainty, that mission is more important than ever – and we remain committed to fulfilling it.

But there is no doubt that we, like so many other media organizations nowadays, are under growing strain. If you are in a position to support us, please subscribe now.

As a subscriber, you will enjoy unlimited access to our On Point suite of long reads and book reviews, Say More contributor interviews, The Year Ahead magazine, the full PS archive, and much more. You will also directly support our mission of delivering the highest-quality commentary on the world's most pressing issues to as wide an audience as possible.

By helping us to build a truly open world of ideas, every PS subscriber makes a real difference. Thank you.

Subscribe Now

Trump’s Strongman Weakness
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Trump’s Strongman Weakness

Aryeh Neier worries that the US president's affinity for authoritarian rulers is animating official policy.

5

new comment has been posted. new comments have been posted.

0 Comments on this paragraph, 23 in all 23 Comments on this article

John Louton May 7, 2018

My brother has lived in Germany since 1968, the result of US involvement in the Vietnam War. I lived in Taipei, Lusaka, New Delhi, Tirana, Beijing and Chengdu for more than 20 years.

When I made essentially the same argument to my brother that the author makes in this piece, he sent me a copy of Friedrich Meineke’s, “Die Deutches Katastophe.” While still justifying his anti-semiticism, Meineke argues, with merit, that both German political leaders and intellectuals completely under estimated Hitler’s power. As late as 1938, President von Luden dismissed Hitler as a buffoon that he could easily remove from power if necessary.

Hitler had strong support in the officer corps, if not the high command, of the German military. According to the few polls I’ve seen, Trump’s support in the US military officer corps is above 75%. Trump is also viewed by many, perhaps the majority, of Americans as a buffoon. So what?

Trump’s behavior has already done irreparable harm to America’s international standing. His budgetary responsibility is a joke and the oligarchs that currently give us “the best government money can buy,” may soon find themselves suffering under his ill-advised, ill-informed, unilaterally decided decisions.

If Americans don’t take Trump seriously very soon, the prophecy offered in, “It Can’t Happen Here,” may well come to pass.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Leroy S Aug 22, 2017

The professor writes an unbalanced essay for the reader’s consumption. He rings alarm bells with the essay’s title, “Are Nazis as American as Apple Pie?” although he minimizes the question’s implicit claim in the first sentence with “The short answer is no.” That answer itself plants the implication that his longer answer may be yes.

Neither the professor nor anyone else knows what exactly what happened during the Charlottesville chaos. We await the investigation of the Justice Department for concrete facts to the extent they can be determined. The two protagonists we know, however, were the far-right white supremacists and the far-left Antifa, both well-practiced in violence. The video I saw (there are many on the web) shows the non-violent Charlottesville city police standing calmly behind their shields and under their helmets watching the opposing sides battle each other across and through a rope that divided the two sides. No one knows who or what ignited the tinder at flash point. The weak city policing raised the odds that the first bottle of urine or rock thrown would begin the violence and that the almost predictable results would ensue. The city knew well in advance of the march and failed ignominiously its responsibility to ensure safety of those whom it had issued permits.

The Yale professor complains that Trump’s statement was “bland”. Curiously, or characteristically, the professor belittles Trump’s condemning both sides by using scare quotes, “both sides”, as if only the white supremists were violent and his unmentioned Antifa, and the idle police were angelic.

The professor writes, “American democratic institutions might be holding up, but history has taught us that they are not immune to the machinations of racially virulent political programs.” He also uses “might” instead of the more probable “may”, suggesting that American institutions are more wobbly than not. Given President Obama’s gross and continual nose-thumbing circumvention of Congress and the Constitution with full support of his Attorneys General Holder and Lynch, America should thank it lights that Trump entered and is trying to restore the debris left by Obama. This despite Obama’s having taught constitutional law for two years as a professor. Obama, schooled in Chicago, was a master of political machination.

The professor steps into quicksand when he summons his armchair to psychologize that “Trump’s yearning for authoritarian rule is clear for all to see.” All cannot see what the omniscient professor sees. But all might see that both Trump and his predecessor Obama are equal egotists—the former brashly so, the latter professorially egotistic. Obama is the more authoritarian, given his predisposition towards government solutions, while Trump favors non-government solutions.

The law professor omits the historical context that the Republican, slave-liberating party of President Lincoln fought the Jim Crow laws that the Democratic party put into law, piece-by-ugly-piece following the end of the war. The Democrats worked these laws, hand-in-hand with the KKK as the enforcer, to yank back what Lincoln had given the former slaves--freedom. The Reconstruction time period that the professor brings up fits the origin and growth of the KKK by the Democrats, which began immediately after the South had lost the Civil War. A modern U.S. Senate Democratic icon, Robert Byrd, who tried to kill the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and famed Democratic Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black, were both KKK members. Regarding undesirable immigrants, it was Democrat president Franklin Delano Roosevelt who imprisoned 100,000 Japanese Americans.

Finally, the law professor queerly doesn’t mention that the permitted demonstration by the white supremacists was fully within the First Amendment of America’s Constitution, key to the freedom of each American. Nor does he mention the ACLU’s historic and successful First Amendment defense in 1978 of the planned Neo-Nazi march in Skokie, Illinois, home of Holocaust survivors. The First Amendment is what is American as apple pie.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Barry Rosenfeld Aug 20, 2017

Mr Whitman apparently represents neither a "racial" or "religious" minority group. Therefore, he manages a benign view of the trend toward hateful bigotry that hasn't been seen in the US since the 1920s. Yes, not everyone who voted for Trump is a Nazi and yes, not everyone who voted for Clinton believed in "equality" in the context of income distribution. How nice. Let's all go to sleep.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
KEVIN COX Aug 20, 2017

I think that this is barking up the wrong tree. Institutions, when not under challenge, can only be permissive or constraining. It is the underlying social dynamic that is crucial: it is the social tensions in contemporary America, tensions fully on display in the last election, and which only connect with race in highly mediated ways, that need scrutiny. These tensions are ultimately and most fundamentally of a class nature. This is being woefully ignored in current debates. Class doesn't necessarily shout out its relevance. But how else are we to understand the extraordinary social fragmentation that has been intensifying for some time outside of the class relations of a particular form of society: a society which heralds the advent of the individual and then withholds from the vast majority, any possible and enduring satisfaction with one's lot?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Brent Beach Aug 20, 2017

Mr Whitman sees no present danger. "Opposition parties have not been banned, and the courts have not lost their independent authority."
Can a political system in which unlimited money from a small group funds and hence controls both parties be considered to have opposition parties?
Can a Supreme Court that includes Thomas, Alito, and now Gorsuch, be considered to be independent authorities?
In terms of not noticing a slow movement away from democracy to fascism, the US electorate are frogs and the water is almost boiling.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Goetz Mackensen Aug 20, 2017

Dear Sir,
may I just remind you that in 1932 there was no Auschwitz, still no Dachau Konzentration Camp? The the justice in Germany still was independent and there was a free and very active press. And that SPD and KPD could have formed a government if Stalin would kindly allow it?
But there was something else: a strong tendency in the right wing parties that they could manage Hitler, still: "let him try, he will be gone within a year". As we have learned, it took 12 years and 50 million dead.
I'm not such sure that the same feeling is not inherent within the GOP against Trump. Or Bannon, if he runs for president in 4 years.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
David Punabantu Aug 20, 2017

A fine line between mobocracy and democracy. It is either racism, if not tribalism, if not economic discrimination. The belief of white supremacist is constantly validated by the developed world against the developing world. Yet the reality is that the entire mineral wealth of Africa, Asia and Latin America is bought by only the accepted currencies of the London Metal Exchange being the US dollar, the Euro, the Japanese Yen, Sterling pound and in 2015 the Chinese Reminbi. No other Latin American, African or Asian currency minus Japan and China can buy it's mineral wealth using its own currencies. In effect it violates the free market doctrine of Adam Smith. Adam Smith's market doctrine is based on supply and demand. The underlying axiom is country X produces good X and is bought by currency X belonging to country X. If country Y wanted good X it has to change its currency Y into currency X to buy good X. That is why a Euro cannot directly buy goods from the US until it is changed into a US dollar hence Exchange Rate. But for Africa, Latin America, Asia that is not the case as seen in the London Metal Exchange. Africa's, Latin America's, Asia's mineral wealth on the LME that handles most of the world's non ferrous metals only allows the US dollar, the Sterling pound, the Japanese Yen, the Euro to buy Africa's, Latin America's, Asia's mineral wealth adding that wealth to the US dollar and the LME accepted Currencies. In 2015 the Chinese reminibi was added to the list while African, Latin America, and Asian currencies minus China and Japan are banned in this so called age of free markets and trade liberalisation. Trade liberalisation and free markets for whom? Do such policies follow the tenets of the market doctrine or corrupt it? It adds Africa's, Latin America's, and Asia's wealth in value terms to the US dollar. The system perpetuated white supremacist. Another mask that validates white supremacist are the IMF fixed cross rates. The cross-rates appear day in and day out, in value terms, in many national currencies. This implies that national money markets have the same money market currency liquidity and trade volumes to produce the same cross rates as observed between Britain and the United State of America. On the February 16th 2017 the Indian Rupee traded at INR0.01495 per US$1, while the Sterling pound was at INR0.01199 per £1, giving a IMF cross rate of 1.24. The Japanese Yen on the same date stood at JPY¥0.008782 per US$1 and JPY¥0.007033 per £1 giving a cross rate of 1.24. The Canadian dollar also on the same day had CAD$0.76569 per US$1 and CAD$0.61420 per £1 to give 1.24 as it's IMF fixed cross rate. The Chinese Yuan against the US dollar stood at CNY¥0.145541 per US$1, and CNY¥0.116789 per £1, on the same day to give a IMF cross rate of 1.24. The Mexican Pesos, Brazilian Real, South African Rand, on the same day like all currencies across the world had 1.24 as the IMF cross rate fixed on the US dollar and Sterling pound.
The reality on the ground is that Zambia, Britain, Canada, India, Japan, China, Mexico nor the EU has the same level and volume of trade to give credibility to the IMF fixed cross-rates. In fact, the demand of the Euro or the Zambian Kwacha, Euro against the US dollar and the British Sterling pound and other African, Asian, Latin American currencies in relation to trade, within their money markets, gives exchange rates that are outside the IMF fixed cross-rate system. There is no competition here with IMF fixed cross rates. Free floating cross rates are needed so that the notion of white supremacist in economic systems are removed. The bottom line is current global economic systems promote white supremacist and as long as that support exists white supremacist attitudes will always exist.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Per Kurowski Aug 20, 2017

America, that day you have some million white supremacists, you'll wish you had not given them so much attention, mostly to get at Trump
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
j. von Hettlingen Aug 19, 2017

James Q. Whitman maintains the US - despite recent abhorrent events in Charlottesville - is "still a long way" from the dangers of allowing political crises to usher in dictators like Hitler in 1933. American democratic institutions are still resilient, like in the crisis years of the 1930s. Opposition parties are still allowed, and the courts haven't lost "their independent authority." Above all, Trump is not a "supreme leader" and doesn't command "a paramilitary army." Needless to say, "there are no facilities such as Dachau, Auschwitz, or Treblinka under construction." Congress is keeping the autocratic Trump in check. "Last but not least, the American press is more tenacious and energized than it has been in years."
But the author sheds light on a dark chapter of America's history, that came to inspire Hitler to defend his racial ideology. Although America's institutions can't be called into question, they have not always been "immune to the machinations of racially virulent political programs." In the late 19th century - as the "leading racist jurisdiction in the world" - white Southern states began to enact the so-called Jim Crow laws, which were introduced after the American Civil War to segregate white people and black people. They aimed to deprive recently freed slaves of equal rights and reversed "many of the gains of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period."
Racial segregation was enforced in parts of the US until the 1960s and covered all aspects of life. In 30 US states "anti-miscegenation laws intended to safeguard racial purity," forbidding white and black people to marry each other. The author says, America’s "democratic institutions did not stand in the way of such policies in the early twentieth century." In fact "anti-miscegenation laws were the product of America’s democratic system, which gave full voice to many Americans’ racism," backed by court rulings to defend the "privileged status" of being “white.”
Sadly this legislation "would later serve as a foundation for the Nazi movement in Germany." In Europe far right groups also "admired America’s early-twentieth-century immigration policies," which were conceived to "exclude" and discriminate “undesirable” races. The author says, "in his manifesto Mein Kampf, Hitler singled out America as 'the one state' that was progressing toward the creation of a healthy race-based order." In Germany, the Nazis "paid close attention. As they concocted their own racial statutes – the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 – they pored over American race law as a model."
The author says, "today, instead of asking whether American institutions will survive the Trump presidency, we must ask how American institutions can be put in the service of wrongful ends." Even though the Jim Crow race laws were scrapped long ago, "America still has the same overheated democratic order and common-law flexibility that it had back then." Most of all the American "criminal-justice system.... remains a poster child for institutionalized racism," scapegoating often the poor and the non-whites.
Not all Americans are "ashamed that their country’s institutions laid the groundwork for Nazi race law." Even if they aren't "worrying about the threat of renascent Nazism," they don't condem Trump’s affinity for white supremacy. They complain about the bias against the whites, as a result of affirmative action laws, which made inroads under Lyndon Johnson, preventing discrimination based on race, colour, religion and national origin. The author's advice may fall on deaf ears. Would Americans worry about "the potential of their institutions" facilitating "evils that are..... as American as apple pie?" Hardly! Nearly half of the population has been destroyed by ignorance, with a constant lust for mindless entertainment and the longing for material goods. Many lack the will, knowledge and skills to reject the "evils" and just turn a blind eye to them.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
British Sausage Aug 19, 2017

The first amendment seeks to protect free speech, which is essentially the right to offend and be offended. Sadly the most vocal group challenging this is that that claims 'equality' is the correct mantra and that anyone who doesn't agree with their definition of it must be against it and cannot be tolerated.

This has reulted in the farce of statues, which were put up in good faith 150 years ago to honor men and women long since departed, being removed to satisy their sense of persecution. Apparently historical statues can inflame passions, that were safely buttoned up for over 100 years.

I've no truck with any group that attempts to reduce the rights of citizens of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and I really wonder why a few more stoic souls don't stand up against this insidious political correctness, that's strangling social intercourse.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Mirek Fatyga Aug 18, 2017

One might add to the historical account that the US, like most of Europe, had strong fascist sympathies. Henry Ford, for instance, was an early supporter of Hitler, financial as well as spiritual, a support he withdrew only when confronted with a well organized Jewish boycott of his products. US industries and Wall Street traded with Nazi Germany at least through 1941 and in some cases even thereafter.
Having said the above, the diagnosis that there is nothing to worry about within the US because we have such strong institutions is, shall we say, intellectually lazy. Fascism is a political methodology of ruling societies through incitement of public emotion, rather than rational analysis and reasoned argument. It is dangerous, because it tends to work. Modern media and advertising give this method even more potential power than in the decades past. Fascism creates conditions which enable events like the Jewish Holocaust, though does not always lead to them. Fascism makes war more likely as it removes political restraints over belligerent leader., and inevitably, over time, leads to explosive corruption, dominance of the state over an individual and economic degeneration. The emotion on which fascism predominantly relies is fear and hatred, which is why it leads to war so often, a particularly dangerous trait in the era of wide availability of nuclear weapons.
Donald Trump by himself is not a cause for concern. He is a symptom of a much wider disease though which originated with, though is not entirely confined to, the Republican Party. This party championed economic and social philosophy which led at least in part to broad economic deterioration for the middle class. Rather than own up to this problem and at least attempt some course correction, the Republican Party escaped into classically fascist propaganda of scapegoating. Scapegoating of so called liberals (aka libtards), minorities and immigrants. Donald Trump is both the beneficiary and the political product of this entire process of fascist degeneration of the US political system. The method is working. The Republican Party controls a good chunk of local governments in the United States in spite of the fact that in most places their reign, predictably, leads to increased corruption and economic deterioration.
The 2016 election showed that ~30% of US electorate openly subscribes to the fascist scapegoating message, roughly 50% of the Republican base. These people have already been persuaded. Another 20%-30% can be persuaded by pre-election propaganda campaigns. Saying that this is not a problem because we have such strong institutions and fascism cannot happen here is burying the head in the sand. The experience of Japanese internment camps during WW2, or indian wars for that matter, should be a warning enough what fascism can do in the US if it takes root. Not to mention thousands of nukes, cocked and ready to launch.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Steve Hurst Aug 18, 2017

Could be worse, you could have the situation where 3 out of 5 of voters were unhappy with their leader yet 4 out of 5 of the leaders supporters remained happy with the leader indicating polarity in society - alongside which 4 out of 5 could want the same leader investigated. After all the issue is fracture in society in whatever form it takes because fracture usually involves trouble. Removing such a leader would not remove the discontent that created that situation. It would seem that such a situation would need a leader who brought people together not brought them apart and who had constancy in the message.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
jean nutson Aug 18, 2017

Peaceful coexistence and non- violence is often a scarcity in heterogeneous and multi racial societies such as the USA , due to the varying degrees of philosophical, ideological and even cultural conditions among the inhabitants. The current economic and political uncertainties and hardships are only likely to accelerate mistrust and tension among the populace with each person blaming the other for their predicament.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Krzysztof Worytkiewicz Aug 18, 2017

1965 is supposed to be early twentieth century?
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Petey Bee Aug 17, 2017

So one of the things this article seems to be saying is that a large enough number of Americans were racist. To what degree is that the case today?

Certainly the number is small, of those who reach the level of Nazis or other violent extremists (terrorists in today's language).

Yet we know that extreme violence is intended to, and does shut down thought and provoke a response that would favor its perpetrators.

I'm not sure to what degree "institutions" enabled the politics of 1930's Germany. The Nazis came to power by mixing socialist appeal with nationalist. They soon murdered their socialist wing at the same time as winning the support of big business, who tolerated the racism but not the socialism. That's a historical point to be remembered.

In the wake of Charlottesville, the non-right-wing parts of the media seem to advocate two obvious yet contradictory contradictory goals.

#1 - to prevent the violent / extreme racists from being more popular.
#2 - to persuade "moderate" racists to less racist -- this is the whole Confederate statues angle.

We're going to have a problem here. Due to the nature of US politics, with swing states and the importance of the south in primaries, we're going to have no choice but to ask a good portion of conservative rural white America for their votes in 2020. If one manages to peel off some of the "moderate" southern pride crowd by demonizing their attachment to their symbols, then the side effect will be to actually inflame others among them. You will simultaneously end up with more extremists. If they engage in violence at an increasing rate, the results are hard to predict, since thinking will stop and the "institutions" -- not just the courts, but the police, state and local governments, the media (!), and local money and business - they will operate on reflex.

It's really not clear where this goes, but based on their performance during the 2016 election, I would actually single out the institution of the media as the one who not only has the most power to persuade, but also the one who acts with the least amount of forethought or strategy.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Emanuel Müller Aug 17, 2017

In the West this days cars are used against crowds, as far as I know, mostly by radical islamists and radical racists. The former want everyone to submit to Allah, while the latter want everyone to submit to the white race. One model of understanding is that, in the eyes of their beholders, both goals make sense within the frame of different axiomas, e.g. Allah created everything out of him-her-itself, in otherwords, there is nothing but Allah and we are like the Allah's cells and if we don't submit we are considered something like cancer-cells, and e.g. the white europeans created everything that matters in this world, due to some genetic superiority "enlightened/head/master/leader race" and if anyone doesn^t submit to the white european race it simply means he doesn't understand that so viewed self-evident fact of white european superiority and is therefore to dumb to be maintained in the human gene pool (submit or die/push down or push out). Many of the analogies shown in this article that purport to show the US are not heading towards copycating the third Reich might be due to the fact that it doesn't have to, as it is possibly an effectively crypto-nazi State, far more "advanced" or refined than the 3rd Reich.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.
Paul Daley Aug 17, 2017

Good article. Institutional failures are as American as apple pie. But what institutions failed last Saturday? Whitman blames Trump, who failed to use the bully pulpit to condemn white supremacists exclusively for the violence on Saturday. I would rather point my finger at Virginia's obviously conflicted Governor and Charlotteville's confused Mayor who failed so dismally to protect public safety and private rights. Trump blamed both sides for the violence, but the Governor and Mayor failed to protect anyone's life or property or rights. They, far more than any other party, are responsible for events that day.
- Lester Soss Aug 18, 2017
  
  Your logic escapes me, Mr. Daley. What the state or city did or should have done to minimize the confrontation between the two groups is irrelevant. The demonstrations were essentially done when the neo-nazi committed his act of domestic terrorism. This would be equivalent to blaming the illegal parking division of the Oklahoma police department for the Federal Building bombing. If only they had ticketed McVeigh's truck, he couldn't have detonated the bomb.
  What should the city or state have done to prevent the white supremacist Dylan Roof from killing nine parishioners in South Carolina. What should Portland have done to stop white supremacist Jeremy Christian from killing two bystanders who tried to defend two young women from his attack.
  Your argument is an attempt to obscure the true argument. It reminds me of Orwellian snowflakes in his essay, "Politics and the English Language."
  A new reply to this comment has been posted.
A new reply to this comment has been posted.

https://prosyn.org/I5qEbSV

Cookies and Privacy

Are Nazis as American as Apple Pie?

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Support High-Quality Commentary

Trump’s Strongman Weakness

New Comment

Email this piece to a friend

Contact us

Log in/Register

Cookies and Privacy

Are Nazis as American as Apple Pie?

To continue reading, subscribe now.

Support High-Quality Commentary

Edit Newsletter Preferences

Set up Notification