NEW YORK – There are many roads to political disaster: greed, hubris, the charisma of the demagogue, and, perhaps most dangerous of all, fear. When people panic, they can become hysterical, and hysteria often leads to mass violence. When politicians convince people that they are in a life-or-death battle – that survival is a matter of “us or them” – anything becomes possible.
Adolf Hitler combined all the elements of political catastrophe: hubris, charisma, greed, and the idea that “Aryans” and Jews were locked in a struggle for survival. Of course, none of the demagogues in the West today – from Donald Trump in the United States to Marine Le Pen or Geert Wilders in Europe – are comparable to Hitler. None has promoted dictatorship, let alone mass murder. But they are definitely stirring up the politics of fear.
