In November 1923, Hitler led a coup attempt. It was a complete failure. He ended up behind bars and the court banned his political party. It took the Nazis 10 years to recover from the incident. January 30th 1933 was the day that German conservative parties pressured President Von Hindenburg to appoint Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hitler was not elected by the German people but he nonetheless came to power legally.
On January 5th 2021, we witnessed the 1st coup attempt to overthrow our democracy by fascists and white supremacists. On the eve of this dark day in American history, let us not get comfortable. The far-right extremists today don’t need 10-years to recover from failure because there was no failure on their part. The failure has been on our part to demand the instigators, plotters, and masterminds be held to account and treated like the treasonous criminals that many of them are.
As Biden twiddles his thumbs on the issue, we go about our lives distracted by the pandemic, lulled into complacency during this deceptively quiet period between coups. Don’t think for a second that we are any better prepared to deal with what is coming our way than the German people of the 1920’s and 30’s.
We must never accept a fascist America. We must channel the strength of the original American antifascists, the Greatest Generation, our Grandparents who sacrificed greatly to beat back the scourge of far-right, toxic nationalism and stop its brutal supression of most of humanity.
Do you call yourself an anti-fascist? Antifascists come from all walks of life. You can be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Budhist or Athiest. You can be conservative, liberal or progressive. You can be wealthy or you can be poor. I call myself an Antifascist because I oppose fascism and you should too.
#RefuseFascism
Rachael W