Chris Powell: Stupid Facebook post by GOP legislator distracts from Connecticut’s real problems

MANCHESTER, Conn.

Connecticut was pretty normal this week. The cities again were full of shootings and other mayhem. Group home workers went on strike because, while they take care of people who are essentially wards of the state, their own compensation omits medical insurance.

Hundreds of health-care workers were suspended for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccination. Tens of thousands of children went to school without learning much, since at home they have little in the way of parenting and thus no incentive to learn.

The two longstanding scandals in the state police -- the drunken retirement party at a brewery in Oxford and the fatal shooting of an unarmed and unresisting mentally ill 19-year-old in West Haven -- remained unresolved, the authorities apparently expecting them to be forgotten. They're probably right.

And Gov. Ned Lamont called for sticking with football at the University of Connecticut despite its worsening record and expense.

Nevertheless, the great political controversy of the week was something else -- a Facebook post by state Rep. Anne Dauphinais (R.-Killingly). It likened the governor to Adolf Hitler on account of the emergency powers that Lamont repeatedly has claimed and his party's majorities in the General Assembly have granted him in regard to the virus epidemic even though there no longer is any emergency -- at least none involving the epidemic.

Rather than apologize for her intemperance and hyperbole, Dauphinais "clarified" that she meant to liken the governor to the Hitler of the early years of his rule in Germany, not the Hitler of the era of world war and concentration camps. This wasn't much clarification, since the Nazi regime established concentration camps just weeks after gaining power in 1933 and unleashed wholesale murder on its adversaries just a year later, on June 30, 1934 -- the "Night of the Long Knives" -- more than five years before invading Poland.

But so what if a lowly state legislator from the minority party got hysterical on Facebook?

Her name calling did no actual harm to anyone. The governor's skin is far thicker than that. Indeed, to gain sympathy any politician might welcome becoming the target of such intemperance and thus gaining sympathy.

Besides, Dauphinais's hysteria wouldn't even have been noticed if other politicians didn't make such a show of deploring it over several days. The top two Democratic and top two Republican leaders of the General Assembly went so far as to issue a joint statement condemning the use of political analogies to Nazism. In separate statements they criticized Dauphinais by name.

They all seemed to feel pretty righteous about it.

But meanwhile they had little to say about the state's problems that really matter, problems affecting the state's quality of life, problems on display throughout the week. Maybe they should thank Dauphinais for the distraction she provided them.

xxx

Will his support for University of Connecticut football be Governor Lamont's Afghanistan? Is the state just throwing good money after bad?

Now that Hartford wants to tear up Brainard Airport for commercial development, could Pratt & Whitney Stadium in East Hartford be leveled and Rentschler Field rebuilt as the airport it once was, replacing Brainard?

And will anyone ever take responsibility for anything at UConn?

Probably not. For even if UConn football is a disaster forever, it will cost far less than the disasters of Connecticut's education and welfare policies.

Why get upset at UConn football when the more Connecticut spends in the name of education, the less education is produced and the poorer students do, or when the more that is spent on welfare and social programs, the less people become self-sufficient and the more they become dependent on government?

The problem with UConn football is that results are still the object of the program and the public easily can see them -- the weekly scores during football season and the losing record.

By contrast, the education scores -- the results of standardized tests -- are publicized only occasionally and not on the sports pages, while the results of welfare and social programs are never audited and reported at all. With education and welfare, results are no longer the objective. They have become an end in themselves.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.

Pratt & Whitney (the aerospace company) Stadium at Rentschler Field, in East Hartford. It is primarily used for football and soccer, and is the home field of the University of Connecticut Huskies.

Mitchell Zimmerman: Of the Nazis and Trump's Fascist mob

Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch

Trump’s fascist mobs, inspired by nonstop lies, invade the Capitol

From OtherWords.org

In 1923, Hitler and the Nazis stormed a beer hall in Munich, Germany, whence they planned to overthrow German democracy. The putsch failed ignominiously, and Hitler was briefly jailed.

That, of course, was not the end of Adolf Hitler. America needs to remember that history if we want to preserve our democracy from the right-wing forces rallied by Donald Trump today.

As Congress gathered to formalize Trump’s election defeat, he and his extremist followers launched their own beer hall putsch. “We will not take it anymore,” Trump told them. “You’ll never take back our country with weakness, you have to show strength.”

With these words, Trump unleashed the frenzied horde.

They breached the barriers around the Capitol and fought their way in, brutally killing a police officer and assaulting many others. They broke into offices, smashed windows, looted, and forced Congress to cease its operations. Outside, they built a gallows.

Many rioters carried weapons and some had plastic handcuffs. Their obvious goal: to take hostages and force Congress to award Trump a second term. A total (so far) of five deaths.

Trump is responsible, but not him alone. The mob he sent had accomplices: a second mob of Republican officials who laid the groundwork by enabling Trump’s lies.

The second mob includes the eight Republican senators and 139 House Republicans who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s election, as well as the 17 Republican attorneys general who supported a bogus lawsuit to throw out the election.

Finally, it includes the Republican office holders who refused to tell their voters the truth: Trump lost. There was no “steal,” as 60 court rulings — including many by Trump-appointed judges — unanimously concluded.

These Republican politicians knew this, but they still insisted that Trump be installed as president, confirming their opposition to elections and hostility to constitutional democracy.

The second mob misled Republican voters so well that 45 percent of them actually support the criminal attack on the Capitol. Those tens of millions of people represent a potential mass base for fascism.

So, what should we do?

First, Trump should be impeached, removed, and charged with inciting a riot and other crimes. And criminal charges are obviously in order for the terrorist violence committed by the first mob. Experts also suggest expelling members of the second mob from Congress or boycotting them from public life.

Accountability is vital. But the Democrats who will now control Congress and the White House must also double down on efforts to restore and strengthen American democracy.

They should act swiftly to limit the power of money in politics, restore the Voting Rights Act, and eliminate needless obstacles to voting. And Washington, D.C., should be admitted as a state, so its citizens have full voting rights and powers.

Finally, the Democratic Party must fight to enact bold programs to deal with the massive problems Americans face — from climate change to the pandemic to the declining living standards of working Americans.

Half-hearted steps will only leave ordinary Americans feeling that that government does not work, priming the pump for more right-wing radicalization. But a full-throated campaign for real, understandable change — even against Republican obstruction —  can help voters understand that democracy can work for them when it isn’t hijacked by the super-rich and their servants.

The assault on the Capitol has uncovered the true nature of right-wing Republican politics in America: a thinly veiled war on constitutional democracy and majority rule. The way to prevent the next authoritarian coup attempt is to build a robust democracy that demonstrates it is responsive to the needs and interests of real people.

A slap on the wrist for the coup plotters and a swift return to the status quo isn’t enough, as the beer hall putsch should have taught us. We need a real commitment to reverse the erosion of our democracy.

Mitchell Zimmerman is a lawyer, social activism and author of the thriller Mississippi Reckoning.

Giles Knight: Wacht auf, America

The  race of the Republican Party as we have known it toward oblivion has been orchestrated by a new social order called “Trumpism,” which in spite of the name is not really new but rather consists of old-fashioned nationalism and authoritarianism with a fascist streak.

Donald Trump has become the messiah for many people who feel left out economically and socially by those in power or “the system.” The complain angrily about foreign economic competition, the media, immigration and, of course, the current government in Washington, D.C.

 Trump’s bombastic, hate-filled speeches seem to be just the right ticket to usher in a “new America.” Whether the “new America” is the same as “make America great again” we do not know yet, but his actions during this campaign bear a passing resemblance to other fire-breathing demagogues, such as Joe McCarthy, George Wallace, Mussolini and one of the most famous of all, Adolf Hitler, to name a few.

Go back to the 1920’s in a war-shattered Germany when a fellow named Hitler attracted a fanatical following with rousing speeches and programs for making Germany “great’’ again. Nationalism, bigotry  and militarism were his main messages.

How did he win over one of the most civilized countries in Europe? Remember that at that time Germany was in bad shape economically. People wanted to believe his oratory and what better way to make them believe than to find scapegoats to blame for their troubles. Taking top ranking on his list were theWestern Allies (the U.S, Britain, France and  a few others),  a relative lack of living space in the densely populated country, and least understandable, Jews and other people not of “pure Aryan origin.’’

The SA (Stormabteilung or Assault Division) was founded by Hitler in 1921 and was made up of angry, unemployed people, thugs really, who abused and even murdered those speaking out against The Leader.

After Hitler’s arrest by the Weimar government, in 1924, he wrote a book in prison called Mein Kampf (My Struggle), which outlined in detail his idea of a new Germany.  He followed the script exactly until his suicide, in 1945. His career resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of people.

By 1925, he also began to be concerned about his ability to control the SA, which had grown large. And so he established the SS (Schutzstaffel or “Protective Echelon’’) as his personal bodyguards.

The SS made the SA look like choirboys in putting down opposition. He appointed his close associate Heinrich Himmler as SS leader in 1929, thereby resulting in a more loyal, tightly organized group reporting directly to him.

Things did not go well for the SA when on June 30, 1934, some of its leaders were killed by Hitler’s people --- “the night of the long knives.”

Then, on Nov. 9-11, 1938 hundreds of communities in Germany experienced wholesale destruction and looting of Jewish stores and businesses -- “Crystal Night” or “Night of the Broken Glass.” By this time most of the newspapers and radio stations were effectively closed down, or taken over by the Nazi regime, ensuring that everyone followed the party line, and the SS, along with the Gestapo, became the chief unit of surveillance and terror in Germany.

The SA was eventually combined with the SS, which, in turn, was incorporated into the German army as the Waffen SS. It grew into a huge force of hundreds of thousands, including such notable units as the Death Head Division, which oversaw concentration camps. All military people and many civilians were forced to sign a loyalty oath to Hitler.

The most fanatical and elite SS Division was the Adolf Hitler Division, which caused havoc in numerous battles against the Allies. Many of these fellows met a timely end during “the Battle of the Bulge,”  in December 1944, preferring to die rather than surrender as Allied air power obliterated their armored vehicles.

 Hitler’s policy of intimidation illustrates how quickly democracy can be destroyed by someone who controls the masses.

This brings us to “Trumpism” in America. Mr. Trump is not a replica of Adolf Hitler, but he exhibits some disturbingly similar characteristics. The most obvious is his ability to sway masses of people by appealing to their grievances. His animated, dramatic power of delivery puts his followers into almost a fanatic frenzy.

This tactic is typical of most demagogues, and was a major reason for Adolf Hitler’s unexpected success. Recent  horrifying video clips of a Trump rally show American college students raising their right hand arms in a Nazi salute in answer to Mr. Trump’s request for a loyalty pledge.

Other characteristics of Mr. Trump are worth noting, including a policy of one man, one rule, a vindictive and hair-trigger personality and a belittling attitude in general, but especially against those who disagree with him. And his many business dealings show enough  lawsuits and  other disagreements to raise serious questions about his honesty. His vicious rhetoric ensures that he will meet with antagonism globally.

The good thing is that presidents do not run the federal government alone. There are also Congress and the federal courts. However, the president can have great deal of influence on the other two branches of government. Trump’s extraordinary ability to mesmerize parts of the American public could easily be used to bring Congress and the Supreme Court under his brand of rule. True, his views deserve to be heard in a democracy. But does his brand of democracy fall under the letter and spirit of the Constitution in all respects?

When groups follow the siren song of a messiah, social unrest follows, and while history does not repeat itself exactly, it can, as Mark Twain said, rhyme.

Fiery speeches filled with hatred, intolerance  and authoritarianism can not help but lead to domestic and global unrest. America is the strongest country. The real danger we face lies within, not outside. We know what happened to Nazi Germany. A fanatical leader  persuaded the country to follow him, assisted by intimidation by such groups as the SA and SS.

“Wacht auf” in German means “wake up’’. We should look very closely at “Trumpism” as our election process continues. Every American must ask him or herself: “Do we really want this type of person representing our country, the Constitution and the world’s pillar of democracy?

Giles Knight is a retired international equity mutual fund manager.