The Republicans’ Nazi Problem

By now, most of us have read or heard about the infamous pre-Thanksgiving dinner former president Donald Trump held with anti-Semite Kanye West (now named Ye) and also self-described anti-Semite, Holocaust denier and white nationalist scumbag Nick Fuentes. Following rather bad press from the dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Trump claimed (as he always does) that he didn’t know who Fuentes was at that time. Trump also denied knowing the identity of his sexual assault accusers, his pal Jeffrey Epstein, former KKK leader David Duke and a host of others who make him look bad in the public eye.

But he knows him now. Trump will never condemn somebody who praises him. This is part of his psychopathic narcissism. No matter what a person believes in or what he does, as long as he or she flatters Trump, nothing else matters.

Trump knew that Ye has been the author of a slew of anti-Semitic tropes and yet still agreed to sit down and break bread with this lunatic. This week, Ye tweeted an image of a swastika embedded inside the Star of David to burnish even further his anti-Semitic bona fides.

That earned him a mere 12-hour suspension from Twitter’s new chief Elon Musk, which is tantamount to a 2-minute hooking penalty. And for good measure, on the Alex Jones podcast or whatever the hell that platform is, Ye doubled down and praised Hitler for doing good things.

While outcries from Republican leaders and elected officials have mostly expressed opposition to anti-Semitism, few have lambasted Trump directly. To be clear, some have criticized his judgment for holding such a dinner confab. By judgment, they mean allowing media types to witness this event, which would embarrass and harm the party.

Chris Christie, a potential challenger against Trump in 2024 and a weathervane when it comes to all things Trump, was one of the early commenters.

“We have to stop the whispered concerns and veiled statements, and we have to stand up for the principles and the beliefs that our country and party were founded on. There is no place for antisemitism or white supremacists in the Republican Party and no place for anyone who gives people like Nick Fuentes the time of day. Donald Trump’s recent actions and history of poor judgment make him untenable as a candidate for our party.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell echoed those sentiments days later but declined to point a finger at Trump by name.

He’s not alone. While the media continues to berate Trump for dining with Nazi sympathizers, few

Jew-hating and Trump-loving Nick Fuentes

Republicans have directly criticized Trump by name and none, as far as I know, disavowed him completely. Potential House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hasn’t figured out what to say. Boy, is he going to have a rough ride come January.

Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida seen by many as the heir apparent to Trump, has avoided the fracas so far. And that is deliberate.

Dan Eberhart, a long time GOP donor and Trump donor told Rolling Stone, “My understanding is that the DeSantis team doesn’t see upside in kicking off the fight with Trump this early, even if it may be inevitable. Wading into the Fuentes fiasco just isn’t worth it for them. The media will harpoon Trump without Team DeSantis lifting a finger.”

Such courage! My feeling is that if DeSantis can’t stand up to the twice-impeached, three-time loser, soon-to-be-indicted, disgraced ex-president, how will he stand up to Putin or Kim Jung-Un?

The answer is simple. Republicans still fear Trump but more broadly, his bigoted white supremacist base. They are under the illusion that they will win elections by keeping this shrinking group of racists and/or Nazi sympathizers in tow.

It’s not going to happen. Trump will or should be forever linked to hobnobbing with Nazis and Hitler admirers. Of course, this wasn't his first foray with Nazis. How can we forget "there are very fine people on both sides" line following the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville?

That hundreds of thousands of American servicemen lost their lives in the fight against Hitler and Nazism and preserve our freedoms will be etched in the minds of decent and genuinely patriotic Americans. 

Trump’s behavior and the Republicans’ tepid, cowardly response crosses a line that will or should permanently destroy the party of Trump.

We Must Never Forget

The Trump threat is real for LGBT individuals

Don't be fooled.  His Administration is dangerous.

On a given night, hundreds would cram the city’s streets, some carrying a gay periodical, and patronize the dozens of gay bars, cafes, nightclubs, pornography shops, cabarets and bathhouses.  Adding to the crowd was an ample supply of hustlers that was visible along the dim, nighttime corridors. 

Inside the buildings, female impersonators, clad in lavish brightly colored garb, performed amidst a foggy, smoky cloud that enveloped the jammed rooms.  Toe-tapping songs were played to the resounding joy of the gay and straight audiences of the packed nightclubs and cabarets with the music drifting outside into the streets.  #hocopolitics 

In other establishments, men freely danced with men; women danced with women.  They openly embraced.  An anti-gay law on the books was seldom enforced.  Gay life was colorful, free and vibrant. Gay neighborhoods were established throughout the city.  It had the most active gay culture on the entire continent, and it was a sexual Mecca. 

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Does this scene describe New York?  San Francisco?  Washington, D.C.?  Not hardly.

It happens to be Berlin, Germany, just prior to the Nazis’ rise to power.  Indeed, it was estimated that there were more gay establishments and periodicals in 1920 Berlin than in 1980 New York.  Not only was homosexuality tolerated, it flourished. 

But as the music played inside Berlin’s gay clubs, sweeping political and social change was about to unfold that would rock the world.  The patrons (and owners) of these establishments were oblivious to the new political reality; they continued to dance, seek out sex partners and lived in their own secluded, care-free world, unsuspecting of the emerging satanic forces and the horror of what was about to befall them. It sneaked up on them, and when they realized what was happening, it was too late.

As fast as a snap of a whip, there was the accession of Nazism and Hitler and the enforcement of the infamous Paragraph 175 that severely criminalized homosexual behavior. All gay clubs, hotels and other similar establishments were closed down.  Known homosexuals were ordered to appear at police stations and were pressured to identify other homosexuals. School children were asked to inform on teachers who were suspected of being homosexual, employers on employees, and vice-versa.

Their tragic journey had begun. Gay men in Germany were sought out and rounded up with most being shipped to concentration camps for imprisonment and extermination.  They were forced to wear a pink triangle for easy identification and lived in separate blocks apart from the other prisoners.  The prisoners wearing the pink triangles were brutally treated by the guards and by inmates from other categories.

Homosexuals and those supporting abortion were seen by the new government as a threat to the Nazis’ dream of world dominance.  It was as much about the lack of procreation as the lack of morality.  For gay men it was also about their lack of masculinity—it did not fit the Aryan paradigm.   They joined Jews, gypsies, criminals, political enemies, Communists, the disabled, epileptic and other outcasts that did not conform to the Third Reich’s master plan.  (And yes, Trump White House, accept it or not, Jews constituted the overwhelming majority of the victims during the Holocaust.)

Approximately 100,000 gay men were arrested, 50,000 sent to prison camps, and hundreds were castrated.  All told, an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 homosexuals, mainly those who were deemed “incurable,” were exterminated in the death camps.  Their death rate was said to have been three to four times higher than other non-Jewish categories during the Holocaust.

As you can see, apathy can be a perilous thing, and unfortunately, it is not confined to history.

The new Trump Administration is chilling.  Though no executive order has been signed yet that would allow discrimination against LGBT people under the guise of “religious freedom,” don’t be fooled.  Virtually every cabinet appointee, every advisor, every key figure in the Administration has actively pursued an anti-LGBT agenda in his or her career.  Some of these are extreme including Steve Bannon, Tom Price, Betsy DeVos, and Jeff Sessions.

While Trump may want to play good cop, bad cop by wrapping himself in a rainbow flag for show, an anti-LGBT agenda can take hold in each of these departments and various levels within the executive branch.  Homophobic and transphobic Republicans in Congress will do nothing to stop such efforts; in fact, they have been trying for decades to foster anti-LGBT policies and stood in the way of progress. 

Moreover, the Supreme Court could very possibly tilt towards in a regressive way during Trump’s term, so there may not be relief from that branch of government.

 LGBT folks must be on the alert and forcefully express their opposition to efforts to turn back the clock.  The threat is very real. 

And we don’t need to go back too far in history to understand the effects of apathy, complacency or indifference. The mantra, “We must never forget” applies now more than ever.