Rescuing the Future | the abdication of the Supreme Court in the USA | Germany 1933 vs America 2024 |What now?

The last chance to prevent a criminal from becoming president of the USA has just been thrown away by the supreme court in their enigmatic 9-0 decision. They’ve thrown responsibility for the future back to the US house of representatives and senate, knowing full well that there’s no chance a vote there can succeed.

The events in the USA remind me more and more of how Hitler and the Nazis finally gained power in 1933 Germany.

For example, in Germany, in the November 1932 election, the Nazis were only able to form a government by agreeing to a coalition with the more established German National People’s Party (DNVP). The DNVP thought they were using Hitler to gain power for themselves, not knowing that he would soon put them on the shelf along with all the other paries.

In the USA, the old establishment Republicans who have lost control of their party continue to disparage Trump, but do nothing else to prevent his final takeover. All they need to do is form a new party, with a new name, and field some candidates for the House and Senate, along with a presidential candidate (surely they could find one). Though they wouldn’t win many seats, neither would the Trumpeans. Instead they seem to think that the best way for them to return to power is keep quiet and wait, in a passive by-default coalition with Trump.

In Germany, Hitler as chancellor after 1932 was subject to president Hindenburg, a World War 1 general  loved by much of the public. Hindenburg didn’t like Hitler, but he agreed to hold another election in March 1933. The Nazis began preparing their takeover by violent attacks on rival party candidates, beating them up and putting some in prison, using their private army (the SA Brownshirts and SS). This was illegal, and there were officers in the German army, which though smaller than the SA/SS, were better trained and equipped, who were ready to taken on the Nazis, but Hindenburg wouldn’t allow it. He was 84 years old and not up to such a confrontation. He would die in 1986.

It’s also interesting to look at a political map of Germany for the crucial 1932 election that gave him the foothold on power. He won every riding where protestant Christians were the majority. He lost in every one where Roman Catholics were the majority.

Meanwhile in the USA,  Secretary of Justice Merrick Garland could have initiated proceedings against Donald Trump immediately after the January 6/2021 assault on the capital, which would have been completed by now. Instead he and Biden waited and waited, only starting when it was questionable whether they could get a conviction before this November.

And so responsibility for saving democracy in America, and saving stability in the world as a whole instead of chaos, has been thrown back to the voters of America.

Polls show Biden and Trump neck and neck in the coming election, but these don’t take into consideration the three independent candidates who, so far, are planning to run – Robert Kennedy Jr with his famous name, highly respected Afro-American professor Cornel West, and Green party candidate Jill Stein. All three are going to draw most of their votes from the Democrats. Meanwhile no one will be there to significantly take any from Trump.

That election is approaching ominously. We can only hope Americans opposed to another Trump presidency will come out in force in a last ditch stand to stop America from repeating the events in Germany not so long ago.