We need to heed history’s lessons

To the editor:

Anne Applebaum, in an column in the Atlantic Magazine, October 2018, wrote: “Given the right conditions, any society can turn against Democracy. Indeed, if history is anything to go by, all societies eventually will.”

Adolf Hitler, in 1933, attempted to overthrow the government in an act known as the “Beer Hall Putsch.” Hitler failed and served time in prison where he wrote his infamous tome, “Mein Kampf,” or, in English, “My Struggle.” Mein Kampf was Hitler’s political manifesto and a blueprint for the eventual rise of the Third Reich.

Hitler spent the next six years laying the groundwork for insurrection. In 1939, following a disastrous fire in the Reichstag (the German equivalent of Congress), Hitler used the turmoil and uncertainty and, with the acquiescence of the elected government, declared himself the head of the German government.

Part of Hitler’s modus operandi was to employ “the big lie.” All of Germany’s problems could be laid at the feet of Jews. It is no stretch of the imagination to substitute America for Germany and “stolen election” for Jews.

George Bernard Shaw warned “beware of his false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.”

George Washington spoke, in his farewell address to the young nation, about the danger(s) of political partisanship: “It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, and kindles the animosity of one part against the other, and foments, occasionally, riot and insurrection.”

In today’s society, fact and truth have become fungible with one’s opinion.

I will close this opinion, with the words of the German philosopher, poet and all-around intelligent guy, Friedrich Nietzsche: “Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth, because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”

Michael Kinser

Portland