Trump, Hitler, and the Reichstag Fire (2)

Part II. 

Preparing for Civil Disobedience

Even if a horrific act of domestic terrorism should occur, we must not allow Donald Trump to unilaterally declare martial law along with the suspension of the November elections.  By any means we must commit to voting in November.  We must insist that our local government allow the November elections to proceed.  This means that state and local government leaders must commit to holding elections, counting the ballots, and reporting the results even if Trump were to send in federal forces to suppress the electoral process.  This means that we need to get ready to deal with the unthinkable.  This means civil disobedience: local officials disobeying federal edicts and citizens protecting voting sites by their physical presence and their recording the electoral process.  

This means protecting the Internet and social media platforms which are necessary for journalism to function.  Effective civil disobedience depends on publicity which means effective communication with general society.  We need to anticipate the possibility that a Trump take over will involve the government seizing or co-opting major means of communications: TV, radio, telephone, as well as the Internet: email, Facebook, Zoom etc.  Should that happen we need to be ready to take the fight for American democracy underground.  

 

The Guard Rails of Democracy

Peaceful, principled civil disobedience will play an important role in forestalling a turn to dictatorship.  In the war against a Trump dictatorship we need to be able to persuade people in positions of leadership to refuse to obey unlawful orders that lead to tyranny.  Adolf Hitler was able to do immense harm because he had loyal followers under him, e.g., Joseph Goebbels, Heinrich Himmler, Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess, Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, etc.  Hitler’s rise to power was further facilitated by good Germans accustomed to obeying orders from above.  The henchmen in a Trump takeover won’t look like Nazis, they will look like Americans but with an authoritarian mindset.   Under normal circumstances government leaders will carry out official policies and hesitate to submit their resignations; however, under extraordinary circumstances obeying orders may be immoral or unconstitutional requiring open denunciation of illicit orders, deliberate inaction, or resigning in protest informing others of the reasons for the resignation.  Key to effective civil disobedience is the appeal to conscience, to moral principles, to truth, justice, mercy, and charity.  We must commit to peace making, not violence.  Violence begets more violence and ultimately leads to dictatorship.  We need to fight fire with water, that is, to quiet down emotions and promote calm, reasoned discourse.  This means weaning ourselves off social media that do not inform us as they stir up the flames of anger and hatred.  

The high turnover in top White House staff in Donald Trump’s presidency is worrisome.  In the beginning Trump was surrounded by top level officials who would tell him that certain actions were not possible because they went against the laws and Constitution of the country.  Later, Trump began to get staffers and cabinet secretaries more malleable to his will.  Trump has been aided by Republican members of Congress who fear Trump and his fervent supporters who could vote them out of office.  These Republican lawmakers would willingly sacrifice American democracy in order to advance a Trump dictatorship.  If the top levels of government succumb to Trump’s bullying, the next line of defense will be midlevel government officials who will need to put their careers on the line.  Recently, Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, refused to rule out sending U.S. troops to polling places, but Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley vowed the military will have “no role” in the coming election (Politico 13 Oct. 2020).  It may become necessary for midlevel bureaucrats to serve as the next line of defense of American democracy from their bosses who have surrendered to Trump’s political appointees.  To defy their superiors these government workers will need to have moral courage reinforced by knowledge of the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution.

 

Knowing the U.S. Constitution

For a long time, the American political process was based on the assumption that people will play by the rules of the game.  We have never had a president who so willfully disregarded the rules of the game, who refused to say he would accept the results of the November election.  And we never had a president who delights in using repressive police action against peaceful civilian protestors.  Fair elections and peaceful transfer of power are foundational to a democracy.  If Donald Trump suspends or delays our elections until things return to “normal,” then he will be well on way to creating an American dictatorship.  

America’s democratic government has long been protected by guard rails visible and invisible.  The invisible guard rails have been the decorum and protocol in which participants treat each other with respect and losers in an election accept the results of the election.  One example of visible guard rails are the oath people take the oath to serve and protect the Constitution.  They have sworn to serve the American people, not to pledge fealty to a king (as Trump has demanded).  All these safeguards were put in place to ensure that America would not come under the rule of a tyrant who views the U.S. government as his personal property and who demands fealty of White House staff and the federal civil service employees.  

Many Americans are woefully ignorant of the U.S. Constitution and their rights under the Constitution.  They might know phrases like: “freedom of assembly,” “due process,” “freedom of speech,” “freedom of the press,” and “habeas corpus” but they would be hard pressed to explain what these rights are.  Similarly, many have at best only a vague understanding of the Miranda Rights and their rights if placed under arrest.  

When the Philippines’ president, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law, he also announced the suspension of habeas corpus.  A knowledgeable Filipino remarked, “This is bad” to which his naïve American friend replied: “Why?”  The Latin phrase “habeas corpus,” which means “You have a body,” refers to the fact that the government cannot arbitrarily arrest any citizen and that it must show in court through legal process that the person had been lawfully detained and will have a fair trial.  The right of habeas corpus is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution: Article 1 Section 9 Clause 2.  It’s placement in Article 1 means that only Congress has the power to suspend this right.  The President cannot unilaterally suspend habeas corpus—knowing that will serve as vital protection.  Trump in his ignorance cannot unilaterally declare the suspension of habeas corpus.  He will need the authorization of Congress and especially the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  

In terms of practical steps, I recommend that concerned Americans obtain copies of the U.S. Constitution and study it.  [A link has been provided in the Resources page of this blog.]  They might also consider having on hand pocket-sized booklets of the U.S. Constitution.  They should meet with others to study and discuss the Constitution so that they will be able to explain the Constitution to their friends and relatives.  Ignorance of the Constitution paves the way to dictatorship.  How can you stand up and defend the U.S. Constitution if you do not know what is in it?  

 

Networking for Democracy

Networking to protect American democracy means finding others who share our values, our concerns, and are willing to work with us to a common end.  We can learn from the experience of Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights protestors who organized to end racism in the U.S.  We need to prepare to network out in the open while our democratic institutions are still intact and to go underground should there be an attack on American democracy.  

We live in a digital society where our personal information is being collected and disseminated in digital form.  In the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, the U.S. government sought and received sweeping surveillance powers in order to detect and root out suspected Islamist terrorist organizations.  More recently, social media platforms like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have been surreptiously collecting information about their users.  Many American consumers accept this due to the convenience of not having to pay for these services.  In light of this, it would be prudent for Americans to wean themselves gradually and partially from the Internet.  We should reacquaint ourselves with pre-Internet practices of communicating and networking. 

We should meet with friends privately away from electronic devices like our mobile phones, TV monitors, Alexa, laptops to work out a code that can be used over the phone or email.  It is also vitally important that this code system not be stored electronically where they can be discovered and hacked.  This means going back to the paper and pen method of storing information.  

To prepare one could learn from inspiring examples of people who resisted Nazi rule by studying the practical ways they fought Hitler’s dictatorship.  For example, Maria von Trapp’s autobiography The Story of the Trapp Family Singers (not the movie Sound of Music!) sheds valuable insight into how a devout Catholic family resisted the Nazi takeover of Austria.  She also described the signs of the moral collapse taking place in Europe.  Corrie ten Boom’s Hiding Place recounts how a devout Protestant family resisted Nazism in Germany-occupied Netherlands.  Eric Metaxas’ biography on the Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer describes how Bonhoeffer saw the warning signs early on in Germany.  Another inspiring example can be found in Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who disobeyed his government by granting exit visas to Jews seeking to flee German-occupied Poland.  It should be noted that Sugihara is a convert to Orthodox Christianity and that his religious convictions may have led to his civil disobedience to Nazi tyranny.  All these examples of resistance to Nazism illustrate the importance of spiritual preparation.  Unless we are grounded in truth, charity, decency, and the fear of God, we will become morally unmoored susceptible to moral compromise, amoral pragmatism combined with self-seeking and self-survival.  

Ken

 

References

Charles Apple.  “A Revolving Door.”  The Spokesman Review 2020.

Ken Arakaki.  “Trump, Hitler, and the Reichstag Fire – Part I.”  FWIW Politics.com 12 October 2020.

‘Be Freedom.’  “The Political and Rhetorical Strategies of Martin Luther King.”  BeFreedom.co.

Zack Beauchamp.  “The Republican Party is an authoritarian outlier.”  Vox.com 22 September 2020.

Beth Daley.  “To resist Trump’s tyranny, just don’t comply.”  The Conversation.  February 2017.

Rod Dreher.  “The Coming Social Credit System.”  The AmericanConservative.com 21 September 2020.

FindLaw.  “Miranda Rights.”  FindLaw.com.

FindLaw.  “Writ of Habeas Corpus.”  FindLaw.com.

David Highfield.  “Alexa, Are You Spying On Me?  How To Prevent Your Smart Devices From Listening To You.”  KDKA – Pittsburgh.cbslocal.com 18 November 2019.

John B. Judis.  “Why Trump is a Loyalty Freak.”  New Republic 16 June 2017.

Jonathan Kim.  “Habeas Corpus.”  Legal Institution Institute.  June 2017.

Micah Lee.  “Feds Are Tapping Protester’s Phones.  Here’s How To Stop Them.”  TheIntercept.com 28 September 2020.

Micah Lee.  “Edward Snowden Explains How To Reclaim Your Privacy.”  TheIntercept.com 12 November 2015.

John Malvar.  “Forty-eight years since Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines.”  wsws.org 23 September 2020.

NewsAdvance.  “Editorial: Constitutional Ignorance Threatens Our Freedoms.”  NewsAdvance 17 September 2017.

Connor O’Brien and Lara Seligman.  “Esper doesn’t commit to keeping troops away from polling stations.”  Politico 13 October 2020.

Gene Sharp. “198 Methods of Nonviolent Action.”  Albert Einstein Institute — Advancing Freedom with Nonviolent Action.

Signal.org.  A secure and open source messaging app.  Wikipedia article.

Maria J. Stephan and Timothy Snyder.  “Authoritarianism is making a comeback. Here’s the time-tested way to defeat it.” TheGuardian.com 20 June 2017.

Jonathan Stevenson.  “Trump’s Praetorian Guard.”  The New York Review 22 October 2020  edition.

Chris Wallace.  “President Trump goes one-on-one with Chris Wallace | Full Interview.”  Fox News 19 July 2020.  [See 37:16 to 38:28 for the segment relating to Trump accepting the election result.]

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