Who are these men who gleefully support and carry out the outrages, the illegal and unconstitutional actions of Trump?
We begin to realize, hopefully not too late, the truth of which we have neen warned for many years. Men and women are susceptible to the appeal of fascism.
Men welcome being told what to do. Men and women are happy to carry out orders to abuse other people. There may in fact be an inherent inclination to be cruel. Individuals may enjoy being cruel to other people, or even torturing them, or participating in a crowd that murders other people, sometimes in the hundreds or the thousands, and sometimes in the millions.
This inclination toward cruelty, this desire to obey an authoritarian leader, is part of our human DNA.
It is part of our human nature. Our human nature.
Only the civilizing influence of education, and the leading examples of civilized men and women can direct these evil inclinations and defend ahgainst our evil vulnerabilities, so that we follow the path of civilization, that we comport ourselves as civilized human beings.
It takes courage to stand up against a mob which is capitulating to an authoritarian leader.
Unfortunately, today we see little evidence of such courage among our political leaders, the leaders of big business, the leaders of big law firms, or the leaders of top,law schools and universities.
We are witnessing what in Germany in 1933 and afterwards was known as the Gleichschaltung. The great synchronization in which individuals and groups were forced to tune in to and get on the same frequency. Then it was the frequency of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party. Today it is the frequency of Donald Trump and his fascist mRepublican Party.
It is a deeply sad spectacle to behold.
These men and women, who have now been synchronized with the frequency of Donald Trump and his fascist Republican supporters, are gleefully carrying out the destruction of the government, of its departments and programs, with at best indifference and in all probability pleasure as they destroy the lives of human beings they don’t even know.
Think of the dismantlement of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the deaths of small children and of AIDS victims, who will die–and may already be dying–because the USAID-funded or supplied food and medicines have been cut off.
Who are tgese men and women, disciples of Trump, who take pleasure in cutting off the food and medicine tgat enables children and other human beings to survive, just to live?
Have they always been like this? Didn’t they care at some earlier point in their lives whether a baby lived or died? Do they understand how they are not only cutting off the supply of food and medicines to individuals whose lives depend on that food and those medicines, but tgey are also cutting off those people’s lives?
Who are tgese people executing tge commands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, who take delight in tge great destruction derby which they are perpetuating?
Where did our civilization fail them, where did we fail them, that they could gleefully participate in such barbaric actions?
Who is responsible for their Gleichschaltung?
Is it not every individual who failed to speak out against what he or she knew was wrong, or evil?
Is it not everyone who failed to call out the truth when monstrous lies were told?
Who is responsible for this Gleichschaltubg in America?
Is it not every partner at a Big Law law firm who failed to stand up for truth and justice, who failed to speak out against Trump’s fascist threats to law firms, our justice system and the rule of law?
Is it not every big firm partner who caved in to Trump, or acquiesced in his or her Management Committee’s accommodation with the unconstitutional demands of Trump’s Executive Orders?
Is it not the leaders of every law firm which failed to file amicus briefs in cases brought by firms like Perkins and Coie which challenged Trump’s actions in Court?
Is it not every law school dean–particularly at the “leading” schools like Harvard and Stanford who refused to sign the following statement circulated by Berkeley Law School’s Dean Edwin Chermenensky?
Who are tgese men and women who gleefully execute the commands of Donald Trump and Elon Musk? Or who enable them to donso?
Who are these university presidents who fail to take a common stand with other universities whose funding is arbitrarily cut off at oresident Trump’s whim?
Who are these men who gleefully support and carry out the outrages, the illegal and unconstitutional actions of Trump?
Or who fail to stand up, who fail to speak out.
And who through their acquiescence enable them to do so?