Still, on a related topic, what I find alarming is how easily it is to dehumanize and demonize a minority if the media provide a constant drumbeat of hatred. This happened in 1930's Germany to a very small minority - the Jews in Germany composed less than 1% of the population - and is happening now in the U.S. in different dimensions thanks to the intersectional cult: sex-wise to "cis" males, race-wise to non-progressive whites, class-wise to the middle and working classes. Someone falling into any of these categories (and it's a lot of us - black middle-class males get no mercy, nor do white working-class females) had better keep his or her mouth shut on social media or on campus lest the cancel culture brownshirts get onto the scent.
In short, this has happened before. Dr. Gregory Stanton updated his seminal Eight Stages Of Genocide to the present Ten Stages Of Genocide in 2016 and it's looking very much like we're at Stage 7 in the eyes of the radical left (if they can still even be called that). I quote in part:
National or perpetrator group leaders...often use euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as “ethnic cleansing,” “purification,” or “counter-terrorism.”
"Cleansing" and "Terrorism" have certainly come up over the past 48 hours or so, and I'd add "racial justice", "economic justice", and "environmental justice" to the mix, the term "justice" here perverted to mean "vengeance". None of these splinters represent majority opinions at the moment but neither did the Nazis in 1930 or the Bolsheviks in 1917, both of which succeeded in seizing control of the State anyway, after which theirs were the majority opinions expressed or else. It is that last echo that is rolling through the social media now and it's scary as hell.
the Jews in Germany composed less than 1% of the population
= = =
This seems low.
6 million dead Jews out of about 70 million Germans is closer to 10%. Unless I have my numbers wrong.
Or unless the Germans imported about 5 million extra Jews to exterminate.
Or maybe I am wrong some other way. What am I missing?
“I’m not sure “apathy” is exactly the issue: most normal people just want to be left alone by political movements to get on with their lives. The bad times are the ones where this no longer is possible, and we’re in one of those now.”
I’m not sure about your last sentence. People are still well off and riots and rioters are mostly “over there.” They are not going to jeopardize their lifestyle to pick up arms, storm the Capital or anything like that. There is no blazing patriotic agenda driving them forward because they still personally feel well off, have a good life and want to be left alone. They’ll go to a march and protest, but then things resume back to normal again. They’ll talk, but there are no leaders saying, “You go over here and you go get your gun and go over there.” So everybody is just looking at everybody else and hoping for the best, hoping things carry on without violence and maybe that Trump will start a new party.
If things were so bad that all people had left were their empty stomachs then they have nothing to lose. (Mind you, the American Revolution was not based on empty stomachs.) Fear then is the prime motivation — fear of losing everything, including people’s property and life — rather than love of justice, love of country or love of Trump. This is a page out of Machiavelli’s “The Prince”: fear rather than love will be the true motivation of people. Maybe if the taxes get to repressive and people are really hurting and poor, then there will be another American Revolution or Civil War.