Monday, May 6, 2024 | 2 a.m.
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Donald Trump staged a televised event, after his swearing-in, where he asked each Cabinet member if they would be loyal to him.
FBI Director James Comey answered, “I will be loyal to the Constitution.” He was fired while on a business trip to California and had to find and pay for transportation back to Washington, D.C.
Hannah Arendt, in her book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” wrote about how Adolf Hitler, after he won enough votes to take power in Germany, demanded absolute loyalty and set about consolidating his position as the final decision maker. All he said and did was to be considered right.
An early decision of Hitler’s was to deport all Jews, but he found other countries would not take a large group of stateless people. So, his next decision was to kill them, and over 12 years, they killed 6 million Jews and about 6 million more victims who were not Jewish, including Soviet prisoners of war, non-Jewish ethnic Poles, Romani, people with disabilities, political dissenters and others.
Upon entering Germany, U.S. and Allied forces found documents showing plans to next eliminate certain people in Poland and then to eliminate certain native-born Germans who did not meet Hitler’s appearance standard.
Sydney J. Harris said: “History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.” Think about your loyalty when you vote this year; the outcome may affect you for years.
