Jews for Hitler: A Cautionary Tale or Unwarranted Hysteria? (article)

Immediately after the election, the postmortem dissection of details and statistics sounded very much like a post-game analysis by a team of sportscasters. How could such an upset occur? How did it happen? Why did the polls not predict that Mr. Trump would win? Even if Russia interfered and the FBI influenced some voters, could that many people have changed their minds at the last moment? What about the cultish Trump supporters who, all along, may have kept their sympathies to themselves and fooled everyone? In the midst of all this analysis and anguish, one particular question keeps coming up: “How is it that so many members of the very groups that were insulted, degraded, and assaulted by Donald Trump still vote for him?”

How could any self-respecting Muslim, Mexican-American, African-American, Latino, handicapped person, traumatized veteran, prisoner of war (POW), woman, LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) member, evangelical Christian, or Jew vote for such a person? A number of well-reasoned, articulate, and thoughtful articles by respected members of these groups then appeared, explaining their rationales. Their arguments usually boiled down to not taking the degradation or hate talk seriously and wanting to believe that it was part of the well-known theatrics Candidate Trump engaged in during the heated campaign. He was not to be taken literally. Instead, they focused on an issue that was of greater importance to them. Such priorities have included repealing Obamacare, restoring jobs, addressing trade issues, reversing Roe v. Wade, preserving the Second Amendment, defeating ISIS, and halting immigration of potential terrorists.

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In the case of about 25% of his Jewish supporters, it was his right wing leanings that promised a strengthening of ties with Israel, the supporting of West Bank settlements, and a vision of peace in this most hotly contested region, not through neutral mediation, but from a position of strength. In other words, the restoration of national pride in his patented slogan, “Make America Great Again,” appealed to the heady nostalgia of the post-1967 war era in those Jews who believed he could also “Make Israel Great Again.” Appealing to the “masculine” strivings of a show of strength by reestablishing a sense of dominance and power through America’s mighty military forces, along with his much touted “genius” at deal making, these campaign promises were evidently very seductive and effective for many.

Trump’s supporters may have seen his bravado and tough talk as refreshing and “honest,” as his ardent followers vicariously enjoyed him speaking his mind and relishing not being “politically correct.” His spokesmen (and women) contended that he was only speaking what was secretly in others’ hearts. His special talent was that he could put words to their feelings and truths, a gift that had benefited him greatly throughout his turbulent and glamorous career. His profound sense of entitlement, tiresome belligerence, uncanny mastery of the media, and disturbingly fluid relationship with reality were greeted with naïve hope by the true believers of his sales pitch.

Trump’s less rabid supporters may have been a bit less taken in, seeing his dramatics as a performance and a means to an end. Wanting to see him as a basically reasonable man, and overlooking or not appreciating the overriding significance of the leader’s psychopathology, they assumed that once elected, he would settle down, become “presidential,” and surround himself with trustworthy and stable people. Surely he would then properly distance himself from the extreme right wing, neo-Nazi support he enjoyed and stop the mutual flirtation that he engaged in throughout his campaign. Therefore, his optimistic but uneasy Jewish followers, approximately 24% of Jewish voters, maintained that even the spontaneous outbreak of post-election hate crimes, such as painting swastikas and making bomb threats to Jewish institutions, must surely die down after the initial expression of Jew-hating exuberance over his victory.

As a longtime student of the origins of genocidal persecution in fascist states, I have been asked this same set of questions

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about Jewish voters since the election results were proclaimed on November 9^th (which incidentally is the anniversary of Kristallnacht [“Night of Broken Glass”]). Can we learn anything from history that might be relevant here? How could Jews vote for a man who fails to convincingly denounce blatantly anti-Semitic leaders and hate groups that openly endorsed him? Wouldn’t it be seen as pandering to these forces with his own references to an international conspiracy of bankers and financiers bent on world domination? After all, that paranoid worldview is the theme of notorious 1903 “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (Ira Brenner, “Contemporary anti-Semitism: variations of an ancient theme,” The Future of Prejudice: Psychoanalysis and the Prevention of Prejudice, ed. Henri Parens et al., 2007), which is essential reading for neo-Nazi extremists. Perhaps this homage to white supremacists is tolerated, in part, because American Jews are overwhelmingly “white” and many are so assimilated that they believe they can conceal their Jewishness in public. After all, if he is truly a “friend” to Israel, despite his seemingly turning a blind eye to what has been fomenting here in the U.S., then he can be forgiven.

However, hate talk followed by hate crimes is a harbinger of worse to come unless it is condemned vigorously at the highest level of government. Indeed, Donald Trump’s appointment of a high profile and very influential white supremacist as his chief strategic advisor was a huge blow to those hoping for reassurance. Moreover, the administration’s concerted efforts to discredit the press and undermine the other branches of government have posed an enormous challenge to the checks and balances of our fragile democracy.

As public sensitivity to these issues has increased since his controversial cabinet nominations and tumultuous first weeks, it was quite significant that Mr. Trump failed to explicitly mention the unique fate of the Jews under Nazi rule when his office issued a proclamation for Holocaust Remembrance Day. This glaring omission reminded me of my first trip to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin, shortly after the unification of East and West Germany. As this region was under Soviet domination, the signs on the camp reflected a political message from that era about how it was the site of Nazi brutality to the Soviet people. There was no mention of the Final Solution or of the Jewish people at all.

The obliteration of names and anniversaries by layering them over with a new “truth” is a well-known strategy, which has

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been employed throughout history in an attempt to destroy memories of the past (Freud, Moses and Monotheism, 1939). This phenomenon occurred again when Mr. Trump issued his hastily drafted executive order to ban the entry of Muslims from seven countries, a highly controversial move that curiously coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day. Met with confusion, outrage, and global chaos, this move was decried as grossly discriminatory and un-American. Curiously, the group known as “American Muslims for Trump,” founded by Sajid Tarar, an attorney born in Pakistan, has kept a very low profile, according to a Google search at the time of this writing.

In great contrast, one of the loud voices to protest was former Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Raised as a Catholic to hide her Jewish identity during the Nazi years in Europe, she was outraged at the blatant discrimination of any religious group—by the President of the United States, of all people. She proclaimed that if such a mandate led to a Muslim registry, she herself would register as a Muslim. As outspoken as she was, another prominent Jewish individual who had been catapulted into the public eye was conspicuously silent. Mr. Trump’s brilliant son-in-law, Jared Kushner, an Orthodox Jew who was elevated to the position of senior advisor to the president, has often been cited as proof that Trump is not an anti-Semite. He has been touted to be the one best suited to broker peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Skeptics, however, wonder why he has been silent on relevant domestic matters and fear that he may ultimately serve as mere window dressing, being Trump’s “favorite Jew.” Such a worrisome contention calls to mind Heinrich Himmler’s chilling words in a speech to the S.S. in 1943, in which he said that among all the German people, “each one has his decent Jew. Of course, all the rest are vermin, but this one is an A-1 Jew” (“Speech to S.S. Major-Generals at Posen”). Even the infamous commander of the S.S., who was very proud of his key role in the “extermination” of the Jews, recognized that one may have a soft spot in his heart for his favorite Jew.

A little known, shameful historical fact is that there were actually two organizations of German Jews who, early on, supported Hitler and the Nazi Party. The Association of German National Jews was the more well-known group, and it espoused total assimilation and dissolution of Jewish identity. It also supported the expulsion of their embarrassingly uncultured and highly religious fel-

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low Jews from Eastern Europe. These immigrants were easily identified, as they were conspicuously dressed and aroused suspicion in the German public. In an ill-fated attempt to become exempt from persecution and be accepted as equals to the Christian majority in Germany by renouncing their brethren, the members of this group seriously miscalculated. It was summarily dissolved in 1935. Its founder, Max Nauman, was humiliated and imprisoned by the Gestapo, and terrorized until his death in 1939 (Robert S. Wistrich, Who’s Who in Nazi Germany, 1982). The genocidal persecution of the Jews followed shortly thereafter, as the Final Solution was implemented methodically by the State.

We need not be reminded that the U.S. in 2017 is quite different from Germany in 1939, and that Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. Nevertheless, human nature has not changed in such a short period of time; the lure of being in power is intoxicating and irresistible to certain character types. In response to authoritarian leadership, “identification with the aggressor” quickly follows suit. The psychology of the leader becomes amplified in small groups as well as in large groups, like a country where, for example, a rise in nationalistic strivings is linked to strong measures to “protect” its people from dangerous foreign invaders. Polarization and splitting prevails and “either you are with us or you are against us.” As a result, for many, their submission to the new norm is inevitable because “if you can’t beat ‘em, you have to join ‘em” (Vamik Volkan, Killing in the Name of Identity, 2006; Ira Brenner, Dark Matters: Exploring the Realm of Psychic Devastation, 2014).

Members of minorities who have cast their lots with the new regime may be having serious doubts by now, but as another aspect of human nature would have it, those not directly targeted may feel that they will be exempt and remain exempt. The very famous and haunting words of Pastor Niemöller have as much relevance today as they did in Nazi Germany:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

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The extent to which this way of coping is operative in members of the groups in question here can only be speculated. What is most important now is whether “watchful waiting” in the form of “let’s give Trump a chance” will be tantamount to allowing a malignancy of uncertain virulence and clinical course to spread unchecked, or whether this approach is the only fair and “American” thing to do at this time. Clearly, the growing resistance and continued protests around Trump Tower as well as throughout the country are giving us a great indication of the level of concern these days.

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