Intellectual, messiah demagogues make dangerous rulers
by Bob Hoig, Publisher
Midlands Business Journal
There is some required reading for Americans this election season and it needs to be done quickly, well in advance of Nov. 4, election day.
The book is “Intellectuals” by historian Paul Johnson. His mission is to examine the moral and judgmental credentials of certain charismatic intellectuals who would advise humanity on how to conduct its affairs.
Rereading Johnson’s pages on Adolf Hitler last weekend, I was startled to realize the increasing use of Nazi Party techniques by the Barack Obama campaign.
The message I took away was that Republicans, Independents and Democrats need to think hard about this intellectually impressive man, Barack Obama, and not vote for him simply because he is charismatic, a spellbinding orator, a messiah figure inveighing against the past while ill-defining the future, black, or a messenger of hope and vague ideas about change.
Any of the above can be charming individually or, at worst, harmless.
Taken, however, as “all of the above,” similar traits unleashed the most magnetic, flawed and dangerous individuals upon the 20th Century that the world has ever known.
While Obama is not Hitler, still there are similarities, i.e.:
Obama’s sudden plan to pack 80,000 followers into a Denver sports stadium for his acceptance of the Democratic nomination instantly reminded of Hitler’s Nuremberg and Berlin rallies, moves the Nazis made as much to intimidate as acclaim.
Obama’s increasing tendency when speaking before large groups to fall into the rhythmic cadences of the demagogue. Hitler could go on for hours. Nearing the end of a 40-minute speech to followers in Houston, one sensed Obama too felt he was just warming up. Meaning, if there was any, was swallowed by the cadences.
Obama’s egotism in fashioning a presidential-type seal for his lecterns, an imperious gesture most Americans had to find irritating. The thing came down, but would similar affronts come down under a “President Obama?”
Obama’s inclination to focus on grievances he increasingly alleges are rooted in ethnicity and class.
The new Obama persona seems off-putting and strange coming, as it does, from a candidate who only months ago was proclaiming himself as a leader above race and class. Never, in fact, have we endured more talk on racial division, starting with his defense for his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, than comes now from Obama.
There is a comparison to Nazi skills perfected by Dr. Goebbels when Obama orchestrates the news columns of major newspapers and the broadcast time of some networks to mute sudden reversals of promises and whole strategies. (The New York Times is Exhibit A for the newspapers; NBC and MSNBC for the broadcasters.)
None of Obama’s flip flops, ranging from owning, then disowning Reverend Wright, to suddenly echoing President Bush on Iraq, terrorist electronic surveillance, and meeting with top terrorists with or without preconditions, can top what the Nazis did with German public opinion.
Hitler’s biggest triumph was the switch followed by a switch followed by a switch back involving the Soviet Union. Leading to World War II, the Nazis and Joseph Stalin were bitter enemies. Then the world was stunned with the announcement of the Hitler-Stalin Pact of Friendship. Then, the German Army rolled through Russia, to the very gates of Moscow.
Obama’s decision to use the Invesco Stadium was clever. It sets up the massive show of support that rancid intellectuals like to wow followers and intimidate opponents. What followed with Hitler were torchlight parades through city streets which morphed into street thugs looting and vandalizing, followed by Nazi strike gangs attacking against helpless groups, the Jews being foremost among them.
We haven’t heard of any mass parades down 16th Street, but that might be coming.
The rulers Paul Johnson selected ascended to power behind the barrel of gun or by winning elections with empty promises that amounted to a blank check.
After gulling the public with their false pledges, Hitler and Lenin immediately consolidated control of every organ of state power, from the military to security to prosecutorial services. And then there was no going back.
Legislative bodies were bluntly told to shut up or die. In Nazi Germany, the opposition dutifully shut up and often died anyway.
Hitler’s charm worked on nearly every segment of pre-war German society. Labor Unions, big and little business, the church, and the educational systems all expected a favored position. But the charismatic little man who spoke so well; the man who wasn’t even born in Germany (Hitler was born in Austria) outfoxed and triumphed over them all.
July 2008
