If Trump Isn’t Impeached, Will America Normalize Totalitarian Rule?

First they came for the climate and immigration activists, and I did not speak out - because I wasn’t a climate or immigration activist. Then they came for the whistleblowers and public protesters, and I did not speak out - because I wasn’t a whistleblower or a public protester. Then they went after the disabled and hungry, and I did not speak out - because I wasn’t disabled or hungry. Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me. (1) If only President Donald Trump had been impeached and removed from office.

Totalitarian Normalcy
Historians differ on what “normality” in a totalitarian situation really represents. But they do agree on one thing: it starts in small increments with very little notice. As a totalitarian regime integrates more people into a single ideological and uniformed mass, it robs them of humanity. Whether this is a product of fear or a voluntary creation that enables individuals to pursue their lives unhindered, the result is always the same: persecution of outgroups become the norm.

In America, the gap between democracy and totalitarianism has narrowed under Donald Trump. This unique nature of a dictatorship like Nazism means that, although many “normal” behavioral options are eliminated, people still follow familiar routines. It fosters the illusion that their behavior continues to be “normal” and “rational” under the circumstance, although it is clear to any outsider that many of the behaviors involved are neither normal nor rational. (2)

Normalizing Horror
One example of Trump’s totalitarian rule was directive given to the Department of Homeland Security to treat non-violent tar sands pipeline protesters as a threat equal to terrorists, alongside white supremacists and mass murderers. Another is treating immigration activists and journalists that oppose the administration’s child separation policy as the biggest threats facing Americans. Just as tragic is how many of us begin to see this horror and their implication in it as normalcy.

As the Trump administration suppresses dissent and criminalizes compassion, we must ask ourselves if it is normal to continue to waste energy and pollute our world or discount climate change? Is it rational to take our children to school and the park knowing our government is filling out the necessary forms that will determine who faces imprisonment and which children will be traumatized by family separations, some having already died while in the custody of ICE?

(This includes the sick children who’ve either been detained or turned away at the border seeking medical help. Commondreams.org just reported that border agents in the United States last Thursday morning turned away another sick child with down syndrome seeking medical help who had a scheduled meeting with doctors in Philadelphia. By not allowing her to enter, her life is in danger.)

Totalitarian Survival
For most people living under totalitarian regimes, there was a stark discrepancy as well between what had become normal and what they were willing to tolerate. In Nazi Germany, where Germans watched the socialists, the disabled, and the Jews and Gypsies rounded up and then deported, a few wondered if they should go on as if nothing happened. Others tried to intervene by hiding them and helping them escape. Those that did were sometimes arrested or killed.

Yet most people did go on as if nothing had happened, aided to a great extent by the Nazi success in fostering what some called “the illusion of rationality.” The mass deportations of less desirables depended above all on “persuading all involved, both victims and bystanders, that it was more sensible to cooperate than the resist.” The Nazis had created a society in which “the irrationality of survival would render all other motives of human action irrational.” (3)

Reason had become the enemy of rationality. As more people justified Nazi behavior, including their own, a terrible illusion of good and evil, right and wrong, prevailed. In a work that appeared soon after the fall of Nazi German, Eva Reichmann found that the totalitarian nature of Nazism was so pervasive that it made documentation and oral statements after January 30, 1933 unreliable. No wonder the world stands aghast watching what is happening in and to America.

Totalitarian “Overwhelmingness”
Through intimidation and bullying, totalitarian rulers often normalize fear, hate, chaos and division. Trump defied Congress and illegally withheld aid to Ukraine. Trump lied about U.S. casualties. Trump threatens another whistleblower. Trump tweets another conspiracy theory. Trump takes another $7 billion from the Pentagon to build his wall. Trump assassinates a top Iranian general, and key Mar-a-Lago members trade stocks on advance knowledge of the attack.

Trump’s “overwhelmingness” is constant: sharing horrific photos of bloodied corpses to attack opponents; retweeting fake images depicting congressional Democrats’ leaders in traditional Muslim attire in front of the Iranian flag; and sharing the white supremacist “great replacement” theory to attack DACA. As more people resign themselves, migrant deportations and killings and the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians killed in foreign wars become more normalized.

Another normality are attacks against whistleblowers and the hungry and people with disabilities or preexisting conditions. The alarming cuts in food, disability aid, and healthcare are just as real as the threats against former officials who informed the public about Trump’s illicit behavior. In fact, eugenics and euthanasia may be more prevalent under Trump than Nazi Germany, hidden and weaponized in America’s laws and institutions which promote economic despair and death.

The Final Curtain
As totalitarian rule descends on America, it won’t be the same way as Nazi Germany, in that a republic normalized it. Most Americans reject Trump and the GOP. It will instead be normalized through lies and denial and powerful institutions. Trump officials already control the Senate impeachment trial and Supreme Court. The CIA, FBI, NSA, and Pentagon all fear Trump. And the Justice Department will ensure that Trump is above the rule of law and Constitution.

Robert Kennedy Jr. just reinforced. Commenting why America is no longer a democracy under Trump, he said: “If you go to China today and ask them, do you want a democracy like America has? You ask anybody in the world this, they will say no because why would we want a form of government that can produce leadership of a person who doesn’t read books, who’s not thoughtful about issues, who’s bullying, who … employs all the dark alchemies of demagoguery?”

Some Already Know the Answer
Will America normalize totalitarian rule if Trump isn’t impeached is a question that will continue to be hotly debated and discussed. But for the climate and immigration activists, for the public protesters and whistleblowers, for the hungry and disabled or those with pre-existing health conditions, and for the refugees who’ve been denied entry to the U.S. or children separated at the border and innocent civilians killed overseas, they already know what the answer is. Instead of an America filled with faith and hope, they found it to be schizophrenic and a dystopia.

Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John’s Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.WN.com. You can read more of Dallas’ writings at www.beverlydarling.com and www.WN.com/dallasdarling.

(1) Pastor Marin Niemoller. “First They Came.”

(2) Barnett, Victoria J. Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2000., p. 200.

(3) Ibid., p. 201.