My name’s Bill, and I want to talk about the Holocaust.
Yeah, that Holocaust. We all know which one I’m talking about because there was only ever one like it in history. A lot of people were killed under a brutal dictatorship. My wife and I are fortunate enough to have traveled a bit, and during our last trip to Europe we visited one of the camps. The feeling that lingers over that place is unreal, and it stays with you a long time. Once you’ve experienced it for yourself, it’s clear that something that horrible could never happen again.
So when people start throwing around words like “Nazi” and “Hitler” to describe a president they don’t like, it really makes me angry. Entitled, whiny liberals, type-type-typing away from behind the safety of their keyboards, never once stopping to appreciate how easy they have it, ought to realize that a biased press is using skewed facts to make it seem like something as horrible as the Holocaust could actually happen again.
To me the Holocaust is a constant, haunting reminder of what can happen when authoritarian leaders rise to power on a fear-based platform that places blame on outsiders. But it’s important to remember that this is America, and our current situation is night-and-day different from theirs. The Holocaust, which killed over 6 million people, happened a long time ago when a country allowed its leader to orchestrate an organized genocide. Nothing like it had ever happened before, and nothing like it will ever happen again.
Just to highlight how ridiculous people sound when they try and compare our current situation to Hitler or the Holocaust, let me explain exactly how bad it was. When the Holocaust happened, it was spearheaded by a force of pure evil: Adolf Hitler. A power-hungry, nationalist dictator the likes of Hitler had never been seen before throughout all of history, and will never be seen again.
Hitler manipulated the German people into believing that intellectuals, the press, and members of any opposing party were simply making things up to smear his image. In doing this, he discredited anyone who criticized him and made sure that normal, God-fearing German citizens internalized the narrative that he created: one that blamed the problems of their country on immigrants and religious outsiders. With all of our modern technology and our ability to look up information at a moment’s notice from any news source we want, I truly believe that a whole country couldn’t possibly fall prey to such a tactic ever again.
I mean, look at it this way. Hitler wasn’t taken seriously at first because of his poisonous rhetoric towards immigrants, particularly the country’s Jewish population. He only really established himself as a politician once he promised middle-class workers who had been badly hurt during the Depression that his reign would usher in a period of economic prosperity and make Germany great again.
Hitler was pure evil. He used lies and misdirection to distract from the reality that thousands of immigrants were sent sent to suffer and die at concentration camps on a daily basis per his orders. A lot of good German people saw their neighbors forced out of their homes and onto the trains, but most assumed that they were merely being deported. Some had suspicions that something more sinister was taking place, but they were quickly silenced for their unpatriotic behavior. If they had our modern means of communication, it’s possible that the whole thing could have been averted, but of course, there’s no way of knowing that. In any case, it doesn’t matter because it’s over and done with and can never happen again.
In conclusion, the Holocaust can never happen again, and the only thing that could change my mind is if it happens again.