It sounds like an oxymoron. When you think of fascism, you think of Nazi Germany. When you think of America, you think of democracy…free speech…the land of the free and the home of the brave. And it’s been that way for so long now that it seems incomprehensible that the two could ever merge, as they are doing right before our very eyes.
The second part of the problem is that we identify fascism with Nazi Germany, as if no one else but Germans can create a fascist state. That’s silly and clearly very dangerous. Fascism existed long before Hitler, ysv”z, rose to power and remained after he killed himself. It’s just what greedy, power-mongering, and selfish people turn to as a form of government to protect their own interests, wherever they may be in the world, in any time of history.
The third part of the problem is that the people to whom this is happening today are too young to remember how Germany evolved into a fascist state, and too naive to recognize how the people they voted for are doing it all over again in America. They’ll probably just end up being another unheeded lesson for the future, just as the people of Nazi Germany ended up being after the war was over.
The incredible thing is how all the tactics are always the same. Then again, man barely ever changes from generation to generation, just the sophistication of his ability to cheat others. He cheats to get into power. He demonizes the other side. He takes control of the media and pumps out propaganda to manipulate the thinking of the masses. In power, he uses it to get rid of the opposition. When some fight back he squashes them, and then creates ministries with nefarious intentions to keep them at bay, or worse, extinguish them.
Maybe it is inevitable, at least while the yetzer hara is still around.
The world looks at World War II as exactly that, with a side tragedy called the Holocaust. But Hitler didn’t see it that way, and Jewish history doesn’t see it that way. The main war was waged against 11 million European Jews, half of which perished without ever lifting a weapon. The side show, from this perspective, was World War II, so the Holocaust could happen and move world history closer to its ultimate purpose.
If you don’t believe in God, that is preposterous. If you don’t believe in Torah, it is ludicrous. Even if you believe in both it is hard to fathom how it can be true…until you understand the purpose of Creation, and the means which God accomplishes it. Then it all makes perfect sense, SCARY…but perfect sense.
Same thing here. While the world focuses on 300 million American citizens, Jewish history focuses on only six million of them who are Jewish. In a world of almost eight billion people, the 13 million Jews are the key to Tikun Olam—World Rectification, and therefore, the final redemption…for ALL mankind. Everyone in the world is a part of it, each one in their own way. But if you don’t learn Torah or perform mitzvos, not even the Seven Noachide Laws, then there is not much a person can contribute to tikun.
We can assume that what is going on in America today is inevitable. I assume that there are many ways for God to bring about the final redemption, but He seems to use this one a lot. So He puts people into the world who can become the politicians and various leaders of different industries capable of moving history in the way God wants it to go. In Truman’s case, towards Jewish statehood. In Biden’s time, towards a fascist approach to government. And He’ll give him, or the people pulling his strings, all the henchmen he will need to make it happen. We already saw that while Trump was still President.
Can’t yet see the connection between what is going on today, and the small Jewish population it stands to impact? They couldn’t see it either in Europe until well into the 1940s. That’s why they didn’t try to leave earlier. That’s why no one cared to save them until it was too late. That’s why few, thousands of miles away, could believe the Holocaust was happening even as it WAS happening.
And do you think it makes a difference what they think and say today? Do think Hitler and Stalin knew from the start all the terrible things they’d have to do to consolidate and maintain their holds on power? They probably couldn’t even imagine most of it in the beginning. But as they moved from one level of evil to the next, they learned things…discovered things they never knew before, and then adjusted their programs to accommodate for, or take advantage of, all of them.
When God is ready for the next stage of His plan, He makes the respective leaders think and do what they have to in order to carry it out. At one point, it was enough for the Nazis just to kick the Jews out of Germany and the rest of Europe, to make it Judenrein. It was only later that Hitler came up with the idea of kicking them out of the world altogether.
Let me put it to you this way. The odds of America being to its Jews in the near future what Europe was to its Jewish population in the 1930 and 40s is, perhaps are, billions to one. But don’t forget, when God is the ONE, the odds might as well be the other way around. He is the ONE driving all of this. He is the ONE putting the people into power who end up there. He is the ONE telling them what to think as they think it. He is the ONE giving them the means to carry out what they are carrying out…for current Jewish history, and for ultimate world history.
Once again, the Jews are playing a game of life-and-death chess. But they’re not playing it with American politicians and their backers as they think they are. They’re playing it with God, and the last time we played it with Him, we lost BADLY. Do we really think we can do better this time? Or, will we finally, once-and-for-all, learn something from the past and concede defeat early enough to live to play another day?