By Billy Webster

I don’t know how it escaped my notice, but two books sit side by side on my bookshelf: Bruce Catton’s The Coming Fury, the first volume of his widely acclaimed trilogy about the Civil War and The Gathering Storm, the first volume of Winston Churchill’s  masterful and meticulous six volume history of World War II.

With a keenly focused retrospective eye, both Catton and Churchill captured the monumental failings that preceded the wars that were the subject of their writings. After reading Catton’s trilogy and Churchill’s volumes, one wonders how such collective misfeasance could happen again. 

Catton wrote, “A certain combination of incompetence and indifference can cause almost as much suffering as the most acute malevolence.”

Similarly, in the preface of The Gathering Storm,  Churchill stated, “the theme of this volume [is] how the English-speaking people through their unwisdom, carelessness, and good nature allowed the wicked to return.” 

America – and Americans – face a similar moment. The Republican National Convention crowned Donald J Trump, a convicted felon, as the nominee for President. There is little about Trump that we don’t already know. He has called for the investigation and in some cases the execution of his political opponents. He has spurned the primacy of the electoral process and made mockery of the Rule of Law. He has lavished praise on and expressed envy of  autocratic rulers around the world, all of whom mean America and the Transatlantic Alliance (that we call NATO) harm. He has planned and incited an insurrection against the United States government. And, as we have recently learned, he and his fascist propagandists have published a manifesto called Project 2025, which, among other things, calls for the abolition of the Department of Education, the weaponization of the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies, the virtual elimination of an entire class of career civil servants, and the elimination of all regulations affecting the environment and climate change. That’s just the beginning. 

Almost exactly ninety years ago – August 19, 1934 – the German public voted in favor of Adolph Hitler becoming Fuhrer of the Germany. His powers were expanded in the Enabling Act of March 1933, a sort of de facto legislative consolidation of power not unlike what our US Supreme Court just did in the case of Trump v United States. Trump has adopted the rhetoric, tactics and political opportunism of Hitler and his legislative and judicial enablers have given viability to Trump’s worst instincts. 

It might seem like ancient history to many and irrelevant to some, but the catastrophic consequences of Adoph Hitler’s rise to power should sit squarely in front of our collective American consciousness. The analogy of Trump to Hitler might offend some, but it holds. 

I was a student in Germany in 1979. The World War II generation – the men who had fought for Hitler and the Nazis – were in their late 50s and 60s during my time there. As I got to know many of those men, they would tell stories about how no one took the danger of Naziism seriously. In their view,  Germany had made considerable economic progress under Hitler (in the aftermath of WW1) and his vilification of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other non-ethnic German minorities appealed to the anti-immigration, white nationalistic sentiment that prevailed among the German population at the time. The uniform refrain – whether real or a convenient excuse – was simply that “by the time we knew the evil that was being perpetrated, it was too late to do anything without putting ourselves and our families at risk.” 

We are staring into the abyss of a second Trump Administration hellbent on destroying every vestige of democracy that the United States and its leaders have carefully nurtured for over 250 years. Bruce Catton and Winston Churchill make plain the risks of carelessness and indifference. Make no mistake, there is A Gathering Storm and A Coming Fury. We have to work harder, register more people to vote, express our opinions to our friends, and , on Election Day, get everyone we know to the polls. This is no normal election.  We have been warned… and we have seen the tragedy that evil begets. 

It is an over-used recitation, but the words of German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller give further weight to Catton and Churchill’s warning:

First the 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.  

Billy Webster is an educator, entrepreneur, and civic leader. He has been appointed to various positions by two presidents – George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, serving in the Agency for International Development, The Department of Education, and the White House, among other postings. A resident of Spartanburg, Webster has served on numerous boards for organizations serving the Upstate.