Not in my Country

Throughout Trump’s political campaign he made every effort to vilify anyone who spoke out against and demonize any ethnic group to turn them into a threat to America and Americans embraced him. While he failed to admit that in doing so he was enabling and drawing the support of radical domestic terrorists, the groups they belong to, and their supporters. Then refusing to repudiate and separate himself from them in any meaningful way.

That has finally come to haunt us, in the form of Nazi rally in Charlottesville, VA. And make no mistake calling the people who organized and participated in the “Unite the Right” Nazi’s is the only thing they can be called. It had all the trappings of of Nazi rally; a torch lit night march, chants of  “blood and soil”, an old Nazi slogan, and “Jews will no replace us”. To do call them alt-right or White nationalists down plays the enormity of what they did.

The “Unite the the Right” rally was planned and organized months in advance and included a speech by Richard Spencer, a pretender to Adolf Hitler’s legacy. As part of promoting the rally organizers and their supporters encouraged participants to bring pepper spray and anything else they needed to defend themselves. This event was considered so morally and ethically repugnant that AirBnB closed the accounts of anyone trying to find someplace to sleep if they were attending the rally, because it violated AirBnb’s anti-discrimination policy.

The rally’s organizer and participants are not the only bad actors involved here. In spite of months of advance planning by the city of Charlottesville, which included 1300 additional police officers and National Guard. Law enforcement failed to keep the Nazi’s separated from the counter protestors. Quite possibly a deliberate choice made on the part of the people in command. The only reports that anyone did anything to stop the mayhem appear to be on the part of New York state militia group who arrived heavily armed and broke up fights. A sad state of affairs when we have to rely on the questionable politics and motives of the militia movement. To say nothing of Trump’s mealy mouthed statement that failed to repudiate the Nazi’s for what they had done.

The permit for the rally was protected by the ACLU when the city of Charlottesville tried to move the event to a different park. As a Jew  and an American. I have never been able to fully support the ACLU since 1978, when the ACLU protected the rights of the American Nazi Party to march through Skokie, IL. At that time Skokie, IL had the largest population of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel. While these repugnant groups have the same protection under the Constitution as all Americans that does not mean I approve of their right to do so.

After WWII, a war in which all Americans united to stop the Nazi’s, the phrase “Never Forget” was heard throughout the Jewish community around the world. During college I went to school with several students whose families immigrated from Ireland and Italy in the 1890’s. In the same way members of my own family immigrated from Eastern Europe and Germany during the 1890’s All seeking to live in a country that allowed people to pursue their dreams and aspirations of a better life for themselves and their children.

During spring break some of these students would take trips to Italy and Ireland and visit family that still lived there and reconnect with their heritage. When I asked one of my grandmothers, whose family had immigrated from Poland, about this subject her response was chilling.  From the 1890’s to 1939 letters were routinely exchanged and there were trips to Poland. She told me that “in 1939 the letters stopped and no one has heard anything from them since.”

What happened in Charlottesville should be considered an early warning sign of what could happen in America if Nazi’s, their enablers, and supporters are not met with “Fire and Fury”. Marches like this should be stopped in their tracks by counter demonstrators with linked arms to create human barricades to prevent these types of marches and rallies from moving forwards. Counter protesters who instead of chanting should respond with deafening silence. If the Nazi’s respond with violence, then they should be met with a level of violence that sends a message to any future rallies that they march at their own risk.

I know there will be trolls, Nazi supporters, and enablers who will label me as a liberal and say that liberals are supposed to tolerate everyone. To that I say, I hate Nazi’s whether they call themselves the alt-right or something less conspicous. I hate anyone who hates someone because their race, religion, country of origin, gender, and sexual identity.

And to anyone who says otherwise I only have one response, THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN IN MY COUNTRY.