On Dec. 27, the Telegram featured an opinion piece by Lawrence Wittner, which argued the political-right in the United States and abroad historically has scapegoated minorities to maintain power and wealth, so we shouldn't be surprised that Trump supporters consist of racial, religious and nativist bigots. In this piece, Wittner's displays how he is out of touch with the political climate in the U.S., and also, how he lacks an historical aptitude in right-wing political thought.
Wittner claims that right-wing parties in Europe used a campaign of anti-Semitism, ultimately joining in Nazi Germany's "final solution."
However, the Nazi Party, short for the National Socialist German Workers' Party, was, in reality, a leftist political movement. Their official political platform consisted of many aspects one would consider leftist in nature.
Nationalization of corporations, profit-sharing, land redistribution, state-controlled education, national health care, and using the state to silence political dissent, were all official Nazi platform stances that are consistent with modern day American liberalism.
Considering this, it should come at no surprise the founders of the progressive movement largely romanticized European fascism during the pre-World War II era. For example, H.G. Wells stated in 1932 that American progressives must transcend into "liberal fascists." One can easily find more examples of early 20th
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century progressives making similar statements.
Next, Wittner is wrong in attributing the political success of those he disagrees with, as a product of appealing to racists and bigots. Trump and his voters in middle America didn't scapegoat minorities for their socio-economic woes; instead, they did the complete opposite. They scapegoated the wealthy and powerful for caring more about low-cost labor than American jobs, along with their politically correct close-mindedness.
This phenomenon was recently discussed within the New York Times Magazine on Jan 3, in an article title, How 'Elites' Became One of the Nastiest Epithets in American Politics.
In conclusion, those who compare early 20th century European Nazism to present day American right-wing political thought, and shrug off the political success of their opponents to racism, do so at their own intellectual laziness.
