A political essay by Eric T. Hansen.

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Living in Germany can be a real eye-opener.

One of the first things that took me by the collar and slapped me in the face when I came to Germany in the eighties was the overpowering anti-Americanism.

At university, I would run into little activist groups around every corner protesting NATO and American crimes in South America. When they found out I was American, they would immediately give me the “The Lecture” — which consisted of a long list of shocking American hypocrisies and atrocities against mankind.

I was young then and fell for it, at least for the most part. I began to look at my country differently. I began seeing the negative aspects … then I began seeing only the negative aspects — a whole laundry list of them.

And then it wasn’t just America — it was also capitalism, and after that, it was democracy itself.

Anti-Americanism: The gateway drug to anti-democracy

It turns out that anti-Americanism is often the gateway drug to anti-capitalism, which in turn is a gateway drug to anti-democratic dogma. The same guys who preached at me about how horrible my country was also gave me a list of the crimes of capitalism, which was often the same list, and then they would start talking about the hypocrisies of democracy:

Democracy claims to be about equality, but what about slavery? What about racism? What about minorities? What about poverty? What about war?

Suddenly democracy appeared to be an illusion foisted upon us by the moneyed ruling class to keep us happy while they exploit us.

And this was not just the eighties: In Germany, the triumvirate of anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-democracy sentiment survived the fall of the Berlin Wall intact — overtly with the extreme left and more subtly with a large segment of the general middle-ground public.

Whenever there’s a financial crisis in Germany, at last one article appears in a serious newspaper predicting “This is the end of Capitalism — what next?” A university professor told me not too long ago, “We know the communist revolution will come, it’s only a question of when.” Another filmmaker/intellectual told me it’s time to look for an alternative to democracy: “Democracy is an old idea that hasn’t fulfilled its promises, maybe it’s time for new one.”

These are all intelligent adults who witnessed the implosion of communism in 1989; they all live very well in capitalism and enjoy the privileges it brings, yet they still feel the need to explain to any American they meet that all these things — America, capitalism and democracy — are doomed to failure.

And now I see young Americans adopting these ideas as well, often in the form of the “Antifa” movement (an abbreviation of “anti-fascism”), which started in Germany in the eighties and tends to equate “being against Nazis” with “being for communism.”

Hitler’s arguments against democracy

Anyway, back to “The Lecture:”

For the longest time, that laundry list of American crimes bothered me. Then I happened to hear a radio speech Hitler made in 1940, and was I surprised to hear him spouting the very same arguments against capitalism, democracy and the free press that German pseudo-leftists and the Antifa use. (And yes, Hitler identified as a leftist — “Nazi” is short for “National Socialism.”)

Hitler’s arguments include (I have uploaded the full speech to YouTube with English subtitles here):

– Democracy is run by a small group of rich people who use the rhetoric of democracy to their manipulate the general public;

– the free press is run by a small group of rich people who use it their own ends;

– all parties are the same and are orchestrated behind the scenes by a small group of rich people who use them their own ends;

– the free market is only free for a small group of rich people who work together to use it to their own ends;

– capitalism is there to make this small group of people rich and in actuality is the cause of unemployment, poverty and inequality.

His proof of all this was poverty and unemployment: He focuses on England and its colonies, mainly India, as being riddled with crippling, systemic unemployment (of course he doesn’t mention the unemployment in Germany — this was 1940, when the entire western world was struggling to recover from the financial crisis of the 1930’s that Americans think of as the Great Depression).

I couldn’t believe my ears. I had heard all these arguments over and over again by the communists (who of course believe they are the exact opposite of fascists). But in fact, both fascists and communists use the same arguments.

And if they use the same arguments, they are — excepting maybe a few details — the same. There is no significant difference between them.

The effectiveness of laundry list ad hominem

Listening closely to the Hitler speech and comparing it to the general babble of extreme left-leaning Germans, I came to understand just what they are doing when they argue the way the do. Both my leftist friends and Hitler use a rhetorical trick I call laundry list ad hominem.

Ad hominem, also known as Whataboutism, is a time-honored rhetorical strategy used mainly when you have no good arguments left: If you cannot counter your opponent’s claims, you instead attack him personally.

If someone tells me, for example, that I’m fat, I can’t really deny it (because I am fat). So instead admitting that he’s right, I attack him: “Yeah, but what about you? You’re a dick.”

It has nothing to do with his argument, but it deflects from my lack of argument and puts him on the defensive. Generally, you use ad hominem when you don’t have a good case to argue.

Laundry list ad hominem consists solely of listing off all the crimes of the other person (or political system) until he just can’t take it anymore: What about racism? What about poverty? What about inequality? What about South America? What about the gun culture? What about McCarthy?

It’s an effective rhetorical tool because, frankly, I can’t defend American poverty, or McCarthy, or racism, or the overcrowded prisons, or any of that. So it feels to me like I can’t defend democracy itself.

And once he has me convinced that my previous beliefs are all illusions, I’m willing to believe anything he has to say about they system he’s selling — communism or fascism.

First of all, I’m so worn down, I don’t ask any difficult questions. Second, he seems so smart about the sins of capitalism and democracy, he must know what he’s talking about. So I fall for communism/fascism hook, line and sinker, and only after the revolution do I realize that it’s even worse than capitalism/democracy.

The lessons of 1933 and today

It doesn’t only work today: I’m still astounded how easy it was for Hitler and others in 1933 to convince an entire nation of Germans to vote against democracy. In the three 1932/33 national elections, the Nazi party repeatedly won about 45% of the vote, and another large percentage of the vote went to other anti-democratic right-wing and left-wing parties.

The majority of Germans — who were intelligent, very modern and highly educated — voted for totalitarianism in one form or other. All Hitler really had to do was convince them that democracy was a bad thing, and he had them where he wanted them.

Today, when someone starts listing off all the sins and shortcomings of … well, anything, I think of Hitler and what became of his laundry list ad hominem arguments: six million Jews and others dead in death camps, a war that killed a total of 50 million, Europe in flames and a country, Germany, that will be struggling with the crippling shame and guilt of their decisions for generations to come.

Not to mention communism: Somewhere upwards of 50 million dead in purges in China and 20 million in the former Soviet Union.

And the same goes for any ideology that depends on laundry list ad hominem arguments:

Islamic fundamentalists employ the same arguments against democracy and western culture in general; the pro-Palestinian movement depends on laundry list ad hominem to defame Israel and a great deal of political correctness, including much of neo-feminism in their generalizing arguments against men and “toxic masculinity,” depends wholly on laundry list ad hominem for their attractiveness.

After listening closely to Hitler, I can’t take any of that seriously anymore. On the contrary: I see more and more the historical blessing that is capitalism and democracy. Noting can compare to these twin institutions of the miraculous modern world we live in.

The lessons I learned from Hitler are these:

1. There is no significant difference between communism and fascism;

2. There is no alternative to capitalism and democracy;

3. If someone spends a lot of time passionately listing off all the sins or your system, but less time actually arguing the advantages of his system, he is manipulating you to the end of gaining power over you.

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Eric T. Hansen is an American writer of nearly a dozen fiction and non-fiction books, mainly in German. Today he lives and writes in Berlin. His latest book is “Losing My Religion,” published by Hula Ink, about his experiences with Mormonism and God. (www.hulaink.com)