My sister is a retired librarian, with an impressive collection of books, which I happily raid from time to time.
Two weeks ago, I felt the need for a hefty read, so I borrowed William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which I had read long ago. Thought I might go back through it again.
So what's this got to do with the price of a decent taco in Sacramento or with a progressive political blog, for that matter?
I'm gonna scarf another carne asada and sip a little more beer, while you, gentle reader, follow the jump...
I know, I know, drawing comparisons between political leaders or ideas to Nazis and Nazism is just about the tiredest and most-abused rhetorical device around. I am not doing that, so please don't jump my shit about it.
Again, there was a particular narrative I was struck by, and I thought you might find it interesting as well...
Right away, in the very first chapter, Shirer wrote that the German electorate in the Post-WW1 days almost unanimously believed that the Great War was not lost on the battlefield, but at home. This narrative, that the German Army was betrayed by (take your pick, one or more) the press, the pacifists, the socialists/communists, and of course, the Jews, was passionately believed in by the vast majority of the polity in Germany at that time.
Shirer goes on to note that this meme was utterly unsupported by facts, but that did not prevent the Right in Germany at the time from pushing it relentlessly, and a lot of intellectuals, journalists and others who should have been far more skeptical went along with it. Shirer goes further, asserting that without this pervasive narrative, and the sense of injustice and feeling abused that went along with it, Nazism would not have been possible.
I set the book down in my lap, and shook my head. I re-read it, just to make sure. Yep. That's what he said.
Not hard to see where I am heading here. The American right-wing backlash that began in 1980, gathered berserk momentum in the early 2000s, and is the cause of that hideous national hangover we are currently experiencing, was, and still is, largely fueled by the widely held and utterly unsupported narrative that the Vietnam War was lost at home, not in Vietnam.
And of course, a similar narrative has been trotted out regularly in service of the Iraq invasion and occupation and the "war on terror."
Thomas Frank, in What's the Matter with Kansas, does a fine and thorough job examining backlash culture and myths, and in The Wrecking Crew, he details how these beliefs translate into (mis)governance. In the latter book, a chapter titled "The World as War and Conspiracy" documents how precious this narrative of treachery is to winger world. Without it, nothing they say makes any damn sense (but then, you knew that!); but embrace this cozy conspiratorial narrative, and, voila! Now it all makes hangs together!
Just something to chew on.
Gonna fix some more tacos.
Times are tough, lots of us are struggling, but it is Saturday Night in America, the Dodgers are playing the Angels. I hope you all find a simple enjoyable way to pass the time this weekend, preferably with the people you care about the most.