Ted Cruz picked March 23 to announce his presidential candidacy.
Question on my mind: is this a subtle RW dog whistle to Cruz's RW Dominionist base, or just a historical irony?
Please follow below the orange-lined cloud to consider for yourself.
I read a lot of history, but writing about it is not exactly my turf. The learned historical essays of the Unitary Moonbat used to be among my favorite reading on the site, but I haven't noticed the flapping of leathery wings much of late so perhaps indulge me a short note on the events on this day in 1933.
As most people who took history in high school probably recall, Weimar Germany had a lot of problems, but also seemed to have a fair number of opportunities to pull away from the abyss and recognize Hitler and the Nazis for the psychopaths they would prove to be.
March 23, 1933 was their last chance.
The Nazi's had just won 43% of the Reichstag a few weeks earlier, and Hitler was seeking extraordinary powers for his cabinet - the Enabling Act - so as to pass laws (including measures that might deviate from or alter the constitution) without the interference of the legislature. This required a 2/3 majority, however, leaving Hitler with a bit of a pickle.
Let us set the stage.
The Reichstag gathered in the Kroll Opera House that day. Why an opera house? Because a month earlier the old parliament building had burned down in the Reichstag fire - helping to propel the Nazi electoral gains in the early-March election. Some historians suspect the Nazis were behind the fire, but in any case, a handful of Communists took the blame and the chain of events gave the government pretext to start arresting Communist Reichstag members, efficiently neutralizing 81 anti-Nazi votes in the 647 vote parliament.
Brownshirts massed in the streets and even the aisles of the opera house as events unfolded. Nazis were leveraging an emergency decree issued after the fire to further scare away SPD (Socialist) parliamentarians and suppress their votes - but that still wasn't enough to get to 2/3.
So what was the last bulwark protecting Germany from collapse into tyranny and disaster?
You can guess the answer: a small group of self-important centrist stooges - the Centre Party. I'm sure they reassured themselves that they were acting responsibly.
Hitler gave a speech before the vote. Sample passage:
...The national Government will allow and confirm to the Christian denominations the enjoyment of their due influence in schools and education. And it will be concerned for the sincere cooperation between Church and State.
The whole Christian facade was designed to assuage the centrist dupes, and others, that Hitler was, at heart, just an everyday, church-going choirboy.
Needless to say, once power was secured, Germany deteriorated into tyranny quickly. Mass pogroms and arrests started almost immediately.
Which brings us back to the question of why Ted Cruz, narcissistic, maniacal extremist underlord of the senate who has manifestly shown his disrespect for democratic institutions, chose March 23 to announce his Presidential candidacy.
Dog whistle to his shock troops, or just one of those historical ironies?
Luckily, unlike the Weimar Germans, we are waaaaay too smart to let creeping extremism catastrophically undermine our democracy.