I have to beg your indulgence this week. I have a piece half-finished that teases out some of the threads in George R. R. Martin’s “conversation” with J. R. R. Tolkien, but I’m just not able to write it today. Like just about everyone else I know, I’m brain-futzed. The Nazi rally in Charlottesville did it, and I’m just beginning to make sense of what happened, what it is, what it means.
Last night my husband Andy and I were discussing family and history. He had three uncles who fought the Nazis; one lost his hearing, one lost an arm and a leg, and one lost his life — shot after being taken prisoner in the Ardennes. He died December 18, 1944. His family never recovered from his loss—his wife, his daughter, they spent their lives in a shadow cast by the man who was taken from them. My grandfather, a ship’s captain in the Merchant Marines between the wars and the Navy during, was torpedoed by a Nazi submarine and spent eleven days in a lifeboat with his men and a compass. After his recovery, he went back to the war. He took part in the blockade of Belgium and got into a heavy dispute with the harbormaster at Antwerp. My grandfather wanted to remove to the outer and more remote harbor; the harbormaster wanted him close in to the port for the security and symbolism his ship commanded. He informed the harbormaster that he carried munitions to supply the operational forces among the Allies, and had enough in his hold that, if a stray bomb happened to hit his ship, close as it was to the city, the explosion would take out most of Antwerp. They let him move the ship away from the population center, to a spot where it was a better target for bombers, but safer for the civilians.
We grew up on these stories, both of us, from our respective surviving relatives. And there’s a sliver of me that’s Hungarian. I don’t doubt that more than a few of that side of the family ended up in the camps.
So it was with a feeling like shock and keen disappointment when we realized that not a small percentage of our families today would have been perfectly okay with the Third Reich.
Oh, I always knew there are wingnuts in the clan. The libertarian who justifies the genocide of Native peoples because “we won.” Or the one who dismisses all Democrats because “cities are hotbeds of corruption.” The ones whose “economic anxiety” mask naked racism. They’re known quantities; I’m sure every family has them. No, I’m talking about the quiet ones, the ones who won’t even discuss politics because the subject is “divisive” and fill their Facebook feeds with pictures of inspirational sunsets. For the sake of family tranquility I have tried to avoid politics; they know how I feel, I know how they feel. Or I thought I did. After all, the ultimate luxury in America is the luxury of ignoring politics, and some of our people are mightily privileged.
This weekend that avoidance came to a halt. What I misjudged was the quality of apoliticism, because the politics that underlie studied indifference are not much different from the Tiki Torch Brigade. The relative who justifies voting Republican because he hates paying taxes and thinks welfare recipients should be drug-tested. The libertarian who thinks economics outweigh morality, and Trump is good for business (we shall let pass unremarked the craziness of that sentiment.) The one who believes that the Himmler haircuts — shaved sides and long combover on top — is just a hairstyle, because “lots of nice young men are wearing it these days, so it can’t be political.” The relative who said that, by being in Charlottesville, the counter-protesters were just as bad as the Nazis: “If you want to make a difference in the world, go volunteer for something. That’s what I do.” Two generations ago, this relative would have been teaching orienteering to Hitler Youth, or teaching sewing to good Aryan girls. You know, doing good things for people.
Yeah. I feel pretty terrible right now. Last thing I want to do is write about literary squabbles. It’s one thing to see the white supremacy on television and know it’s evil. It’s another to recognize the same malignancy in someone you love.
My dear spouse, who does many things in this world so I don’t have to, monitors Sean Hannity and the Daily Stormer (and other sources) because, as he says, you have to know what the enemy is doing. He showed me the Nazi perspective of the weekend, and here’s the thing: they think they won. For them, it was a no-lose situation. If no one showed up, they would say that they were so powerful that everyone hid from them. If everyone showed up, the numbers would only inflate their sense of power, in that “we’re so bad that look at all the enemies we have.”
I live forty miles from Charlottesville. I know the town well. I have friends who were there counter-marching. I suspect, had I gone, I might have recognized some people on the other side of the divide, as well. I didn’t go. I made the decision that it was better to deny them oxygen and attention, and stayed home. Now I think I was wrong.
Don’t mistake me—I believe in peaceful resolution. Ideally, outnumbering the Nazis a hundred to one and shaming them as the losers they are would send them back to their basements, there to sulk until their hair grew out. Ideally. But that will not happen. I do not think that these are people capable of being shamed. I suspect that force is the only language they understand, the only response they would accept as legitimate. There are times you can’t save the world simply by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo.
Andrew Anglin wrote on his Nazi website on Saturday afternoon (and, no, I will not link to it, if indeed it’s still online):
To those of you in Charlottesville, go out and enjoy yourselves.
If you’re at a bar in a group, random girls will want to have sex with you. Because you’re the bad boys. The ultimate enemy of the state. Every girl on the planet wants your dick now.
And to everyone, know this: we are now at war.
And we are not going to back down.
We have lost the luxury of sitting out any longer. I’m a most reluctant warrior, but even I can see it’s time to suit up. Ignoring these people, depriving them of attention hasn’t worked. We’ve been doing that for years, to no effect. It’s too easy to pity them as pathetic failed simulacra of humanity. I don’t know what to do now, although punching (whether that take the form of outing them online and spreading their names and photos, suing them in court, or more visceral confrontations) is pretty damned attractive right now.
If they come back to Charlottesville, I‘ll be there. Nothing less than the ideals that founded America and democracy itself are at stake.
When Donald Trump was elected, many people said, “this election will destroy families.” I didn’t really believe that. I do now. Superficially, nothing has changed. But inside it all feels different. After this era has passed and Trump is a bad repudiated memory, I will not forget the hypocrisy that hits so close to home. I don’t yet know what I’ll do with it, but I will carry it, all the way through until this is over.
Again, apologies for this not being the diary you were looking for (gee thanks! Obi-Wan). Next week, two giants in the field will clash. Or at least, one will tilt at the other and the first giant will not notice. By then, I should be thinking again.
* Jack Kirby remembers blowback from the racist “America First” crowd.