David Simon, creator of “The Wire,” and more recently, HBO’s “The Plot Against America” adapted Phillip Roth’s 2004 book imagining an alternative history. What if Charles Lindbergh, not Roosevelt, had won the presidential election of 1940. Roth’s work is praised as a look at what happens when the mindset of a demagogue infects a community with attitudes that say: we are always better because you are, for numerous reasons, just inferior. This mantra powered the Axis powers in World War 2, led to a holocaust, Japan, as an Axis power, is not often associated with the heinous war crimes of Germany, but the imperial government still engaged in heinous crimes, ranging from forced prostitution to testing of chemical and biological warfare on enemies. It is a dark period of time, and for those who make the trip to Japan, you’ll find that some recognize it as such and view repentance of the acts of World War 2 to be an important part of their culture, and others refuse to acknowledge it, at all.
Sounds easy enough, right? I mean, who would want to be associated with these kind of terrible ideas, really? Oh, well..
Republican Representative Paul Gosar, who represents Arizona’s 4th Congressional, took to Twitter to praise Japanese soldiers who held out after the war.
September 11 is now associated, of course, with terrorist attacks on the United States. On September 11, 1941, Charles Lindbergh delivered his address in Iowa, telling people that "The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish [sic] and the Roosevelt Administration."
At that time, people on all sides of the political spectrum widely denounced Lindbergh for his comments. Some defended Lindbergh, and still do, as being brash and misunderstood.
"We must band together to preserve that the most priceless possession, our ineritance of European blood... against.. dilution by foreign races." - Charles Lindbergh
Now, Republican Gosar wants to line his belief up in Donald Trump as a positive connection to the Axis powers of World War 2. He invokes rhetoric that has been used by even fallen heroes to side with monsters. This is the means by which a few try to instill truly heinous beliefs in the many, by gaslighting and changing the truth. Well, Representative Gosar, you go side with the Axis. Historians will remember the truth.
Rep. Gossar, this simply cannot be celebrated.
Update: for those that caught a typo, thank you.