The Wikiness

At Saturday’s “No Kings” march in Oak Park, the World War II Déja vu was thick. “No Gestapo ICE,” read one sign. “Nuremberg Reckoning,” said another. 

Another, which explains the previous ones, read “Some of you didn’t pay attention in history class, and it shows.”  As a nation, we see changes that remind us of 100 years ago,  to what we do not want to see again: authoritarian takeover of a democratic republic. 

In 1922 Italy, the fasciss came to power rather easily, riding in on a wave of political and economic crisis in the years after World War I. The Kingdom of Italy’s Liberal government couldn’t quell the high inflation and unemployment making people’s lives miserable. Also, their negotiators at Versailles failed to get Italy’s share of World War I spoils, which made proud Italians resentful. In desperation and anger, people were willing to try something new–like Mussolini’s Blackshirts, who marched into Rome in October of that year. 

Similarly, in 1933, Germany’s high unemployment, crippling inflation, fear of Bolshevism, and widespread resentment at degrading reparations made the Nazis look like stabilizing reformers. The weak Weimar Republic fell quickly. 

In both instances, those in favor of the fascists were reacting, rather than acting, Like most humans who feel seriously threatened, they grasped at anything promising a return to normalcy. They longed for a strong father when the weak mother proved feckless against chaos.

In 2024 USA, though, inflation was relatively small, as were unemployment numbers. No external threat loomed. Our goods and services were traded freely among mostly allied nations. No economic or political shock like a Reichstag Fire were needed to scare Americans to the right. The choice of authoritarianism for over half of voters was considered. People knew what we would get. We had a foreshadowing of the current regime’s violence on January 6, 2021. For reasons other than desperation (boredom? Nihilism? premillennialism?), people said, “Oh, yes, please, again” and here we are. 

“History doesn’t repeat,” Mark Twain said, “but it often rhymes.” In 1922 Italy, the Fascists saw themselves as heirs to imperial Rome, entitled to the terrestrial basin of the Mediterranean. They claimed that, to restore their dignity, “lost overseas territories” had to be reclaimed. 

Here in the US, an ultranationalist faction also appears to be running the show. These folks feel aggrieved, and seek to restore a sense of pride they felt when America was “great.” They police the borders that they also seek to expand.

Chicagoans look at ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” and say, “Oh, no, not street thugs and Gestapo again!” As in days of yore, compliant men are dressed to impress and paid to arrest the targeted enemies, abducting them off the streets. Brownshirts had been warring against racial enemies on German streets since at least 1929, but after 1935, the dehumanizing Nuremberg Laws made hate crimes state policy, stripping jews, gypsies, and africans of their citizenship overnight.

So far, no new legal categories are being adopted yet. ICE crews claim that they are merely enforcing existing law. But the way they interact with their targets and Chicagoans witnessing and protesting could certainly be characterized as dehumanizing. 

Oh, yes–once again we see a narcissist with huge political power upsetting the global order. He’s Stalin-esque, Hitler-esque, Napoleon-esque, Caesar-and Alexander-esque. These men never seem to leave without, alas, lots of violence.