Ernest Hemingway said it best: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”
And right-wing pundit Ann Coulter best illustrates the truth of this.
Let’s start at the beginning: On April 7, Martin Bashir, host of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir program, wondered if a personal experience were the only way to get Republicans to drop their threat to block a vote on the gun control legislation that Newtown families were begging them to vote on.
Martin Bashir
After all, United States Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) recently announced his two-year conversion to accepting same-sex marriage after his own son “came out’ as homosexual.
“Nobody is suggesting that the law should only be defined and developed by the victims of crime,” said Bashir. But also pointed out the overwhelming public support for universal background checks.
“Are these senators simply too frightened of the NRA to do the people’s bidding?” Bashir asked.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) responded: “Martin, I never thought it would happen to me, but on a Friday at 12:00, it was 2 years ago, I got a call my nephew had been killed. Shot to death at 5:00 in the morning, and he’s dead at 21 years old.”
Cummings’ nephew, Christopher Cummings, was shot and killed in 2011 at his off-campus apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. His murder has not been solved.
“But Congressman,” Bashir said, “is that what needs to happen to move these senators to stop threatening a filibuster? Is that really what needs to happen? That you need to have a member of your family killed in order for you to do what the American people want you to do?”
“I hope not,” Cummings replied. “I don’t wish this pain on anybody.”
Of course, that was not how the exchange went down in Ann Coulter’s version.
Ann Coulter
In an April 10 column entitled “Liberals Go Crazy for the Mentally Ill,” Coulter offered this tem of a proposal:
“MSNBC’s Martin Bashir suggested that Republican senators need to have a member of their families killed for them to support the Democrats’ gun proposals. (Let’s start with Meghan McCain!)”
Needless to say, Meghan McCain–the daughter of Arizona United States Senator John McCain–was not amused.
“Apparently Ann Coulter made a joke about me being killed in a recent column,” McCain tweeted on April 11. “I should expect nothing less but disgusted regardless.”
And, in another Twitter posting, she wrote: “My father is a very famous politician. My family gets a lot of threats. Joking about me being killed really isn’t funny or appropriate.”
Meghan McCain
She and Coulter have been at odds ever since McCain dared to pen a column entitled, “My Beef With Ann Coulter” in 2009.
In that column–published in The Daily Beast–McCain wrote:
“It is no secret that being a Republican isn’t the most hip political stance a person can take right now….
“To make matters worse, certain individuals continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Republicans. Especially Republican women. Who do I feel is the biggest culprit? Ann Coulter.
“I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity. I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time….
“Coulter could be the poster woman for the most extreme side of the Republican Party…. Is she for real or not? Are some of her statements just gimmicks to gain publicity for her books or does she actually believe the things she says?
“Does she really believe all Jewish people should be ‘perfected’ and become Christians? And what was she thinking when she said Hillary Clinton was more conservative than my father during the [2008] election?”
The most effective way to hurt an enemy is to tell the truth about him. Or, as in this case, her.
It’s a “crime” that aggressive venom-spewers like Coulter can never forgive. And, like most bullies, she refused to accept any responsibility for her action.
“I was making a joke,” Coulter told Sean Hannity on his right-wing The Sean Hannity Show.
“For one thing … that heinous thing Martin Bashir said, nobody knew about that until I added a joke, which is known as hyperbole.”
Of course, Bashir had not called on anyone to kill the members of Republicans’ families–as Coulter had “jokingly” called upon others to kill McCain.
(It was Adolf Hitler who, in Mein Kampf, laid down guidelines for the successful use of propaganda–rules such as “The Big Lie”:
Adolf Hitler
“And thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds [people] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”)
“You were being sarcastic,” said Hannity.
“I think the exclamation point made it clear,” Coulter said with a smile. “And the fact that everyone laughed when they read it.”
Thus, Fascists like Ann Coulter use the same tactics in the 21st century as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler used in in the 20th century: Believe what we say or prepare to die.
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NEGOTIATING NAZI-REPUBLICAN STYLE: PART ONE (OF SEVEN)
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on August 6, 2013 at 10:00 pmAdolf Hitler, Germany’s Fuehrer for 12 years, had a favorite phrase: “So oder so.”
It meant: “One way or the other.”
That might sound innocuous. But, in Hitler’s case, it carried a sinister tone–as did nearly everything else about the dictator who ruled Germany from 1933 to 1945.
Adolf Hitler
When Hitler faced what he considered a problem, he said he would solve it “one way or another.” Which meant that if he didn’t get his way, he would apply whatever means it took until he did.
Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who unsuccessfully campaigned in 2012 to become the Republican U.S. Senator from Indiana, had a similar view toward compromise.
Appearing on the May 9, 2012 edition of right-wing “Fox & Friends,” Mourdock said:
Richard Mourdock
“I have a mindset that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”
Robert Payne, author of the bestselling biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler (1973), described Hitler’s “negotiating” style thusly:
“Although Hitler prized his own talents as a negotiator, a man always capable of striking a good bargain, he was totally lacking in finesse. He was incapable of bargaining. He was like a man who goes up to a fruit peddler and threatens to blow his brains out if he does not sell his applies at the lowest possible price.”
Now, consider the similarity between Payne’s description of Hitler and Mourdock’s description of what “bipartisanship” means to him:
“I’ve said many times through this campaign that one of the things I hope to do is to help build a conservative majority in the United States Senate and continue to help the House build a Republican majority and have a Republican White House and then bipartisanship becomes having Democrats come our way.”
A classic example of Hitler’s “negotiating style” occurred in 1938, when he invited Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to his mountaintop retreat in Obersalzberg, Germany. Hitler, an Austrian by birth, intended to annex his native land to Germany.
Schuschnigg was aware of Hitler’s desire, but nevertheless felt secure in accepting the invitation. He had been assured that the question of Austrian sovereignty would not arise.
By studying Hitler’s mindset and “negotiating” methods, we can learn much about the mindset and “negotiating” style of our own Republican party.
Shuschnigg opened the discussion with a friendly compliment. Walking over to a large window, he admired the breathtaking view of the mountains.
HITLER: We haven’t come here to talk about the lovely view or the weather!
Austria has anyway never done anything which was of help to the German Reich….I am resolutely determined to make an end to all this business. The German Reich is a great power. Nobody can and nobody will interfere if it restores order on its frontiers.
SCHUSCHNIGG: I am aware of your attitude toward the Austrian question and toward Austrian history….As we Austrians see it, the whole of our history is a very essential and valuable part of German history….And Austria’s contribution is a considerable one.
HITLER: It is absolutely zero—that I can assure you! Every national impulse has been trampled underfoot by Austria….
I could call myself an Austrian with just the same right—indeed with even more right—than you, Herr Schuschnigg. Why don’t you once try a plebiscite in Austria in which you and I run against each other? Then you would see!
SCHUSCHNIGG: Well, yes, if that were possible. But your know yourself, Herr Reich Chancellor, that it just isn’t possible. We simply have to go on living alongside one another, the little state next to the big one. We have no other choice.
And that is why I ask you to tell me what your concrete complaints are. We will do all in our power to sort things out and establish a friendly relationship, as far as it is possible to do so.
HITLER: That’s what you say, Herr Schuschnigg. And I am telling you that I intend to clear up the whole of the so-called Austrian question–one way or another. Do you think I don’t know that you are fortifying Austria’s border with the Reich?
SCHUSCHNIGG: There can be no suggestion at all of that—
HITLER: Ridiculous explosive chambers are being built under bridges and roads—
This was a lie, and Hitler knew it was a lie. But no matter. It gave him an excuse to threaten to destroy Austria—as he was to destroy so many other nations during the next seven years.
* * * * *
Lest this comparison be thought an exaggeration, consider this:
Republicans used precisely the same “negotiating” style during the summer of 2011 to threaten the United States with financial ruin unless they got their way in budget negotiations.
And they are threatening to do the same again this fall.
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