WWII Lessons: What Happens When Politicians Promote Violence? Comparing Trump to Mussolini and Hitler

What Happens When Politicians Promote Violence?
We will discuss this question knowing how the
violent fascist leaders during World War II caused so
much suffering and death and try to apply these
lessons to our current day.

We will draw from our videos/blogs on what it was
like to live as a Christian Under Mussolini’s Italy, and
under the brutal Nazi regime in Germany.

The Fascist movements in Italy and Germany came to power with
assistance by large gangs of fascist thugs who bullied, beat up,
and sometimes murdered their opponents. These fascist thugs
were drawn from the millions of veterans of the bloody fighting
in the tranches of World War I. After assuming dictatorial powers
Mussolini promised the Pope that he would reign in his thugs,
but this was a promise he never fully kept, in part because these
fascist gangs were hard to control, in part because he wanted to
remind the Pope who was really in charge, who alone could rein
in the gangs.

LESSON: THE CHURCH SHOULD BE WARY OF LEADERS WHO DO NOT SUPPORT THE RULE OF LAW
Mussolini grabbed power and stayed in power with his
disorganized rabbles of tens of thousands of armed fascist
street gangs. Hundreds were killed in the street battles
between his Fascist thugs and the Communists, and his
thugs also killed many Catholic priests in their rioting.
Mussolini bullied his way into Parliament, forming a
majority with the conservatives against a loose coalition of
the socialist, communist, and Catholic parties.

The Church Should Be Wary of Leaders
Who Do Not Respect the Rule of Law

Mussolini had his thugs march on Rome and planned
armed insurrections across the country, but King
Emmanuel, the constitutional monarch, balked and
refused to approve plans to put down the Fascist
thugs by military force.

Blackshirts
with Benito
Mussolini
during the
March on
Rome, 28
October
1922.

Mussolini surprised everyone, especially the Pope,
when he publicly proclaimed that his Fascist Party
was the party of traditional Catholic morality, that
under fascism he would make the Catholic Church
great again. The Pope sold out the Catholic Party and
embraced the new friend of the church who had so
much blood on his hands already. Why not back the
likely winner in this political struggle?

Why did the Pope betray the Catholic Popular Party
to swing his support to Mussolini? Like all popes of
his era, Pope Pius XI distrusted democracy, equating
it with socialism, atheism, and communism.
Conservative Catholics remembered how the
democratic French Revolutionaries martyred clergy
long ago.

Storming the Bastille,
1789, anonymous
painter
This event truly
sparked the start of
the French Revolution

Trump proclaimed he could shoot someone on Fifth
Avenue and his supporters would still love him. A famous
Fifth Avenue moment actually happened in Mussolini’s
Italy. Mussolini faced the first serious challenge to his rule
soon after he was chosen to be Prime Minister of Italy. A
very brave socialist delegate named Giacomo Matteotti
strode to the podium on the third day of Parliament while
being threatened by the Fascist thugs also elected to
Parliament. There he bravely announced that the recent
election, marred by violence, should be annulled.

Benito Mussolini in
the new session of
Parliament, 1928
Mussolini was
furious. He turned to
Cesare Rossi, his press
secretary and head of
a secret squad of
thugs, and muttered,
“That man shouldn’t
be allowed to remain
in circulation.”

There was no direct order, but we know how mafia gangs work, the boss
complains, and everyone knows what to do. The next day three thugs,
one with brass knuckles, abducted Matteotti in broad daylight in
downtown Rome, drove with the horn constantly blaring, drowning out
the screams of Matteotti while they brutally beat him to death. After his
wife calls the police, they find the corpse in a shallow grave.
Italy was not yet a totalitarian police state. Many witnesses stepped
forward to tell their story of this brazen murder. Everyone knew the trail
led directly to Mussolini. Conservative newspapers turned against him,
demanding justice. Many tore up their Fascist party cards. Fascists were
afraid to march in public. Mussolini hesitated.

Giacomo Matteotti, assassinated
by Mussolini’s thugs in the back
seat of a car in broad daylight on
the streets of Rome.

Not Pope Pius XI. The Pope did not hesitate, he went all
in defending Mussolini. He directed the Vatican
newspaper to write an editorial urging all good Catholics
to obey civil authorities, refuse to cooperate with
Socialists, and abstain from violent protest or any sort of
protest. Mussolini was praised for all he had done for the
Church, implying that he did not have anything to do with
this murder. Mussolini was so grateful he enrolled his
children in religious lessons, they would soon celebrate
their confirmation and first communion.

Seven months after the murder of Matteotti,
Mussolini spoke to Parliament. “I declare here, in
front of the Assembly and all the Italian people,
that I alone assume full political, moral, and
historical responsibility for everything that has
happened.”
“We are all with you,” shouted the Fascist deputies.
“If Fascism has been a criminal organization, I am
the head of this criminal association!”
“We are all with you!” The applause kept building.
Mussolini shouted, “You believed Fascism was
finished, but you will see, Italy wants peace, want
tranquility, wants calm. We will give Italy her
tranquility, this calm through love if possible, and
with force, if necessary.”

Were these seen at the time as the rants of a good Catholic?
Now that Mussolini knew he could get away with murder, he
would turn Italy into a dictatorship subject only to a compliant
king. Fascist thugs threw the opposition leaders in jail and
closed down their newspapers. New laws were passed banning
opposition parties, only fascists unions were allowed, strikes
were banned. Mayors would be appointed by the central
government, the press was censored, and capital punishment
was reinstated. For good measure, he tricked his wife into
being baptized to please the Pope.

Mussolini tries the "passo romano", a military
step introduced from the nazi goose step.
This picture was censored by Mussolini.

This was written/updated soon after the first round of the January 6th House
Committee hearings investigating the Capitol Riots. We learned that Trump himself
specifically sent his informal Proud Boy insurrectionist militia to march on the
Capitol, knowing they were armed, some with lethal weapons, to interrupt the
electoral account, attempting a coup that would keep Trump in office. This was
written when it was becoming increasingly obvious Trump would be indicted for
insurrection, treason and many other crimes.
Why were Mussolini and Hitler successful, while Trump was unsuccessful in their
armed coups? One key difference is Mussolini and Hitler had millions of soldiers
with bloody World War I battle experience. Although many of the coup leaders
storming the Capitol did have military experience, we just do not have as many
young men today who have been hardened by years of brutal warfare.

Searing In Witness For January 6th Committee: Cassidy Hutchinson

You can compare the big lie of Trump that the
election was rigged to the lie that Socrates corrupted
the youth of Athens.

Hitler’s Murders Were Far More Sinister

LESSON: HITLER’S MURDERS WERE FAR MORE SINISTER
Like Trump, Mussolini may have thought that he could
shoot a person on Fifth Avenue, and he did get away with
the brutal murder of a political opponent on the streets of
Rome in broad daylight.
Hitler was bolder, he knew that he could shoot hundreds
of people of Fifth Avenue, and nobody would dare offer up
a peep of protest. Hitler showed his boldness and savage
butchery in the Night of the Long Knives

What led up to the Night of the Long Knives? Papen and Hindenburg
became concerned at the brutality and overreach of the Nazi
government, and the army command was concerned by Hitler’s huge SA
brownshirt gangs that were causing terror in the streets of Germany.
With Hindenburg’s encouragement, Papen delivered a speech that called
for the restoration of some freedoms and advocated the end of SA terror
in the streets.
Hitler was furious. The publication of the Marburg address was
suppressed. Papen then met with Hitler and threatened to resign unless
the publication ban was lifted, threatening action by Hindenburg. Papen
was the Pence of the Third Reich. Hitler outwitted Papen, telling him that
the ban on publication would be lifted at once and the SA brownshirts
would be suppressed, if Papen would not resign and they would meet
with Hindenburg.

The SA unit in
Nuremberg,
1929

Two weeks later Hitler kept his promise. Now that Hitler
was in power the troublesome the thuggish SA brownshirt
mobs needed to be reined in, the ambitious head of the
SA, the homosexual Ernst Rohm was a loose cannon and a
threat to his power. During the Night of the Long Knives
Hitler directed the SS troops to purge the SA leadership. In
addition to Rohm, between a hundred and a thousand of
Hitler’s enemies died during the purge, including several
Nazis whose politics were suspect, several Catholic
politicians, and some of Papen’s associates.

Hitler
triumphant:
The Führer
reviewing the
SA in 1935.
Hitler and Ernest Rohm

The brutality of the Nazi regime was again celebrated on
Kristallnacht, the Night of the Broken Glass, where the SS storm-
troopers smashed the windows of Jewish stores, homes,
hospitals, and synagogues, they were burned, looted, and
demolished by sledgehammers. Prayer books, Torah scrolls,
artworks, and philosophy texts were burned. Many ordinary
Germans gleefully joined in the mob violence. Many Jews were
murdered, and many more committed suicide. Some Jews were
able to emigrate, most lost all their possessions, over 20,000
Jews were sent to concentration camps.

But Trump did not actually kill people like Hitler did,
you say. But his administration was cruel to
minorities and brown immigrants, his officials
purposely tore immigrant babies from their mother’s
arms without even bothering to take down names so
the children could later be returned to them after
they were deported. We still have hundreds of
immigrant children torn from their mother’s arms
where we cannot find the mother or the parents.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/the-cruelty-is-the-point/572104/

Such cruelty can easily turn to violence, there were
tens of thousands of lynchings of blacks, and race
riots against blacks, in the Jim Crow segregation years
in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, where blacks were denied access to justice
and police protection, and indeed, often the police
participated in the lynchings, and if the blacks called
the police, often the black victims were arrested.

Fascist Gaslighting: Turning Truth Into Lies
Turning Lies Into Truth

LESSON: FASCIST LEADERS TRY TO TURN TRUTH INTO LIES, AND LIES INTO TRUTH
During his Presidency, Trump uttered more than 30,000
lies, presided over 300,000 Covid-19 deaths, many of these
deaths could have been avoided had he simply worn a
mask, and had encouraged this followers to wear masks.
But no, macho man did not want to be seen wearing a
stupid mask.
Trump’s lies about how the pandemic would soon be over
and how it was not that serious increased the death toll
tremendously.

The Nazis were the inventors of the Big Lie, the lie so big nobody
should be fooled that it is true, but if you constantly hear the Big
Lie over and over and over again many people will be fooled into
believing. Like the Big Lie that Trump actually won the 2020
election, that there was massive fraud, though there absolutely
no evidence, that an election where Trump did not win was
obviously corrupt. How about that extortion call to the leader of
Ukraine? The call that was perfect, it was a perfect call. Always lie
the big lie with a straight face, a straight gas-lighting face.

The lies of Hitler were spread with his screed, Mein Kampf, which spread
many big lies, like the lie that the Jew is a parasite, that the Jew is a
sponger, taking advantage of everyone, that the Jews are not really
religious, that the Jewish religion is all about money grubbing, that the
Jews seek to ruin girls and women, that the Jews are responsible for all
the misfortunes that have befallen the German nation. And Hitler
repeated over and over the old lie that the politicians stabbed the
German nation in the back, snatching away victory in the First World War.
The Jews were even blamed for the Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken
Glass, where Nazi goons destroyed so many Jewish synagogues, homes,
and businesses.

Hitler’s many lies against Christians included: they
did not support the Fatherland, they were not
sufficiently patriotic, their priests and monks were
guilty of sexual abuse and embezzlement. As soon as
the ink of the Reich Concordat treaty with the
Vatican was signed the Nazis accused the Catholics of
trumped-up violations of the treaty.

The cathedral in Aachen,
Imperial Cathedral, viewed
from north at evening. The
oldest part of the church
(built around the year 800
by Charlemagne) has an
octagonal shape and can be
seen in the middle. The
gothic part on the left was
built around 1350. It was a
site of imperial coronations
and pilgrimage for many
centuries.

You cannot claim that these sorts of lies do not
happen in America, we have already seen multiple
attacks on Jewish synagogues, and I have Catholic
friends who actually believe that Democrats in
Congress and Hollywood elites have a secret child
abuse ring where they abuse and murder children!
How bizarre is that!

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quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
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WWII Lessons: What Happens When Politicians Promote Violence? Comparing Trump to Mussolini and Hitler