The German word "Volk", "people", carries special connotations in Germany: As Cohen observed, its Nazi abuse adds to its slogan quality by being a single syllable word: It also means German culture and history, as being American means both of these and more. Can you be both? Yes and no. Politically and legally most are either American or German (or Turkish etc). Now how about allegiance aand "identity"? Can one identify with both? I identify with both. When I came here decades ago as a teen, I was asked: Do you dream in English or German? Would yoy fight in a war against Germany? I am a naturalized US citizen. I would. Do my German background sometimes color my views here? Yes. But the reverse is also true. In Germany I have felt homesick for my "home" in the USA but also experienced the reverse. Are laws and customs different in different countries and do they belong to the "identity" of a "people", a "Volk". Of course. But Germans now often embracve when greeting each other, although the hand-shake was traditional, which Americans often feel is intrusive or getting too close. The ideal that "everything is ok", often thought as being "multicultural", is rarely shared in any culture, even in multiculural US. It is no coincidence the "völkish", i.e. tribalistic and nationalistic mind-set is strongest in East-Germany: They had been cut off from the West and the world by the wall for decades. They have been far more rural than more-densely populated western Germany.
2
Regardless, the fact remains that one can keep the entire population of a country ashamed of itself and shackled to the sins of their fathers, mothers and grandparents only for so long. Eventually the cracks in the armor will appear. And this is in part what we are seeing. Germans today had nothing to do with the horrors of Nazism. At least they have done their penitence. Curiously, though, Americans still haven't properly dealt with the legacy of slavery.
1
Garland's election brings shudders to all that have studied the rise of National Socialism. The Volk that supported Gauland are not stupid. They are fearful. Fearful of change, fearful of the "other", fearful of their future. Gauland and Trump understand that fear and play it for all its worth. The irony is that these individuals care little for the Volk they claim to represent. Power is what they want. No more, no less. The National Socialist party was a minority party in the Reichstag after the elections of 1929. By 1933 they dominated the chamber and started Germany on the path to world war.
4
A journalist wrote a short story entitled 'Ernst in Civilian Clothes', one which I wish that I had not read:
"His Austrian mother was desperately poor even after she married his stepfather, and when Ernst put on his Hitler Uniform at seven, it meant mostly a great saving in clothes. He has been in uniform ever since. He has always been part of a defeated army. He fought for Germany and for France, and according to what he has been told each time, for civilization' (Mavis Gallant)
Give Us Back Our Country called America, which has been tarnished by the Trump Administration: our Core Values, our Compassion, our Strength and our Character.
2
This article lacks clarity.For a deeper understanding of the "Alternative for
Germany" party, readers have to research Alexander Gauland and
Alice Weidel. Readers also should check Victor Klemperer classic
"I WILL BEAR WITNESS 1933-1944. A DIARY OF THE NAZI YEARS." Merkel's
loss is payment for her past immigrant policy. She probably expected
it.
4
Jane Goodall, who spent years of her life carefully observing and recording the behavior of apes, has said that Donald Trump reminds her of a dominant male gorilla she once "knew" that used to kick empty gasoline cans down the path to scare the birds and announce his approach.
Sounds familiar.
So far as I can tell, most "far-right" movements are dominated by gorillas. They like to see the ladies dance in big skirts, in tight disciplined circles; to take control of the local religion (either Christian or Muslim) to condemn homosexuals and control the breeding females; and to start up Crusades against foreigners with odd, slanted eyes or dark skin.
Kicking the empty gas can down the road .... I guess it's fun.
7
It's worth noting that back in Munich in the 1920s and 30s, Herr Hitler didn't invent anti-Semitism or a hate of "inferior" peoples, like the Romanies. He simply understood the prejudices and bigotries that were there and used them as tools, combined with the sense of dishonor and prosecution Germans felt after WWI.
The potential for the same recipe to work today is real, whether in the US with whites who want the return of hegemony over other races, or in nationalistic Europe. Germany ought to be immune, but over time the inoculation from the fever of Nazism has weakened, it seems.
Calling this animal what it is and fighting against it in every arena is always needed. The animal never dies, as it's in all of us.
6
Considering the makeup and views of Trump's base, the Volk is right here in the USA.
7
"Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid." Our liberal arrogance has never been effective, or acceptable.
8
In the last 8 years, everytime heard/read the typical demonization of white males by the media, I always came in defense of them. I'm a Hispanic, immigrant woman, btw. My defending argument was, white men are the stars of all the best of civilization, the arts and science, the flights to the moon, the Internet and computers...the infrastructure, rascals, castles and cathedrals, armies and explorers, books imprinted and antibiotics, all that without even counting the rule of law and political enlightment. List is endless.
But then I warned, so the last thing we want is to infuriate them. Yes, they can put men to walk on the moon, just as they can easily destroy entire indigigenous civilizations or put 6 million people to burn in ovens.
I wasn't thinking of Americans or Swedish or Canadians when I said that, I was thinking of Germans. Now, don't panic, not yet...Germans are after all the most self conscious and shamed of all the white lords, so it will take them longer to get a Trump as their head of state (chancellor) that would take the US, France or Britain. But don't count the whole possibility out. Patience only goes so far, and Germans are starting to lose it.
So my advice to liberals/globalists is: rethink your strategy; maybe Trumps UN sovereign speech was on to something after all; there's only so much LA mexification we can allow, much rape in Brandenburg gates, or so much refugees tents in Paris. Culture matters.
13
"The something is a violent, reactionary current. It is a rightist, nativist, nationalist and, yes, “volkisch” reaction against globalization, against migration, against miscegenation, against the disappearance of borders ....." That sense of loosing control over one's community and being made strangers in their own land must be how American Indians had felt in the 19th century. Just imagine that you were Lean Bear, an Indian Chief, and were just told by Abraham Lincoln "I can only say that I can see no way in which your race is to become as numerous and prosperous as the white race..." The difference is that American Indians were made strangers in their own land by outsiders yet many Europeans and Americans are made strangers in their own land by their own people - the well heeled, the well connected, the more intelligent people who can better adopt to and profit from the new situation. American Indians had put up many physical fights and many had perished to no avail. Perhaps that is also the fate for these lost soul of modern day.
3
Merkel got off very lightly. Her CDU party did not give her a no confidence vote or replace her but kept her as their party leader. The Bavarian CSU party did not abandon their alliance with Merkel's CDU party or challenge her leadership. No one seriously challenged her mass Muslim migration invitation or held her accountable for the chaos that resulted - rapes, assaults, terrorism, murders and general challenges and tremendous financial and societal costs of integration. Where was a voter to turn who had legitimate concerns about her ill advised decision in 2015? It is a surprise that only 12.6% of Germans voted for the only party who opposed her policy and had the courage to speak of it. The AfD has put their foot in their mouths a few times but is no more fascist than Merkel is. Probably less so. Merkel is more authoritarian than they will ever be, just ask austerity-stricken Greece, and the eastern EU countries of Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and even ask the Brexiting UK.
6
its the plural form that is correct: the peoples of germany, reflecting all its cultures and people.
And, yes, they may have believed they were ethnically identical in the recent past (and murdered their jewish cousins) but that was simply a lie.
1
One word Mr. Cohen, assimilation.
The German 'Volk' should not be forced to assimilate towards the Muslim population. It should in fact be the other way around.
13
Did we do the right thing by killing Nazi's in WW2? We didn't have to. We didn't have to go to war with them at all. But, we did. We did what most of us thought had to be done, even at great cost to ourselves. Let's not forget that, as we confront the rising neo-nazi threat, today.
1
What a misleading op-ed. Has Mr. Cohen ever been to Germany? I've lived here
for 20 years. The term "Volk" is used in everyday language. "Dem deutschen
Volke" is prominently written on the Bundestag Building (Parliament). My insurance company is called Volksfürsorge, VW = Volkswagen, etc. ,etc.
As for the "hordes of immigrants" - the AfD has a point. Since Merkel has opened the borders, the country has changed. Rapes, robberies are up. Some neighbour hoods have become no-go zones for police and the general public.
I live in a small town in the south of Germany. Even here the police has to
patrol the small train station at night because gangs of young refugee men mob people. German public pools had to employ security guards after women, girls and boys, were molested by refugees. My daughter studies in Heidelberg. Before
the refugees arrived she would walk home alone from a club late at night. No more ....
Germany is a country full of immigrants from all over Europe, Russia and Asia.
Xenophobia doesn't exist here. However, there's a fear of Islam. Especially because of the terrorist attacks which occur daily all over Europe. Also, since
we experience daily, how muslim refugee men mistreat their wives and daughters. German helpers were shocked when they learned that muslim men
and boys insisted to be served first at mealtimes and then women and girls. In the refugee camps, girls, aged 11 were married to 50 year old men.
Yes, Germans are concerned about Islam.
24
Angela Merkel's muddle-headed open bar approach towards dealing with the refugee crisis a few years ago was a move just as asinine as Cameron's decision to allow the British people to commit political suicide and opt for Breixit. Merkel's self-righteousness and utter lack of future consequences with the uncontrolled wave of refugee arrivals were the reasons the extremists crawled out of the woodwork with their Nazi-nostalgic rhetoric. Both Cameron and Merkel exemplify the omnipresent idiocy of today's politicians totally lacking in a sense of pedagogy and consciousness of long-term repercussions on the body politic.
3
Israel, is it not a Jewish state? Does it welcome Jews from all over the world? The pride and devotion to Judaism is wonderful and exclusive, is it not? Could this love be applied to Arab Palestinians? I doubt it, but Israel is a Jewish state a tribal band, not unlike the German Volk.
5
A small point on Alexander Gauland's name: it awfully resembles the word Gauleiter, from Nazi times, what a coincidence! Is this his true birth name? The word Gau means tribal or administrative district. Gauland as tribal land...
Given some comments from other Europeans that I just read, my European self feels compelled to add that there is absolutely no excuse for feeling "ethnically defensive". As "groups of people", we have failed to uphold the highest values of mankind pro-actively, and the consequences are no reason to sink passively (or willfully) into backwardness out of spite. A united Europe, or dare I say, a united family of all mankind, a universal civilization, those are visions that have not succeeded...yet. Who said that it would be easy to do something never before achieved? We must continue to strive at the individual level until there is some kind of positive breakthrough. This is not up to politicians!
1
Trump can't defend Neo-Nazis, the KKK and other white supremacists or engage in moral equivalency, maybe he wants the US to return to the genteel days of the antebellum south run by the "master race". On our Canadian CBC Radio's Day 6 there I a weekly "Impeach-O-Meter" segment providing a weekly score of the likelihood of impeachment based upon Trump's previous week's tweets and conduct.
3
Don't worry about Deutschland's Volk. The democratic American Army is till there.
And someone like Helmut Kohl, who knew his citizen very well, wrote and article to underline the absolute need of keeping the American army in Germany and Europe!
Unless, unless, one of the oldest democracy of our planet............;;
I'm undecided whether there is more explanatory power in thinking of the GOP as a street gang in suits that just wants to smash and grab, or thinking of them as an analog to the Volk who are obsessed with race and authority. It is not either-or but both apply, depending on the issue at hand and the particular GOP demagogues involved.
2
Mr Cohen diligently patrols two proud democracies, Germany and America, and finds surging white nationalism euphoric with its first taste of power. Mr Cohen's reports of increasingly choppy waters for our and Germany's immigrants becomes a call to determine who is prepared to respond their persecution.
Mr Cohen knows his duty to forewarn before fatalism sets in. "The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world."
The harnessing of white resentment is a path to power fought over by monstrous men. Their white supremacy-nationalism and all its terror is undeniable, yet they will actually control their tongues until they have cemented their following.
Mr Cohen advises "Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid". How do we convince people that they are being baited and cemented into contraptions by and for the ambitions of self-serving men who are leading their nations down dark paths?
2
The answer is simple. Stop reading The NY Times and watching CNN. Then you won't be exposed to all that see us only through the lense of our "identity" rather than as individuals. You'll be much happier
5
The resurrection of the German volk certainly parallels Brexit and the election of Trump. However, after three wars and tens of millions of victims Germany is a special case. We must keep them on probation, as it were, however strange that may seem in this ahistorical age. And we must have a response planned in case of a violation. The Morgenthau Plan may be appropriate.
1
It's important to say this, and I'm grateful that Roger Cohen says it. I'm not convinced that history repeats itself, as if repeating history is some kind of independent, inexorable force. But I think historical moments can be self-consciously imitated by aggrieved, vindictive groups, and that's what I fear is happening in Germany and in this country. Germany's Nazi period, the US's Jim Crow (if not slavery's) period--a particular moment in our nations' history--become very dangerous in the hands of groups looking for other groups not their own to demonize.
1
I appreciate this post, as I do all of Roger's columns. The French feel it too ... a stirring in the limbic system as a reaction to the suicide bombers, a desire to return to the "old ways" as if they were better ways. No need to lock your door, you can trust your "tribe", your job is safe, your environment is safe.
I just keep returning to the fact that our set of modern values have led to an era of unprecedented peace, prosperity, achievement. These values are right, and we are right to continue with them. There should be no uncertainty except that we are humans and wired to make decisions based on both fear and optimism. The volk reaction is simply a fear reaction, a signal to circle the wagons and gather family close because the world is scary. Think about it, given the amazing transparency now granted by technology, isn't this a natural reaction?
We can fix this by eliminating the fear. We can fix this by building a government that protects the people, all the people. By having news organizations that don't feed it. By protecting peoples' jobs, and having structures that keep the unemployed ensured, and fed.
Others will argue that this is not how America became great ... I would argue the opposite: that through an accident of chance, the USA had 30 or 40 years post WWII where live continuously improved, and people felt protected. Now that this period is over, we need new structures in place that recreate this security. This will keep the fear at bay.
1
It is always such a delight to see Cohen weave an anti-American theme into everyone of his stories. Heaven forbid he mention things like in 1939-40 America at Roosevelt's instigation shipping 1,000 airplanes to France. Had the Germans delayed the Battle of France a little longer enough of the then modern American P-40 Flying Tigers would have arrived to turn the tide of the battle and history. What did the Soviet Union send to help France. NOTHING. At the time, it was allied with Hitler to carve up Poland. The anti-American Left never wants to talk about that.
9
The world is not ready for open borders.
17
The world has always been mostly open borders. We just like to kid ourselves otherwise.
Without turning into North Korea, there isn't much way to prevent people from moving from one place to another given countless numbers of possible routes.
Unfortunately the leader of our Volke MAGA movement controls an atomic arsenal.
2
I suggest the author to read FINIS GERMANIA by Rolf Sieberle. And to comment on it.
It is absolute UTTER NONSENSE (sorry for shouting) to say that people are voting for AfD because they see the neighborhood filled with Arabs.
Here are two maps that describe the distribution of Refugees in Germany.
http://www.dw.com/en/syrian-refugees-in-germany/a-17697536
[Scroll down to "Distribution of Syrian Refugees among Federal States]
http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=4556
[Scroll down to Refugees in Germany - a bit old data]
If you see the maps, which are most "refugee infested" states?
Per Capita: Bremen, Hamburg, Berlin, Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, Lower Saxony etc. What is the percentage of votes AfD received in these State? [10, 7.8, 12, 9.4, 11.9 & 9.1, respectively]
Absolute Numbers: Rhine-Westphalia, Bavaria, Baden, Lower Saxony etc. The vote percentages? [9.4, 12.4, 12.2, 9.1 respectively]
And the flip side? Most Refugee free states?
Per Capita: Saxony, Brandenburg, Thuringia etc
The vote percentages? [27.0, 20.2, 22.7]
[All election data from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_2017]
So more the refugees less the votes for AfD and vice versa. What has happened is that AfD has managed to sell fear to the low refugee states. Parts of Germany that has the most refugees has actually welcomed them.
Rhine-Westphalia is a case study. The largest state has taken in 21% of Syrian refugees with about 1 refugee per 87 residents and voted just 9.7% to AfD.
8
Why can't a white German express pride for his culture?
It seems that every ethnic group and nationality is encouraged to be proud of their identity, except whites.
18
Backlash against hegemony can be expected to take this form.
White isn't an ethnic group or a nationality.
"German pride" has been a tricky thing since the Holocaust.
2
Canada and Australia have carefully organized merit based immigration systems that bring in middle class tax paying immigrants . The United States and Europe are bringing in millions of low skilled , high needs migrants who form a vast and growing underclass. Be more like Canada and Australia and you won't get crazy populist movements or continue calling any criticism of immigration RACIST and XENOPHOBIC and drive the population into their arms.
16
The rise of the right in Germany poses a very thorny problem for liberals (myself included). Angela Merkel's extension of a helping hand to the modern "huddled masses yearning to breathe free" -- to a million refugees -- was deeply moving and morally uplifting. It was also a political disaster. The tidal wave of sudden immigration was deeply disorienting for masses of Germans and breathed new life into the right -- to the extent that a neo-nazi party now sits in the German parliament. We liberals have to understand the pain and the fear of those who vote for Trump and other racist demagogues. We need to understand how, for example, a construction worker is threatened by illegal immigration not because he's a racist but because undocumented workers are taking away his job. If instead all we do is laugh along with Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert at the awfulness of Trump and his followers, the menace will only spread -- as it has in Germany.
6
Why is "volk" a "rightist" concept? It means "people". It's collectivist, like "power to the PEOPLE". It's about the common man's place in the collective.
Nazis were National SOCIALISTS, NOT right wing. They were LEFTISTS (itler considered himself a Marxist saw capitalism as inherently Jewish).
These things keep happening because the left always try to force culture on common people in some form. Pre-Nazi Germany was very tolerant, so many Jews moved there. They prospered, for a time. Unfortunately, but also understandably due to so much historical persecution, many tried to repress traditional German "volk" culture - things like Passion plays, certain pagan/Germanic Christmas type celebrations, and whatnot. This fed the beast of Nazi ideology, and, since many Jews were affluent, they made a great target - the "volk" of any nation are often happy to take from the rich on behalf of everyone else, especially if they're a minority.
The modern left is traveling this same road, poking the beast. I'm no fan of populism in any shape of form - it often leads to a "volk", which is just another form of tribalism, redefining the "other". Partisanship is going this way, too, with Democrats thinking all Republicans are stupid and evil and Republicans thinking the same about Democrats.
Stop hating each other. We're all flawed, all human, and all susceptible to this. The problem, however, is almost always some form of collectivism, and there's nothing right wing at all about that.
5
Nazis were socialists like North Korea is a 'democratic republic'.
7
The use of Volk, People, Peasant or Worker in politics killed 100s of million in the last century......
2
Far be it from me to defend the AfD, but there simply ARE many economic opportunists in Germany. Germany is certainly a better place to make a life for oneself than Papua New Guinea. But if the government were to import the entire population of that country, would Germany still be Germany? You're zeroed in on "Volk" and incapable of seeing that there's something to being a German which is more than merely being a human.
However, if you're going to say any restrictions on migration are racist, then we're going to have a problem. The entire population of European Jews was hunted to near-extinction. Did Palestinians have their Cohens saying, "Let us welcome these victims of history's greatest crime"? If not, why not? Those who hail from Muslim tribal societies think differently than Europeans.
Your nation is your home. In few places do people open their doors to those vastly different from themselves. But this is the West, and the West is ashamed of its past and so some leftist European women are hesitant to identify the background of their sexual assaulters for fear of harming the migrants' image. We should welcome a reasonable quantity of war refugees -- and try to assimilate them -- but let's be clear-eyed.
A humanitarian safe zone in Syria would've preempted ethnic nationalism with minimal risk of a wider war. Ironically, Obama, through inaction, brought about what he most loathes. Also ironically, too much thinking like Cohen's elicits the very racism it means to combat.
19
Well, the analogy to Weimar is typically dismissed with the observation
that the economy was bad in 1932, but it is good now.
Hmmm... good cop, bad cop.
1
Has it been 10 years since I first heard the sickening expression, " take our country back", or has it been even longer. What I do know and knew then was that "they" wanted to take their country back from me. Me. What did I do? Scream that we need to reinstate the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE, that talk radio was tearing the country apart without debate.
I know we can't change people's minds while calling call them stupid, but what about Alabama?
3
The Founders feared popular tyranny. That is why we have a Constitution & a Bill of Rights.
4
The image of a very economically successful Germany that benefits all aspects of society is likely blurred and underneath the veneer it's not so wonderful. Additionally, like every other country on earth, a certain percentage of the population harbors xenophobic, racist tendencies. I have not seen the quantitative results of the German vote, but with the constant drumbeat of the polls and the same old tired CDU/CSU statements, voting participation was down. These kinds of situations favors a right-wing swing, as it did in the US. We shouldn't point fingers at the Germans with our own house in such a mess.
7
"Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid." True, but unfortunately this principle is what gives propaganda its enduring strength. Once a person has been hooked with with false promises and false blame, it is very hard to admit it. This dynamic has been purposefully mined for advantage in America by unscrupulous politicians. For 20 years now they have been assuring people that they can be smarter than the "elite" if they just adopt the strident, self-righteous opinions of their “friends”. They can be smarter than scientists, statesmen, the well-educated, the professionals, those experienced in government and international affairs, and especially those who hold different social opinions. They can be so smart that they can be smarter than objective facts, apparently. One wonders, when differences of opinion are threatening to destroy a society, is there any hope of reconciliation without someone, somewhere, admitting that they were stupid?
6
Mr. Cohen, nationalism is coming back to European countries. Most Europeans would have been very happy with just economic integration of the European countries economies. But, no, the cultural elites pushed for a political integration as well - and that is being rejected. Add now the onslaught of millions of migrants who bring no skills and totally different cultures into this reawaken nationalist spirit and you get the AfD and Brexit and the Northern League in Italy and Marine Le pen in France. Telling all these people how stupid - and racist - they are will only make it worse.
17
The point has already been made that the AfDs "victory" has been blown out of proportion. With 13% of the vote, this group is one of the smallest right wing extremist groups in western countries currently. The media treats this as a major event when it is not and in doing so gives the AfD continuous attention that it does not deserve. That is nothing new - the media, whether left or right, thrives on the perverse excitement of fringe insurgencies and gave the same undue attention to Trump who was elected president as a result. Back to basics then: the majority of Britons voted for Brexit. In France, 35% voted for Marine Le Pen. In the US, Trump was elected and about 40% of Americans continue to approve of his dismal performance as president probably only because they finally have an intolerant racist in office. So, while it is right to be worried about the AfD, the main problem currently is not in Germany and any right wing insurgency there is sure to be contained.
5
This is a predictably condescending effort from Roger Cohen. "Extremists," "xenophobes," "reactionary," "afraid."
It's beyond his imaginative abilities to consider the possibility that the 13% of German voters who voted AfD had any legitimate reasons for their votes. But arguably they did.
Above all, there is the determination of mainstream German political parties to cram as many immigrants into the country as quickly as possible. Why should the German public accept such a foolish policy?
Recent "populist" stirrings in the US and western Europe seem motivated largely by their citizens' desire for reasonable immigration policies that further the common good. Perhaps our leaders should actually provide such policies.
For an argument that reducing immigration into the US would further progressive political goals, see http://chronicle.com/article/The-Progressive-Case-for/151195.
14
Nationalism is the belief that I should only care about people on my side of the invisible lines.
4
The Germans...
The British...
The Americans...
All part of a "rightist, nativist, nationalist and, yes "volkisch" reaction against globalization.
Might it be that the historic and core constituencies of those nations have decided that globalization, open borders and a generally Transnational Progressive movement aren't for them?
Isn't that for those people to decide?
Or more properly directed, who are you to rail against and pass judgement on the wills of people?
13
Trumpsters can't be made to feel stupid. They are the epitome of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They also find constant reinforcement from an entire industry designed to keep them angry and ignorant.
If Trumpsters were capable of critical thinking, examining their own motives, or questioning their worldview, then we wouldn't be where we are now.
American Unity is a pipe dream. Time to concentrate on winning the war.
4
The rise of the right is in direct proportion to globalist governments ignoring their people.
15
Sorry, cut and paste error. Here’s the correct link to Jonathan Haidt’s article: http://wp.me/p4ja0Z-Apc
Superb column by Roger Cohen. The upsurge of nativism has been addressed by many scholars and pundits, but none more thoughtfully than Jonathan Haidt, who writes in part:
"So whether you are a status quo conservative concerned about rapid change or an authoritarian who is hypersensitive to normative threat, high levels of Muslim immigration into your Western nation are likely to threaten your core moral concerns. But as soon as you speak up to voice those concerns, globalists will scorn you as a racist and a rube. When the globalists—even those who run the center-right parties in your country—come down on you like that, where can you turn? The answer, increasingly, is to the far right-wing nationalist parties in Europe, and to Donald Trump, who just engineered a hostile takeover of the Republican Party in America."
His is a far-reaching and deeply insightful explanation, one that is bound to make liberals uncomfortable. But he offers a way of looking at our problems that may help us end the stalemate in our politics and restore our democracy. The following article is a relatively short but essential condensation of his thinking:
• When and Why Nationalism Beats Globalism, Jonathan Haidt, The American Interest, June 10, 2016 http://wp.me/p4ja0Z
3
Sorry, here’s the correct link: https://wp.me/p4ja0Z-Apc
2
I remember trump using the phrase "One Country, One People" at least once during his campaign, and he may have done so again as president. He may be ignorant about its connotations but, demagogue and authorization that he is, I don't think so. It feels creepy to hear the equivalent of "Ein Volk, Ein Reich" from this American leader, and wonder if it's just a matter of time before he adds "Ein Führer".
In all honesty, this feels more threatening to me than the rise of the AfD, which only attracted 13% of the German electorate - bad enough, but far from the nearly 50% of votes which, less being more in America, put trump in the WH.
12
Why is Mr. Cohen pretending to give lessons to the Germans? Contrary to his representation of the country as turning toward Nazism, Germany took in 1,000,000 Syrian refugees – that's the equivalent of 4,000,000 Syrian refugees coming to the US. And he's waving the bloody flag himself! It's shameful. It would be better to write another column on Brexit or Trump, just a subject he might in any case understand. Clearly Germany is not one.
17
What I find especially surreal in our own country is how so many cling to a similar notion of Volk, the "weird, white-dominated pastiche" as Mr. Cohen describes it. How do so many people get enraptured with a xenophobic notion when we're all, except the native Americans, xenoi? We are all of us outsiders, whose families, except those who were enslaved, thought life would be better here. Perhaps we should start by requiring school children to memorize the sonnet written by Emma Lazarus and inscribed on the Statue of Liberty.
7
Roger says:"The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world. Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
The people that I know - mostly progressive retirees in their 60s and up - have done everything possible to challenge forces that are taking away jobs; forces creating an educational system that is definitely an apartheid system of choice; forces funding the militarization of our police; forces which demonize people of color and migrants fleeing countries that we have destroyed; forces of a deplorable capitalism that is good for the few and not for the many. Jeremy Corbyn offers hope in the U.K. Warren and Sanders in the US.
What more would you suggest Roger? Sadly, some people that I grew up with are racist. They have never read a challenging book and their world vision is formed by Fox TV and the chattering radio heads. I do not see them as people made to feel stupid. They yearn for a period that never existed. It is a fiction of their imagination.
7
History remains to be seen.
History runs
and we cannot hide
from it.
AfD 13 percent today, hardly a concern in a
modern parliamentary democracy.
Did somebody say "Weimar" ?
1
Don’t speak for others. What do *you* want back? What do *you* want to go away?
3
Yay fascism. Come on in Germans, the water is terrible.
Ignorant, scapegoating, true-believers will always exist. They can still create babies. If you think evolution needs people who are rational, you ain't paid attention.
Richard Wagner puts into the mouth of Hans Sachs, at the glorious crowning close of his (German) epic opera, Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg, the call to extreme vigilance, the need to protect "die heil'ge deutsche kunst," or "our holy German art" from foreign influences. Was Wagner an artist or a polemicist?
Being a student of the composer, it's clear that he was both. Whatever his intentions, Germany, 60 years after the 'Mastersingers' found the light of day in 1868, Adolf Hitler was well on his way to perverting Wagner's scores and Anton Bruckner's symphonies into national socialist justifications and explanations for his takeover of the country. "Volk" can be found in Wagner's texts too.
Art may be prostituted to serve narrow partisan interests, particularly if the purpose is to deny humanity's bewildering (and often) inexplicable variety. America today has the chilling feel of what it must have been Jewish in the 1920's and 1930'.
When Stephen Bannon, to wild applause, cements his former boss's worldview ("us vs. them"), even though he's no longer a visible West Wing presence, white nationalists (America's "volk") understand perfectly well what is meant.
As in all things in art, the idea is the thing, and its beauty, however incomparable, can often conceal a sinister tone and color meant, not to gather, but to divide, to draw real lines in the sand.
4
We humans like to categorize people, sometimes it's relatively harmless, like when us local born South Jersey kids would tease our summer friends who were from elsewhere by calling them "shoobies". Most times, though, it's a step on the road to prejudice, exclusion and hatred. Humans are at our worst when we can point to one group and call it Us and and another and call it Them. Too many terrible things have been done to Them for the sake of Us for me to feel comfortable with the rise of tribalism in the so-called West.
8
Some people like to eat at ethnic restaurants. Others like to plant exotic plants in their gardens or keep exotic animals in their houses. While there is little danger of Thai or Ethiopian restaurants "getting away" from us, the same cannot be said of the many invasive plants and animals that HAVE gotten away from us either through our own carelessness or by hitching rides with us in our own invasion of the planet as a migrant species across millennia of pastoralism and agriculture. We are only now beginning to scratch the surface of the ancient impacts we had with our burning and scratching around the world.
Invasive species have no natural enemies. They exploit the weaknesses of an organized system that has no tools to deal with their specific "tricks" and remake the world in their own image-- until the survivals of the old world adapt and catch up. This is an ancient process, sometimes driven by plate tectonics, sometimes by blind chance, but never so relentlessly as by humans wanting gardens that "stand out", cool reptiles that "impress", the ability to drop their bass boat in any lake they want, or our proclivity for belching ballast water from one ocean into another from our massive fleets of circumnavigating ships.
Everybody loves pizza and tacos. Hipsters love whatever you can get at Thai, Indian, Ethiopian, etc. restaurants (I've never been). But if those CULTURES escape as more than food and begin to transform the adapted culture, danger will ensue.
7
As always, Roger Cohn's work is first rate, and I agree regarding the lurking dangers of the right wing, in Europe and the USA.
However, I am uneasy if immigrants continue to have large families. We educated are pouring enough carbon into the air; the immigrants seem to aspire to that life-style.
Though I don't belong to any zero population growth groups, families should be smaller, without the hint from 'the four horsemen of the apocalypse' to get across that message.
5
I was surprised a couple of decades ago to chat with a young, hip, conspicuously progressive and left-leaning couple in Europe, and then, after a bit, to have them ask if I was of the Jewish race. "We don't mind," they added when I looked startled, but they seemed completely unembarrassed. The lesson I drew from such conversations (maybe correct, maybe not), was that the great reforms in German culture since WWII had largely succeeded in reducing racial animus, but not the primacy of race as an unquestioned, biological/spiritual, inherent division of humanity. There were lots of races, of which Aryan/German was one and Jewish were another. Nice people thought all races should be treated well, but the progressive American idea that races are artificial categories, historically determined and changeable, apparently hadn't caught on. At least that's the way it seemed to me.
3
Nationalism is not racism
Nationalism is not tyranny
Nationalism is not anti-immigrant
Nationalism is understanding nation-states have unique and important cultures, values, priorities and goals. Entering a nation-state implies a default understanding that you must abide by those standards, attempt to assimilate, and if there are differences you cannot accept, you either change the laws through permissible means or leave.
The problem is the leaders of the West have abandoned the nation-state in favor of Internationalism. Under the guise of comity, they have given away the economic strength created BY THE CITIZENS, rather than focusing on how their citizens can benefit from that economic strength.
And they wonder why they are voted out of power. It's because when citizens can't get leaders to defend their culture, and in fact those same leaders (and NYT pundits) despise their citizens and write them off as bigots and misanthropes, they vote in new ones.
21
This version of the "Nation State" is a highly artificial idea, and trying to make it work in the real world has led to more than a century of bloody war in Europe - and there is still a lot of unrest going on. Do you imagine that ethnic cleansing is just an incomplete project, and when they get it right, with everybody on the correct side of the border, things will settle down? Wrong.
A post like this suggests a profound misunderstanding of history and economics, but what bothers me most is the total misunderstanding of what "culture" is about. I won't even bother to try to explain.
6
I lived and studied in Germany. Germany had a "Turkish immigration problem", then Ms. Merkel added the "Arab immigration problem", hence the AFD. Let me explain why.
There are 4 to 5 million Turks or German of Turkish descent in Germany. Most of them more attached to Turkey than they are to Germany. They have done nothing to adapt to their new country. An Erdogan meeting in Cologne is not different from an Erdogan meeting in Istanbul or Ankara. You will see young and old people branding Turkish flags even though they hold German passports.
There is nothing Germans could do about that, These Turks hold dual nationality thanks to the SPD and former chancellor Schroeder.
Then Ms. Merkel decided to let in more than 1 million refugees Arabs Muslim most of whom are uneducated and will have a hard time integrating into a liberal country like Germany.
There is news of some new immigrants who want separate sports class for their daughters, a more strict dress code in schools, etc...
Why couldn't the refugees settle in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar who share the same religion and culture.
You, Mr. Cohen, are partly responsible. You supported the Iraq War, supported the Syrian War, supported the Libyan War. Due to those Wars, Millions of refugees flee to Europe. Refugees whose arrivals are responsible for the rise of far-right parties in Europe.
28
Roger, if you think you're going to guilt trip people, German or American, into being multiculturalists by evoking Hitler or some other fascistic boogeyman, I have unfortunate news for you.. Its not going to happen. Here's whats up, when immigrants come into a wealthy nation in large numbers, and they take resources from their new country and don't learn the language and cloister themselves in communities and raise the crime rate. This is what happens. My grandparent survived the Holocaust, their entire families were murdered by Hitler, they lived in a DP camp at Tempelhof airfield in Berlin for years and then moved to this country and immediately learned English, went to work, and were deeply proud of the fact they never relied on the government's welfare. It's really easy to tell other people, other countries and populations how to elect their representatives when you're a cultural elitist writing for the NY Times in the most diverse city in the history of humanity. I'm not going to tell you that "Volk" is a benign word, because its not and we all know that. But this article is like saying the diesel emissions scandal at Volkswagen was bound to happen because of their namesake. Grow up. These fearful op-ed pieces that keep coming on these pages are getting exhausting. Look for the deeper solution here. How do sane people offer an alternative to the policies and politics that make populations slide towards nativism and hate? Is it just a Merkel orHillary Clinton? I hope not
25
I am less worried about Germany than I am about the US and my native UK.
The xenophobia we have seen in recent times is based precisely on the fact that decent people in the middle class feel disenfranchised, and disrespected. This is the fertile ground where Hitler sowed his wicked seeds.
I cannot fathom why the 'Dreamers' should be threatened in such a despicable manner, and why Britain has opted for a suicidal Brexit
6
When you ignore the concerns of the working class, this is the natural result.
Mass immigration into any country hurts those with the least marketable skills the most. You can't undo the laws of supply and demand. Importing masses of low skilled immigrants lowers the price of labor.
17
just fantastic. I read Mr. Cohen all the time
1
I am surprised that people are still buying "Volks"wagens
2
Bevölkerung, not Bevolkerung, but we have also had to deal with Uber from über. Long live the oobermensh!
3
They've said other more unsettling things.
Speaking of those making up what she calls the "Merkel Swamp", the leader of the AfD Alice Weidel wrote in an internal email:
"These pigs are nothing else than puppets of the victorious powers of World War II and their task is to keep the German Volk down, by overfilling the densely populated areas with aliens and so inducing molecular civil wars."
And: "The reason we are flooded with culturally alien people like Arabs, Sinti & Roma etc. is the systematical destruction by those ruling us of civil society as eventual counterweight to enemies of the constitution."
Minutes after the first exit polls were out Gauland was crowing: "We will hunt them." Meaning by 'them' at first instance the representatives of the established parties defending the humanity and humane treatment of Jews and other "culturally alien" people. At first instance.
It's hard to overlook the significance, when another AfD leader, the grand daughter of Hitler's Finance Minister, is applauding this.
It's a fully consciously prepared dog whistle, and it's clear Merkel and co are only the figureheads for those whom Gauland wants to hunt (down and out of "his not their" homeland).
Gauland and Trump aspire mirror images of Erdogan-style reigns in idealized, Christian, white male supremacist autocrat kleptocracies. They are deceptively Recep-tive.
Let's hope America can put this genie back in the bottle, by which it is in the process of being pretend royally duped.
8
By almost openly going full 'Christian' version of Erdogan, Trump and Gauland artfully deflect, so the kleptocrats who already play a near-perfect market rigging, tax dodging and political outcomes dictation game can abuse the consternation to steal even more and to destroy even more environment for short-term profit.
And that's their real achievement. They play the next level puppet game for the oligarchs.
While inflating the white self-images of their supporters with hollow future pride and hope, they deflate what had still been left of available lifeboats for them.
I say after Anna Wintour: that's all.
3
Germany is back to normal. Anne Applebaum was right. "Debathification" or not. The US were better then than Bremer anyway. If you start with a clear language those "Nazis" are no problem. You can beat them with your litttle left finger.
The only problem as usual is that the German "elite" has eaten the stick with which they were beaten. They lack any relation to reality as in that Martin Schulz according to Klaus von Dohnany -- who was raised in that Oderwaldschule btw that was closed down for "child molestation" and for the onbly reason for which it was famous for that Weimar elite. Free thinking.
I don't see my comment from yesterday, so I'll summarize and resubmit:
Never Again means Never Again. Since World War 2, there have been inventions, "advanced technology" inventions by the well-educated. This Nazis party is not well-educated. So, already they are in a losing position, because none of them have a Brilliant IQ, which is the Top Level Achievement of Higher Education. So, I suppose they can enjoy their cheap sugar cupcake dunce votes that they received, because that's as far as that will go. So much has happened in the World, since World War 2, yet they are following the still same-old losing strategy playbook, as if nothing has changed since then.... not one new thing, not one new person, not one new person who invented something new that is about to enter The Market, thus the World population???? Like I said, not one Brilliant IQ Score among them... and it is an advantage to see the battlefield from The Top! Note: For people who are interested in IQ point totals, the earliest a person can receive a Resume Certified Brilliant IQ Score is at 52 Years-Old.
1
"Leute" is another German word for "people," only without any racist connotation. It's bad enough the German media or governing class never mention it, but why don't you, Roger?
1
Yes, Mr. Cohen, we need to smear anybody to our right as a Nazi. How intellectually lazy---then again, the Left in America brands those who disagree with their identity politics and open borders as "white supremacists" and "Nazis".
Do you understand why so many people who consider Trump loathsome still voted for him ?
14
Some people who said they loathed Trump voted for him anyway. Why? No secret there - lots of them voted for him because he promised to appoint anti-abortion judges to the Supreme Court. Lots of others because they wanted deregulation and major tax cuts.
But what does that have to do with calling somebody waving a Confederate Flag a white supremacist, or calling somebody wearing a swastika a Nazi? Those people were going to vote for Trump anyway, they aren't the ones who said they loathed him.
1
Volk, an inclusionary term being used to exclude the other, or the different, perhaps those not of German descent? Gauland doesn't look like Trump but he sure sounds like him. God bless Germany, again.
The Old World Fascism under Hitler died, but neo-fascism raised its ugly head not long after WWII ended and it is now a global disease trying to infect America and every other country in the world. It would love a chance to go viral again. Every country is experiencing small fires being lit here and there within it in support of white supremacy, racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim along with a distorted vision of what makes up humanity that keeps getting narrower in focus. More than three quarters of the world population doesn't make the cut. Too many countries are performing government-sanctioned acts of genocide.
Democracy can never rest or fall asleep at the wheel, or you end up with a Trump or a Putin in charge and under minority rule with no voice or vote in your government, and the gradual erosion of all your democratic freedoms.
Trump only sees Trump when he looks in the mirror, and when he looks up he wants to see only reflections of himself, or those Americans in the wealthy predominately white minority that he and his administration represent. The majority of Americans do not make the Trump cut.
4
"Volk" in Germany might very will be interchangeable with Trump's "forgotten middle class" in America. Both are based on nativism, nationalism and exclusion. Both are in the majority, and identifiable on sight.
Both want to "take our country back" from die Aubenseiter (outsiders), as though they've somehow been pushed aside ("they're taking our jobs!") despite maintaining huge majorities.
But most alarming is the basis of the appeal of both Trump and Adolph Hitler. Both insisted that they would "make our country great again". There the parallel begins to break down. The Weimar Republican was indeed a shambles, whereas America is experiencing prosperity whose "left out" people continue to be the minorities, not the volk.
Trump offers nothing as repair for the despair of die Aubenseiter. Instead, he dog whistles the opposite. It's a safe position to take, whether he does anything of substance for the "volk" or not. He's cast a spell over them, every bit as effectively as with one of Hitler's interminable tirades in der Sportplatz.
One can hope our experience with a demagogue will turn out better. Or at least, not worse.
Perhaps because of Mr. Cohen’s age or his knowledge of history, the word “volk” has a negative historical connotation. As a fluent German speaker and longtime resident of Stuttgart, I have never met a German under the age of 60 who immediately associates the word Volk with the Third Reich. It has various associations that have nothing to do with Hitler and none of them are negative. In America, the phrase “America First” only has negative connotations to older Americans or those with a good knowledge of pre-WW2 politics and Charles Lindbergh. Anyone else would interpret it literally like President Trump’s usage and not historically. I’m also surprised how little faith Roger Cohen has in German democracy. The AfD wins a few seats and all he sees is disaster. Frankly, given what’s happened with the current German immigration debacle, I’m surprised the AfD didn’t win more seats.
13
He pretends to interpret the Germans when he can't spell in German. Bevoelkerung, or Bevölkerung... Fuhrer instead of Führer -- and utter ignorance of the vast immigrations of French Protestants into what is now Germany during Friderician times, of Poles and other Slavs as Germany entered her industrial revolution. Nothing but hate for Germany and the Germans here, and uninformed hate at that.
7
It's a Volk whose leaders the Nazis wouldn't recognize. Ms. Weidel is a lesbian mother of two, lives with a foreign woman, fluent in Chinese, trained economist and former Goldman Sachs banker.
6
That "foreign woman" is Sarah Bossard -- a Swiss citizen and film-producer of Sri Lankan origin.....At least get the whole picture right.
"Volk", "Kurd", "German", "Turk", "Catalan", "American", "Spainard", "Immigrant", "Democrat", "Republican", "Us", "Them"... terms of identity have long been used to empower one group and control/disenfranchise another.
The left, sadly, has been no better or worse than the right in putting people into categories.
In the US the ideal of equality, democracy and mutli-cultralism/melting pot is giving way to entitlement and difference. The result is the nationalism and divide we see at home and around the world.
We can and must do better to work towards common goals. The alternative has been tried before with devastating consequences.
9
Leaders are often obsessed with leaving personal legacies... Grandiose ideas that are put into action almost unilaterally. The on-the-ground, day-to-day consequences of these grand plans are borne by the common "folk" of the country.
Ms. Merkel with her escort party will not be molested by bad egg immigrants at a street fair. She is unlikely to be walking down a pavement and be deliberately run over in the name of religion. Her residence will most likely not get the calls of azaan on mike from multiple minarets five times a day, every day. Her job will not be at risk because of someone willing to work at half the wage or less. She will not have to use public transport or wait in lines at hospitals that'll keep getting more and more stressed with more and more people suddenly brought in.
Why is it so surprising when the commoner living these realities reacts as he or she does? How can you, on top of everything else, preach to them then very condescendingly to get a broader, global outlook?
Ivory tower leaders need to experience what the person on the street does or at least consider them sincerely before launching these big ticket, self-agrandizing initiatives.
15
As altruistic as Merkel's invite seemed to be, it was actually done for other purposes, primarily for low income workers or wage slaves. Matter of fact most unfettered immigration is exactly for this reason, including here in the US. It is to eliminate the middle class as well. Bottom line is that the gig is up. Most are starting to recognize that this mass immigration being forced upon them does not in any way benefit them. If anything, in fact, it is the complete opposite.
Those who heavily favor unlimited immigration in the US are generally not affected by them and their livelihoods/jobs are not infringed upon. They seemed mostly concerned about their cheap, domestic help and the cost of tomatoes and lettuce condiments for their sandwiches.
13
You can add engineers, programmers and physicians to the list of immigrants willing to work for lower wages and fewer benefits.
8
This is factually false. In 2015, there was a large number of refugees stranded in Hungary, and Merkel let them in to calm down the situation. Germany had just been the "bad guy" in the euro crisis and there was an interest in showing a friendly face in this situation. Not temporarily opening the border would have meant a humanitarian catastrophe Germany would have been blamed for. The rest was a combination of lost control and clumsy communication. This was not done because the German government actually wanted the people to be here, and both before and soon after 2015-16, Germany worked to reduce numbers of incoming refugees.
2
Something I've been thinking about regarding: "But not all the world: wired metropolises yes, vast peripheries no."
Watching Burns' new documentary, I was struck when he noted the divide in South Vietnam between the cities and rural population, where the VC came from. No different than today in America where there are no blue states, just blue cities.
I live in Chicago. Do I have more in common with a Parisian than someone who lives 10 miles out of Chicago city limits?
5
Certainly all of this is reminiscent of the 30's and no one should take it lightly when a German politician, of any party, appeals to the worst elements of populist nationalism in his country. No should anyone if that politician were American, British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Belgian....and so forth.
I am currently riding my bike across Europe, West to East. The elements that feed the worst elements of populism and nationalism are as, or more, evident in the Loire Valley than they are along the upper Rhine: depressed, abandoned villages where the familial business of default is a pizza take-out and the late-life attempt at economic independence of too many a woman is a hair salon. Just like the abandoned little towns of the high plains of Montana and South Dakota where I spent too many years. Candidly, Germany has far too stabile an economy to be seduced by the AfD. The Front Nationale and France are a different matter, particularly if Emmanuel Macron does an Obama-like fade.
2
Humans band into tribes; we can't expect that to end. Destructive tribalism will increase as social and economic dislocation spiral out of control when political leaders fail to assure stability of economic opportunity and respectful, shared mores. That political chaos empowers the drift toward fascism rooted in the worst elements of tribalism.
But we are not served by judging as evil or stupid the many humans driven to the darker elements of tribalism. In addition to tribalism, the fact of interdependence among humans and the planet becomes more obvious every day, and potentially politically useful in making the poisonous elements of tribalism less appealing.
The only way to begin to build a civil society in an irreversibly multicultural world is to see people from different tribes with a generous eye that is seriously open to recognizing our shared humanity and interdependence. This is hard work, but deeply satisfying. It builds moral growth, compassion and tolerance. Sixty years ago MLK used our capacity to look with a generous eye and to embrace moral growth and tolerance to deepen the definition of our American tribe.
Remembering MLK, we can again enact, and this time actively preserve, policies that honor interdependence, include rather than exclude, welcome and support the stranger rather than vilifying and dehumanizing her. We can't cure the fact of tribalism. Let's build a rational human tribe whose pride of membership is knowing all of us feel safe and respected.
2
Remember to send this memo to Al Qaeda and IS.
3
Well-put. I know this rabbi and he frequently says that we may have evolved lots on the outside but we're still cavepeople on the inside. I think he may be correct. Our brains haven't kept up with tech, or something...
A rather significant portion of the German population advocates limiting immigration and implementing border controls, and suddenly they're deemed to be Nazis by the global arbiters of taste and opinion?
15
Yes, you've got it right. Germans have to accept any people thrust upon them and like it. People who advocate this, need to move to a German village where this has happened.
3
Mr. Cohen's terror of the "German Volk" and other "nationalists" movements shows an acceptable prejudice. I would like to start by asking the Paper to start editing the man's work. When a writer has nothing to say he will often quote people who do. Cohen's use of Dylan, Marx and Yeats, ideas all taken out of context, do not provide the bulletproofing Cohen's requires to be taken seriously. The man turns insights into cliches.
To deny well considered reasoned "fear of elites" and their determination to manage both how we live and also we think is not in the least irrational, let alone bigoted.
Consider the 160 private jets crowding the runways at Davos. Such a gathering hardly suggest good things to come for the majority of people. Anyone with any sense of the moment would suspect the intentions of the damning conformity demanded by the efficiency-obsessed promoters of globalizations.
The elites—those who enjoy power, privileges and prerogatives bought by money or position—determine how well or how poorly we live, and, will live. To see it in practice, one simply has travel by commercial airline, or walk the streets of any city and look up at towering shives and shanks that are raised to diminish individual rights, dignity or personally acquired tastes. In the shadow of these towers, it's easy to understand the appeal of a "grounded" Volk.
There are excellent reasons to abhor the mores and methods of the "elites" and it is intellectually dishonest to deny them.
18
In Germany as in the US, the current events are the direct result of the aggressive attempts of the left to strip the 'people', referring here to individuals not the collective 'Volk', of their heritage and their identity. Trump and Gauland have successfully managed to tap into the bubbling anger that has arisen from the intolerance left-wing 'political correctness' is standing for. The 'Volk', in Germany as here in the US, stands for those who have felt disenfranchised for too long and have now found again a banner of reborn national pride under which they can unite. Many of us in the middle have wondered when this day or reckoning would be coming, having seen the pendulum swing to its left extremes for years. What we had not expected was the speed with which the pendulum would whiz past us on its way to the opposite end of the spectrum.
It would be wise to contemplate in how much simply the ostracizing of words in the name of "political correctness" has contributed to these scarily unpredictable currents that are now buffeting our societies on both sides of the Atlantic. Tell someone over and over again that certain words or topics are taboo and must not be discussed and you can be certain that that boomerang will come back to hit you sooner or later.
I have tried to make that point many times here, but to little avail: You have to give political change time and let it happen naturally. Move too fast and you will get the opposite result.
21
In Germany the far right just got 13% of the vote. But in the US the far right rules our most powerful party, and now dominates our 3 branches of govt and 26 states. No parliamentary coalitions in America.
The American political system allows fringe politics to become mainstream. Enter Trump and Moore, etc. Our fundamentalist religious fanatics can win elections and the Gop uses them for power, aligned with its big money sponsors who call the shots.
The US has more rw voters and our political center is more conservative than other democracies. Add racial tensions. In health care for all, we lag the modern world. What's common in Germany, France, etc are seen as too left wing. Our insurance/drug company profits are untouchable.
France, Holland and Austria voted down their rw parties. Brits voted down Trump’s right wing friend, Nigel Farage. Now he comes over here to try to infect our politics further.
Religion influences American politics much more than abroad, despite our constitutional separation between church and state.
Our economic inequality and insecurity, worse than in many nations, lets US voters be more susceptible to manipulation----especially by onslaughts of campaign ads, which other countries don’t even allow. They instead give free media time to candidates to offer their platforms. This helps protects politics from extremes of advertising/PR hype & Reality TV politics which our politics spends millions on.
3
What are you talking about?
1
What you leave out of your analysis—and you're not wrong—is that from this distance and not speaking German (which in my case is a choice) it appears most of the AfD vote came from the former East Germany, and this stream of resentment has been bubbling ever since reunification.
Its just that now its bubbling over. For all the talk of the Stasi and the East German police state, there was also a sense of social solidarity in the former German Democratic Republic—cultivated by the State no doubt—that no longer exists. The AfD is probably not a serious contender for power, any more than Trump was. But the German Ruling Class and for that matter the US Ruling Class, as represented by this paper, are now officially on notice that these clowns present a clear and present danger to the status quo.
The only thing that could allow the AfD to make further gains would be another financial crisis that shakes the system to its foundation. And how likely is that?
2
This east german woman I "knew" talked lots about the stasi (secret police) and how even one's neighbors were spies, etc., etc. and how when she "got out" she had only $1 and all that. She managed to settle in Kawai. And now we have the resurgence of Nazism in Germany (and the US). Is it really so hard to see? Tribalism? Give me a break. It's exclusion and disavowal of the interdependence of all living things.
Along with the German Volk it is the fire of revolution that has also returned, and this time in a bright enough light, there will be no mistaking by any nations people what this struggle has always been about. The only thing not coming back is the cover of darkness that had allowed this short period of malevolence to take hold of our world in the first place. Tomorrow belongs to all the Volk of the world Roger, in a wake up of the likes this planet hasn't seen in a very long time, and I certainly wouldn't want to have the job of publicly calling it anything else like the return of the German Volk.
4
As a New Yorker born and raised in the South, I am getting desperate dispatches from home that sound like eerily those from Czechoslovakia in 1968 -- please come save us! Save us from Trumpism . . .
FYI, I don't understand the harping on "liberal arrogance." Every liberal I know is terrified of Trump and Trumpism, anxious about the way things are headed, and frightened that we are going to be gerrymandered in more ways than one into losing our Democracy, what there is left of it. .
5
In 1798, Sir Thomas Malthus wrote about population growth driving down living standards over time. He was ignored.
Paul Ehrlich raised the issue again with "the Population Bomb" in 1968, He was rejected by the conventional wisdom.
Meadows, Meadows and Randers published "the Limits to Growth" in 1972. The leaders of China took this message to heart by establishing a one-child policy in 1979. That arguably enabled China to achieve amazing economic growth in the last few decades, but Joe Biden called the policy "repugnant" in one of his visits to China.
History does not repeat itself. The problems confronted now are far worse than those proposed by Hitler.
Starvation due to overpopulation has happened so far mostly in the third world, not the US. The UN estimates that over 800 million of those people suffer from chronic malnutrition.
But now even in the US, living standards for the poor are stagnant or maybe falling.
One of the consequences of overpopulation is global warming, making more likely the devastation of cities by hurricanes. We are beginning to see the effects. It may take Puerto Rico 6 months to "recover." But in the future overpopulation along our coasts will lead to migration as regions around Houston and Miami and New Orleans become abandoned.
Inaction caused by denial of liberals causes the rise of groups like AfD.
And their goal, halting immigration, will ultimately be necessary.
Too bad we didn't also adopt a one-child policy here and abroad.
10
And "volk" look at me like I have 3 heads when I say that overpopulation is the issue. Is there really any lack of "volk" anywhere? The Chinese thing about "one child" was not "repugnant". We, the human race, is WAY past the be fruitful and multiply thing.
It never ceases to amaze me that so many journalists like Mr. Cohen, and so many commenters here on the NY Times have little faith in the very "democracy" that they claim to cherish.
It is sad to watch them try to win by intrigue, slander, and emotional blackmail that which they cannot win through the ballot box.
18
You'd think with all the cultural, entertainment, and other "distractions" of modern life people would have little time to obsess on the race and origin of people living near them. One wonders if we didn't have power hungry leaders who fan these flames if the masses would even care. Did Trump hit a nerve, or implement shock treatment.
I think the quote is actually from Buffalo Springfield, not Bob Dylan. "Something's happening here;what it is ain't exactly clear".
5
John,
The song quoted is by Dylan, 'Ballad Of A Thin Man'. It is on Highway 61 Revisited.
The full line is that quote followed by "do you, Mr. Jones". It's a refrain that's repeated several times.
It's from Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man."
Bzzzt!!! WRONG. It's a line from "Ballad of a Thin Man".
It's an exact quote. But I completely understand the confusion: they are very similar.
"The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world. Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid." Arrogance: an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in presumptuous claims or assumptions (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). There is a lot of arrogance to go around nowadays, particularly in the Oval Office and the alt-right movement. Before the stunning wake-up call that is Trump, most of us white liberals were complacent about right wing extremism since we thought it was confined to a fairly small minority of the populace, perhaps 10%, 20% at most. We did not so much dismiss them as ignore them, comforted by the impression that they were a shrinking minority. Trump's genius was to combine them with a group of disaffected, downwardly mobile and mostly white 'conservatives'. The good news is that he has also ignited and energized resistance which, if he doesn't start WWIII, will get our country back on a progressive track.
2
USA voters choice of Trump is obverse of Germany's new-old right and with help from American descendants persecuted by them.
I don't understand how it is that Middle Eastern and Asian countries are perfectly entitled to place great store in their ethnic and religious unity while other nations are not.
At least, this seems to be the convention in the media.
Anyone know?
20
Ethnic and religious unity?
Middle East: Israelis treatment of Palestinians; The Lebanese civil war, the Syrian civil war; Iraq, Syria, and Egypt's treatment of Christians. Turkey's treatment of Kurds and Armenians; Syria, Iran and Iraq treatment of Kurds, Sunnis treatment of Shias, Everybody's treatment of the Jews. Al Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban. Persians and Arabs.
Afghans are fighting because of tribe and religion. There has never been unity.
Asia: Muslims and Hindus (Pakistan and India); the Indian prime minister encourages Hindus against Muslims, Buddhists and Muslims (Burma), and now refugees. All living together, and murdering each other.
It is all over the media.
2
I'm American live and work with Germans both in
Switzerland and Germany and can tell you beyond the slightest doubt that this current generation of working Germans are the are amongst the most educated, knowledgeable and fair minded of peoples you will meet anywhere.
As for the The word "Volk" - it means many things to Germans and should not be interpreted with accusations.
15
The scary part is that the Germans of the early Twentieth century were educated, knowledgeable and so on, too. The land of poetry and philosophy and science... not that you are wrong about the people you have met...
"Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
Truer words have never been written. This is why liberals come off as smug, when to us we're just using facts and history to argue a point. But facts, when divulged to the ignorant, make them feel stupid. To acknowledge Trump's obvious lies is to admit they were conned. To accept reality means that they question their entire lives, which, heretofore, were propped up with adult fairy tales and and revisionist histories.
We can lead these people to the truth, but they have to take the last few steps on their own. If they figure things out themselves they'll be more likely to accept a discovery they made with their own minds. So the million dollar question is: how do you expose a fraud without upsetting those he defrauded, especially now that public education and the free press have been turned into enemies of the state?
4
Well put. Nobody likes to admit they were duped. It hurts the ego.
Thin men are polishing their boots with their eyes in their pockets.
We know exactly what that is.
Ms. Merkel will be remembered historically as the person who helped facilitate the downfall of Europe at the beginning of the 21st century.
This will not end well for many.
History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes. -M. Twain
14
In the wake of Charlottesville, there are well-meaning but misguided people that want the US, against the protections of the First Amendment, to adopt German style anti-Nazi laws. AfD is proof that those laws don't really work. You can outlaw the symbols. You can outlaw the old slogans. But that just means they adopt new symbols, new slogans, and package the same old ideas in a different package.
6
"a nation of immigrants (including Trump’s grandfather from Germany)"
and Trump's mother, and most of his wives!
2
I used to think that to keep fascism at bay, the economy had to be strong & unemployment low.This concept has been shattered by the rise of the Far Right in the German recent election.No it’s not Germans just being German, Angelia Merkel & her four terms as Prime Minister has shown that Germans like any other group have good & bad.This surge of German Nationalism is caused by fear. Fear of a Speeding Truck ramming into a crowded street of pedestrians, or an explosion in a crowed subway.This is a universal war waged by Muslim terrorists, against the infidels & the terrorists are winning.
Unfortunately,the majority of Muslims are no different than you or I who long for peace & tranquility, but they too are in the cross hairs of the bigots driven by fear of the unknown.They are the reason that Trump is our President. He took advantage of the fear of immigrants, especially Muslims, & Trump is still using this fear in his recent ban of Muslim countries.The problem the world has , there is no way that we can annihilate this threat of terrorism, as you can’t get into the head of millions of people and discern who is friend or foe.Government can ask us to be tolerant of our immigrant neighbors, & most realize this should come naturally, however, who among us has the courage to put the bell around the Cat’s neck.
4
This is yet another important reason why what's left of the liberal West should not let up on Russian sanctions vis vis Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Appeasing Putin on his illegal invasion is exactly the wrong message to AfD and other European nationalist "Volkisch" groups.
Ironically, many current and former German leaders and business people are the wobbliest on sanctions.
2
Chancellor Merkel opened the borders of not only her country, but the borders of an entire continent without first receiving the consent of the German Volk nor the permission of the countries through which a million unwelcome guests plowed.
A report written by the German Parliament's legal experts found that Parliament should have made the decision to allow the migration, not Mrs. Merkel.
No consensus, planning or preparations were in place to control the influx. Chaos ensued. According to IOM, close to 12,000 people died trying to heed Merkel's siren call.
I personally think Mrs. Merkel may be in the early stage of a common but under-recognized type of dementia called frontotemporal dementia that tends to strike people in their 40s to 60s. Her decision showed terrible judgment, impulsiveness, lack of empathy for her countrymen and a terrible disregard of the hardships faced by millions of desperate people on the move from so far away.
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I hope that Mr Schaeuble, who is a tough person, and to be President of the German Parliament, will call out these people at every opportunity. He likes confrontation and will have a great time telling the AfD speakers to mind their manners.
1
I'm afraid I have a slightly twisted sense of humor, an overactive irony gene, and penchant for sarcasm. So I giggled a bit when I read this and remembered an article I heard on the radio yesterday about an anti-gentrification movement in L.A. The basic message of both movements is, "We want to preserve the character of our neighborhood, and we don't want to be supplanted by newcomers."
9
A fine collection of notes to a sadly unfinished column. Against Merkel's pointed promise that the German volk is everyone who lives there, I wish Cohen had cited a handful of the constant times Trump has addressed his mobs, beginning with the Inaugural promise of glory for the confessional patriots, as the "real" people in this country. His debt to the Volksturm is direct, explicit, recurring, and an outrageous indictment of a Party which has the nerve still to call itself, Republican.
2
In a pluralistic democratic any politician talking about "taking back your country" is sharloton. The underlying cause of the success of these politics are existance of fears in the society - specifically "imaginary fear". "Imaginary fear" is a very dangerous virus in a society and if not cured in time, it destroys the country. In the West and in Muslim countries, the society is infected by this virus and in near future great upheavals are inevitable.
Germany today is not what iti was in the 20's and 30's. It is a prosperous nation, a solid member of the EU, which is populated with pacifists. Its democracy works much better than the US's. So, calm down. Gauland is a nobody. His party is not going to reach power. It probably has already peaked. If WWIII ever happens, it won't start in Europe. It most probably will start with the US unable to accept the unstopable rise of non-white powers such as China.
5
The right is worrying. The only way to stem its rise is to stop political correctness and slow immigration. This is a direct response to Merkel's naive and dangerous open door immigration policy. Among the intellectuals in Berlin the mood has already changed. They appreciate the problem's Merkel has created. Stop praising open door immigration. Stop the insincere virtual signalling. Stop lumping those who want to stop immigration with the extreme right and you will stop the extremes of the right.
11
We cannot prevent a global world, and we cannot build or sustain a 'global world' using hate, fear, greed, jealousy, bigotry, and vengeance to define the objectives, and principles of success.
The reversion to isolationism, nationalism, and tribalism (religiously, or racially based or not) are a direct reaction to the disruption, the complexity, the uncertainty, and seeming lack of control associated with modern life. The "footsteps" of those disruptive forces are manifest in the disruptive technology, the legacy pollution (global warming, and more), and the ever increasing globalization that technology brings.
We've been there before due to analogous forces of disruption, and it never ends well. The renouncing of world leadership by the current US government could prove to be the straw that breaks the camels back. At the very least, it leaves a vacuum to be filled by others, and could easily give the Putin's of the world what they want, a decline of western civilization sufficient to give them the opportunity to fill the void.
Historically, the rise and fall of empires is a cycle. We'd be fools not to try to prevent it from happening to us........not by resisting it, not by exploiting it, but by selflessly leveraging it to advance rather than undermine human civilization. That takes vision and nobility, not retrenchment and self service.......perhaps a bit more specifics than 'hope and change', but nonetheless rooted in hope and change.
1
A country belongs to its people, not its rulers. That is the great insight of democracy.
From that comes the corollary that The People get do decide who they want to invite to join them, and under what conditions. That will depend on the culture of the population, and of those asking to be invited to join them, on the economic situation, on what numbers the population feels it can absorb at any given time, etc.
Every people, like every person, wants a home, i.e. someplace they can call their own, and arrange according to their own values and preferences.
Tying to turn the world into an idealized version of America is doomed to fail. It isn't even working very well in the US.
14
That's what happens when a parent brings home some strange kid to live with the family without asking anyone.
13
Mr. Cohen is right on, and yes there is a direct parallel to Trump and his supporters in what just happened in Germany and the "Volk's revolution" that brought Hitler to power in Germany. Hitler was a creature of the German working class, it was where he had much of strength, and like Trump a lot of this was based on scapegoating others for the misery the working class had been faced with and also was driven by outright lies about what Hitler was and represented, much the way Trump has. For example, the Nazi Party was "National Socialism", with its implication of worker's rights and so forth, yet once Roemer was killed they were pro business/anti labor unions. Trump blustered about unfair trade, an 'import tax", yet he has dropped the border tax and now is pushing pro business policies, especially with taxes. To keep their bases in line, both Trump and Hitler mastered the art of enflaming hate in people.The line "Make Germany/America Great Again" likewise are similar, where Hitler was promising the glory of "Aryan Germany", while Trump's implicit message is to bring back the 1950's and the dominance of "White America".
From Never Again to Leave Again!!
Another excellent piece. Mr. Cohen senses the rumblings.
The questions is, what do we smug, urban elites do about these rumblings (sometimes we are referred to in popular media as hopelessly neurotic, other times as hopelessly smug, but whatever)?
Okay, we don’t want to make folks in Alabama who just voted for Roy Moore feel stupid. Got it. On the other hand, we don’t want to repeat the passivity of Germans in the 1930s. On the other hand, the Antifa is bad. On the other hand, Republicans stopped playing by the rules long ago.
What choices are left? Very harsh Facebook posts to our friends?
With the ground shaking beneath us, with, say, 30% off our fellow Americans wishing to throw everything away, I’d appreciate some guidance.
84
A start is to vote Democrat. Those who say "voting is a waste of time" overlook the power of a rising tide. To not vote is defeatism. There are only two parties that count. Don't waste a vote.
1
"Still, the most dangerous thing would be to fail to take these rightist, xenophobic currents seriously . . ."
I read elsewhere that the AfD has doubled its vote in recent years, drawing from every other party in Germany, _across the political spectrum_. Maybe the most dangerous thing of all would be to misread a genuine grassroots movement as top-down demagogic mischief.
4
"The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world. Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
But those people will *never* be persuaded. Liberals must avoid the arrogance of not taking the threat of those who invoke the Volk, certainly. But we should not delude ourselves into believing that the volkisch can be reasoned out of their prejudice and fear. Their ideas are hateful and must be openly disdained, lest they become to be considered just another point of view.
1
Excellent, disquieting artIcle.
2
The word Volk simply means people, a term describing a sociological reality whether it be the German people or the Jewish people. The issue of whether such an ethnic community should aspire to dominate any territory demographically and politically as its homeland, and how it should treat other ethnic groups who reside there or want to immigrate into it, is a more complex question than can be resolved by stereotypes of Nazis vs. democrats. Is it morally acceptable to support the preservation of reservations for Native American peoples, or Israel as a Jewish state, or a Tibet not innundated by Han Chinese?
4
"It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that, without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler when they preach discrimination against other religious, racial or economic groups."
The Danger of American Fascism, by Henry A. Wallace
5
"Last year, the Federal Statistical Office said that roughly 18.6 million people in Germany had a migrant background, or 23 percent of the population." In the U.S. it is probably 90% or more, including the Commander in Racism in the White House, although Trump Nation would deny it.
Funny, he doesn't look Volkish.
1
Twentieth century history is still too fresh for the "second coming" the "blood-dimmed tide" (Of course I had to google). The world is now getting a convenient reminder of the simplicity of faschism.
If the German education system can't eliminate this element of the population, neither will we, despite any increased education in rural areas because that's where the problem mostly is.
The second coming could very well may be fifty years from now, when White Anglo Saxons lose their numbers and therefore power and become the oppressed.
1
Democracy sure is annoying; having to let the people have a say in their future, and all that. Things would be so much better if only they would just shut up and get in line and let the elites in the Harvard, OxBridge, and the Grandes Ecoles clown cars continue to rain their wisdom down upon us.
The dissatisfaction with the status quo in Germany went well beyond AfD. The two mainstream political parties barely got 50% of the vote. AfD, like Trump, Farage, and Le Pen, provides a convenient distraction from the fact that the dominant political parties across the developed world are collapsing as democracy asserts itself and people repudiate the status quo.
Your generation of baby-boomers has made a monumental mess of the world, Mr. Cohen. The voices of the people are only going to grow louder. This is a revolution, and it's just getting started. The fact that the elites completely failed to see it coming, when the signals have been loud and abundant for the entire 21st century, is a measure of just how detached they all are from reality. If only someone had noticed, and demonstrated leadership, we wouldn’t find ourselves at the edge of an abyss.
And the road ahead is difficult, but the analysis of “the disaster of Brexit” is going to take on a whole new context after the euro, and then the EU, collapse in a heap, and it won't be long now.
10
Nationalism and xenophobia are emotional responses to uncertainty perceived as threatening. Musk ox do the same thing when threatened: they circle up to form a tight boundary, with the calves at the center.
Don't be surprised when you see it in Germany, any more than when you see it here. Upwards of 1/3 of our own "folk" want to build a Berlin Wall around the whole USA. Which, if it were intended to keep Trump and his crew from harming the rest of the world, might not be a bad idea. But of course, it's not. It's to separate "our nation" from everybody else. And every American flag on every car window and jacket lapel is another statement of "America First!". Which is just the flip side of "No Outsiders, Please". Which is reminiscent of requiring Jews to wear yellow stars in Germany.
The point is that the problem is not a German problem, it's a human problem.
Can it be solved? Perhaps, but that might require people everywhere to stop basing their personal identity on their national identity, and start placing their human identity ahead of their political identity.
Germans have work to do on that. But I'd say they are way ahead of US.
2
I've just returned from visiting family in Berlin, so rather than commenting per sé I'd like to add a quote from my family there which I think accurately reflects a "Volk Theorem" regarding immigration to Germany. My "source" opined as follows: "Yes, oppressed peoples and refugees should come to Germany, and they should join our society, but when they come here and bring their backward social structures and then tell us that our rules don't apply to them, well, that's a big problem."
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Or worse, when their rules should apply to us!
3
Your so pcalled "source"sounds strangely American.
At least my family in Germany recognizes any integration of foreign cultures is not solely dependent on just one side -- Even though they think twice before criticizing refugees and migrants (out loud) fo fear of sounding like Nazis, they know that still Germans have a long way to go before accepting anything deemed as 'different'....
And that's the problem.
I am an immigrant, and I believe that you have to adapt to the rules of your new country. The old saying is true: donde fueres, haz lo que vieres.
re. [Alexander Gauland, a leading politician of the extremist Alternative for Germany (or AfD) party, when he vowed on election night to "take back our country and our Volk!"]
87% of the Germans already have their country and are the "Volk".
Nevertheless, Germany's AfD with less than 13% of the popular vote, joins the club of the xenophobes, islamophobes and Euro-critics; ie. UKIP (GB), FN (France), FPÖ (Austria), SVP (Switzerland), ...
The ideological brethren across the pond of this club is, you guessed it, the Trump base.
re. [Take back Germany from whom? The immigrant rabble, I assume, and the half-breed hordes, and the Muslims who, for the AfD, serve as today's Jews.]
I couldnt' agree more with the point about the Muslims being made into the modern days Jews! Whilst UKIP is now knocked out of its existance, we see that virulent islamophobia in France, Austria, Holland, Switzerland and now also in the German parliament. All the same, it is inconceivable that in Germany the construction of minarets would ever be forbidden; for this the Grundgesetz is too strong and the anti racist sentiment is too solidly engraved in the post war German identity.
1
With the help of Russia and Mercer/Bannon, Trump certainly found the American 'Volk' as well and panders to them daily in word, and deed, except where personal enrichment of Trump and his cronies takes priority.
The lesson history should have taught us after the Civil War and the rise of the Klan, and WWII and Hitler's Volk, is that such 'regular people and folks' become an ugly monster when fed a plate of hate on a regular basis.
Actually there's nothing wrong with demonizing bigotry and forcing it into the closet. Out in the open it becomes a belligerent and self validating presence built on its own tropes and lies.
I love the way, "the arrogance of the world corporate elite" is always cited to blame. Yeah, that's why the "Volk" and "Deplorables" (personally I prefer "despicables") always wind up hating on dark skinned people, religious minorities, and immigrants. Wake up, Liberals. Realize that you're patriots first, and these hate filled bigots are proposing fascism and supporting corruption. It is an existential war we are in.
10
One of the things that Rachel Madow has picked up, and hammered, is in every one of these movements, whether it's Germany's AfD, Britain's Brexit, France's Marine Le Pen, America's Alt-Right and Trump, and other neo-nazi movements in Hungary, Poland, and Greece, there is ALWAYS evidence of Russian interference. We've just seen how they use automated "bots" to re-post hundreds or thousands of times false stories designed to specifically target and inflame such groups. At the same time, they target and attack mercilessly any who they, Putin's Russian cyber forces, deem a critic and therefore an enemy of Putin or his surrogates in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former Soviet republics.
We see Putin's minions fomenting Kurdish independence, knowing full well it's libel to cause an even bigger war in the MidEast. Russia's also backing the Catalonia Independence movement, which, were it to succeed, would find itself INSTANTLY outside the domain and protections of the European Union.
And, like Pavlov's dogs, those with tribalist tendencies in their own echo chambers, get fired up more and more, as Russia, using the ONE weapon it has that it clearly leads in, cyber-power, is clearly at war with the rest of the world, spreading chaos and separatist movements while it slowly seeks to rebuild the Russian and Soviet empire, regardless of what the people those nations want for themselves.
No, Weidel is not a "chick" (a 70's derogatory term). She's a reactionary tribalist as is Gauland.
"blurring of genders, against the half-tones of political correctness, against Babel, against the stranger and the other"
These are the sentiments that Putin, along with the vast majority of his fellow Russians have harnessed to amplify their crusade against real and perceived Western decadence.
This is where Russian nationalism and evangelical Christians intersect. It is why collusion at the highest and lowest levels was able to occur. It is why the Russian disinformation campaign was wildly successful at installing its surrogates, if not its agents, into the White House.
"The Federal Republic has journeyed, with detours, from this exclusionary 'volkisch' identity to one that is open and inclusive. German identity can never be a simple thing; history dictates that."
Question: why can it not be so? Why does history "dictate" what is going on now? The fact that history suggests a particular path may lead to an outcome some or many or even the vast majority of us find unpalatable does not mean it "can never be."
And still the less is it for Mr. Cohen, comfortable in his armchair in London, writing in America's newspaper of record, to dictate what German identity is supposed to be.
2
A few thoughts on the article:
- The AfD got less than 14 percent, whereas Donald Trump won the US election.
- Isn't it linguistically ironic that the SPD and CDU are the only so-called "Volksparteien", which is the German translation of "major political parties"?
- If you are going to write an article about the nuances of the German language, you should at least use the Umlauts (e.g. Bevölkerung, Führer, völkisch). Leaving them out can change the meanings of words dramatically (e.g. fordern vs. fördern).
5
stay with yeats awhile mr cohen, he goes on to say that in the "blood-dimmed tide, the ceremony of innocence is drowned;/The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intentsity./Surely some revelation is as hand."
And that revelation, says yeats is of a "rough beast, its hour come round at last," as it "Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born." (you really want to go there?)
as metaphor for the stirring, rising germany, maybe,
but yeats' words if cohen means his, "Words, like history, are many-shaded. It depends how they are used" he cannot come to his inevitable trump bump, "when (words) lose their meaning entirely, as with Trump," offering neither words or lost meanings...absent these, be betrays himself - his knee jerk, if you will, link of trump to gauland leads this reader to doubt his "conviction," the sincerity of his concern for the german "weidergeburt," settling for its use as hot air, "passionate intensity," as yeats put it, to fuel his trump rage.
Indeed, the ghosts of the past are reawakening in Germany and raising their heads again.
Seventy years of Reeducation, Rethinking and Trying to Come to Terms with the Past (the latter known in German as one word, Vergangenheitsbewältigung) have evidently resulted in neither a new national acquired character, nor in a genetically transmittable one.
Quo vadis Germania?
Where was the criticism of the “American Volk” when Trump got started resurrecting them in 2015? They didn’t just :”suddenly appeared at Charlottesville.
The New York Times censured any letters that made a connection between Trump and any implication of American “Volkism” although his techniques were right out of that book (whose name I’m still not allowed to say).
Trump, himself, said “America’s hands are not clean”
Japanese Americans were interred in “relocation centers” fifty days after the Japanese bombed Pearl but it took almost a year after Germany declared war on the United States for the German-American Bund to disappear. And, they just disappeared into the fabric of patriotism—no arrests, no penalties.
How is the media’s vision clearer when looking outside of the U.S. than it is when looking just next door?
I do praise Mr. Cohen’s insight—even if it is hindsight.
Large numbers of immigrants are destabilizing. We see that in our own history. They challenge the self-image of a nation and usher in changes. There are also economic implications and, even if in the long-run they are positive, for individuals they can be threatening.
This is an era when there are other changes that threaten stability. Even the concept of the nation state may be an anachronism. Globalization of economies and the rise of powerful international corporations means we are operating under different rules. The international arena is has limited law and order.
I acknowledge that it's defeating to suggest people who react to these forces are stupid. But what can we do to prevent the ugliness of Nazi Germany and the other Axis powers from reemerging? That is the question that needs to be answered by serious people.
There will always be people who are eager to take advantage of fear, hate and prejudice. We can't prevent that, but we should be seeking ways to respond that don't involve saying there are good people on the side of evil.
Roger, I deeply understand your trepidation about certain words spoken on certain languages. I am German, and when I came to the US I first flinched at the word Jewish or Jew. But while I know that there is still anti semitism in the US and elsewhere, to my surprise the Jews I may in the US did not hold a personal grudge against me.
perhaps we Germans need to take words back from the past. we, the liberal Germans have to use the word Volk and void it if its connotations. same as we liberal Americans have to take the flag back from the right wing propriation, have to claim patriotism not despite being critical of our nation, but because of it.
1
Echoing a previous comment: let's not exaggerate this. AfD got 13%. It only stood out as "the third largest" because the more mainstream third parties - the Left, the Greens, the centrist Free Democrats- got around 10% each.
Put this in historical context: throuout Western Europe and the U.S., far right candidates have always received between 8% and 15% whenever they have emerged as distinct parties and candidates. George Wallace got 15% in the U.S. in 1968. The neo-fascists got around 8% in Italy's multiparty system between 1948 and 1990. The elder LePen received 18% at his peak in 2002.
The news media has reported this very badly. They quickly wrapped around the narrative "AfD-3rd largest party". The New York Times did not even mention the three other "third parties" that received only slightly less. The real change in Germany was the splintering of the major parties, especially the Socialists. Germany used to have a stable 2 1/2 party system with the Christian Democrats, the Socialists, and the smaller centrist Free Democrats. This year the Left opposition splintered into three groups, providing no united alternative candidate to Merkel, so that AfD could create the illusion of being larger than it is - with the help of sloppy news reporting.
Not that the far Right is not cause for concern-it always is. But it's size should not be exaggerated.
1
How, if at all, is the German far right wing different from the GOP? (Pro tip: the Trump GOP’s open racism, nativism, hatred of Islam and Hispanics is more out in the open).
Multiculturalism correctly proclaims that the Chamash Indians of Santa Barbara County should take pride in their culture. That the Khoisan of southern Africa should take pride in their culture. But just as we respect their cultures, we should allow the Danish to take pride, and the German Volk to take pride.
Roger Cohen writes,
"His statement raises the question: Take back Germany from whom? The immigrant rabble, I assume, and the half-breed hordes, and the Muslims who, for the AfD, serve as today’s Jews."
But he misses the real force of destruction---population growth.
And population growth has nothing to do with race.
World population has doubled since 1970. That would be expected by itself to double production of greenhouse gases.
Liberals hold up conservatives because they deny global warming. But they deny the impact of population growth.
We were warned in 1972 by the famous book, "Limits to Growth." This prescient book provided models listing the various ways in which overpopulation might lead to chaos.
One of the features of the models was "overshoot and collapse." That's because a child conceived today does not start needing the full complement of resources until 20 years in the future. Thus global warming is likely followed by a great die-off.
As inevitable as night follows day, the poor will fight to keep from being casualties of the die-off.
By ignoring the problem, NY Times pundits contribute to human suffering that makes World War II seem minor.
4
Cohen has an ability to get to the seed of a thing. Since November or even before that, I was wondering how Americans could be so stupid as to even think of voting for a buffoon like Trump. Instead of looking down, I should have made an effort to look around.
1
I'm interested in finding out what "23% migrant origin" means, and the purpose it serves in the piece. In the absence of an explanation I've missed whatever subtext was implied.
The UN population number I look at are foreign born residents, which has its own issues. For one, nationals born abroad are counted and so the number is inflated. But it also doesn't hide residents who have acquired nationality in their country of residence, which is closer to what people rightly think of as immigrants.
Why do I find the 23% number odd? It simply doesn't add up with internationally accepted numbers:
The UN puts foreign born persons residing in Germany at more or less 12% of the population, practically identical to other large European countries like France and the U.K., and only marginally lower than the 14% in the U.S. Only small countries like Switzerland hit numbers like 28%.
Recent migration has not moved the needle in Germany from 12% to 24%. So please, can anyone explain the reference to this odd statistic and its purpose?
3
It refers to people who may have been born in Germany but whose parents hold non-German passports. It is an important figure because many of these people (not all) have failed to integrate, to learn to speak German properly, or have adopted Wester values (such as supporting Sharia Law). Germany is not America. It is not traditionally an immigrant country and one is not considered German just because one is born here.
2
While these nationalistic uprisings should be taken seriously and addressed, diversity is so embedded in our country and in Europe, that turning back the clock to some golden age of homogeneity is a Quixotic journey. Just a quick look at who invented or is now running our most successful corporations signals how diversity has now permeated every aspect of our society. On the flip side, you look at the Trump family---well, I will leave the future of that company to the imagination.
I saw this coming. I'm not surprised. The rumblings of this movement didn't begin in 2015, when Angela Merkel opened the floodgates to Syrian war refugees to come to Germany, it began when the Wall fell, and the disparities between the two halves of the country became more pronounced, once the elation of 'EINHEIT' -- the reunification wore off.
That's when those in the East realized that little they had suddenly meant nothing, and being spurned by the wealthier Wessis in the West, made them resort to the one thing that couldn't be taken away -- their 'German-ness'.
Out of that sprang the first seeds of nationalism, which in turn grew more extreme given the social isolation they were living under, which then morphed into the xenophobia we're seeing today.
I say this as a half-German watched this all slowly unfold.
That's why the recent win for Alternative für Deutschland, and its popularity in the former East German states isn't as surprising as one might think.
Luckily, in Germany we haven't forgotten the past. And there are laws to prohibit scenes like those happened that here in Charlottesville -- you will never see Swastikas or hear hateful chants agaist Jews.
And even though the intolerance is still there, there is strong resistance against it.
Every Nazi rally always has a equally, if not larger counter rally.
And while there are some Germans who are not pleased with the amount of Ausländer (foreigners) in the country -- there's no way we'll ever go back to the past.
5
Any time you hear someone talking about what "The People" want, run for cover. There is no such thing as "The People" and they do not know what they want. The purpose of politics is to hash out imperfect compromises and temporary alliances that allow people to work together to the greatest extent possible. Everyone has different goals and motivations, and we're lucky anything gets done at all.
3
"and the Muslims who, for the AfD, serve as today’s Jews."
Let's not forget that the term Semite just happens to include Arabs and Jews.
49
Semite, yes; but "antisemite" means specifically anti-Jewish. It's a form of racism that evolved from religous bigotry and fear of the "the other" to a belief that Jews are an inferior race.
1
Words, indeed.
British Brexiteers like Prime Minister Theresa May and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson have stopped invoking ‘The British People’ as they urge us onward into our economic, social, scientific and cultural decline. They merely say ‘The People’.
Why?
Well, for a start, Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay in the EU. So did the ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ and ‘citizens of nowhere’ of London and the other big cities.
Also, opinion polls have shifted against Brexit. Not that anything but the once-and-once-only referendum means anything.
So who are ‘The People’?
My guess is that they are Das Volk, the people championed by Nigel Farage, last seen consorting with Roy Moore in Alabama.
1
GAULAND'S Claims that the extreme right party is not related to Nazism (though I've not heard him use the word). Historically, the Germans used the word "Volk" to correspond roughly to the concept of "worker" or "comrade" in the socialist world view of the communists. In fact, the world Nazi itself is an acronym derived from Nazional Sozialisten or NAtional SocIalists; hence NAZI. As a result of the loss of WW II, the Germans had to bring in many thousands of guest workers from places like Turkey and Portugal, who lived marginally and sent money back home. The Turkish communities have established themselves as part of the national character of Germany. In fact, Germany has specifically instituted the importing of Jews so they could restart Jewish communities. Sounds incredible, but it's happening. The German Volk are not what they used to be in many ways. Germany is strong, industrialized, forward looking, affluent and peaceful for the most part. Thanks in no small part to the minority groups that have migrated there since WW II. I imagine that Angela Merkel will try to form a government by steering clear of the right wing resurgence. That could be very dangerous.
Mr. Cohen,
you are one of my favorite columnists. I enjoy your articles for their variety, erudition, and often personal touch. I just wish you had not misspelled 'volkisch' and 'Bevolkerung' in your latest article. You might also have mentioned that Volk and folk are cognates.
Bevoelkerung is an ugly, but useful, bureaucratic word and just means inhabitants. The demonstrators in Leipzig could not possibly have shouted 'Wir sind die Bevoelkerung!'
Wilhelm Evertz
1
Well, Roger, you are coming closer to writing about the absolutely unmentionable subject, the political act of dividing Americans into fictionally distinct groups - black, white, Asian, MENA.
I prefer an America, a Sweden, a Germany in which if you are a citizen you are an American, a Swede, a German. I prefer an America in which the USCB collects only real data - income, place of birth, educational level - and finally ends putting us and me in boxes. In this America it would be made clear that we all belong to the same human race, have genomes 99%+ the same, and have so many lines of descent that we do manage to turn out as distinct individuals in spite of that genome thing.
My point. In each of these 3 countries there are many who claim to belong to a fictionally pure master race, the one Donald Trump imagines as do many members of the Swedish SD party, the German AfD party, and the American neo-Nazi party that thanks to a two party system hides under cover until Swedish Mattson went to work uncovering them.
Ordinary Americans, like Jesmyn Ward, whom I have recently discovered, even been captivated by, tells us in Cracking The Code (p. 89-95 in The Fire This Time), that she is "conflicted" about learning via 23andMe that she has so many geographies in her genome.
That lesson learned has to be hammered into the heads of the neo-Nazis and Donald Trump. Aryan Volk is a fiction, but fictions can be dangerous.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual US SE
1
Good and strong article Roger
1
Did you mean:
"There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down"
by Buffalo Springfield?
Among the Volk do not forget the Volkswagen. Hitler's little ploy to raise money for his war machine while promising a car in every garage.
Twenty-three percent of the German population has a migrant background, and people wonder why AfD did so well? Countries need immigration for workers and new ideas, but when immigration feels like it is overwhelming to the native population, you get this kind of backlash. It's never been more than 15% here in the US, and look at our immigration law history.
10
Now please don't become hysterical and scare people with playing on words. Crimes habe been committed in the name of the people everywhere and it is not worthy of a serious columnist to spread fear with the sole word "Volk". A perfectly normal word: Americans drive it(!), and ask any German today what he or she thinks of the "Volkspolizei" of past German Democratic Republic days, they will tell you the fear the word inspired to them.
The ringing of the 4 letters may have personal connotations for you personally, and in due respect of this I don't think populism is any worse in Germany than in other countries. Due to the enormous number of immigrants that country had to absorb - not being protected by an ocean or even a channel- a populist reaction was predictable. In my opinion no danger will come from today's Germany, which in this part of the world is overwhelmingly regarded as doing a positive contribution to Europe and the world.
1
You listen to Gauland and hear his whistle, yet you are deaf to the same here at home. Nationalism disguised as Patriotism, exclusion and denigration of others, political power built on the disaffection of the common volk - welcome to the new America.
1
I am not convinced that tribalism is all that undesirable. I just returned from Japan where more than 98% are Japanese. They do not have the crime or the social unrest that more inclusive countries have. 80% of Americans are white and the rest are minorities and as the percentage of whites decrease they feel threatened. Perhaps it is instinctive to want to live only with others who have a similar culture and values. If that is not true, why are there so many small countries in Europe instead of only one?
54
I thought the fact that we are the largest multiethnic, multicultural country in the world was what made the US special, and distinct from Europe. It is simply amazing that a country that has asked for "your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." has managed to function reasonably well for so long. It is easy to be Japan or certain other Asian and European countries, it is hard to be The United States, and that is what makes me proud to be an American, even in the age of DT.
62
We have never been a country of tribes excepting the indians. We have never been homogenous in ethnic background. This yearning for uniformity is a fantasy and what has been the astonishing greatness of America has been our vibrant diverse meritocratic society. Why don't we try applauding our amazing democratic experiment called the USA and see it for the miracle it is. We used to proudly say we are a 'melting pot' and we were admired around the world for how we could accommodate cultural differences without losing our democratic greatness. I ask everyday, "Why?". "Why are there so many of my countrymen who would tear us apart and tear us down?".
5
Most " white" Americans are not white. "White" is a legal and civil race term used in the US to mean pure AngloSaxon-Aryan ancestry and bloodline. To have even " One Drop" of African, Southern Italian, Muslim, Spanish, Jewish, or Indian ancestry, meant that in the US court system, one was considered a non-white or colored person with little to no human rights.
For 400 years, millions of the mixed AngloSaxon/African slaves and freedmen found ways to pass as " white" to escape the legal domination of AngloSaxon American Supremacy. Many of them fled West or up to Southern hill country. Those are the great-grandparents of many of us "white" Americans.
Yes, it is sadly true that a huge amount of working class and poor white Americans have forgotten their mixed-race roots. Too many of us who come from this complex tri-racial ( African-Anglo -Native) cultural background are cheering on Trump's racism.
1
You are likely right about the AfD. Pernicious racism and fascism seem omnipresent on the world stage. So Cohen, if you yourself are not a racist and closeted fascist, why not attack the most successful racist fascist institution/entity on the planet where people are being murdered daily and generations are having their future stolen? An entity where you could opine without significant aspersions being hurled in your direction? If you hate evil, why not focus your ire on Israel?
Because of the interdependence and globalization that are naturally occurring in the world, many people are frightened of what all of this might mean for their collective futures. Not everybody is prepared to let go of what has seemed comfortable about the traditions and tribalism of our yester-years. It is a global phenomena. We see it in Putin's Russia, the nationalistic votes in Europe, Brexit,
the waves of unrest in India, as well as the ethnic cleansing in Myanmar, and the many troubles in Somalia and Sudan. Then there's the Middle East, of course.
Perhaps most troubling for us, is the current success of our country having voted in a nationalistic and racist administration. Because of the status our country once enjoyed in the world, this makes it harder for the rest of the world to tighten its grip on its own darker impulses. Yet, it could be looked at in a different way; all of these things are part of the growing pains of a maturing humanity. In time, I hope, the people who hold nostalgia for some bright but false idea of the past will let go and move on and adapt to the needs of the future.
It is all the more frightening because this isn't the first rodeo for the "Volk".
you don't have to go back two generations to germany for trump's family. his mother was from scotland, was she not?
1
September 29, 2017
It may time for the breaking up Facebook as a dominant international Volk and as they say decentralize what is the global social media arena that is more than less becoming demonize by its ability to nullify borders and what the common folks want to perverse but making their own nation great again. For my tap tap tap tap in the world of custom and tradition it would not surprise me that the world wide web would had been best to leave it to the particle physics atomic particle breaking and ironically find the God particle that is know as Mr. Higgs. Our traditions are not a game to ignore and the world is breaking up with online profiles dedicated to virtual folks and that are more likely AI and not persons of loco proximate but the times always speaks to what is stochastic and great.
jja Manhattan, N.Y. - Never signed up for Facebook on the NYT - where the return on my tap tap is fit for real folks like me.
1
"The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world. Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
Actually, the worst form of liberal arrogance is to think you can talk people out of their deep-seated prejudices. Certainly, toxic currents in society like racism and ethnic nationalism shouldn't be ignored. But bunk ideas should not be given credence for the sake of giving it credence. They should not be falsely equated to ideas actually supported by facts and logic.
True liberal arrogance, as I have seen in the wake of Trump's victory, is to think if you can just give Racist Uncle Bob a little validation then you can then explain to Racist Uncle Bob why his ideas are wrong. Uncle Bob will believe what he wants to believe, and he's not going to stop believing it because you gave him a pat on the head.
This is indeed a very interesting take. One thing that I've never understood about the Migrant crisis is why Israel isn't doing more to take in these refugees. Israel is a leading light in Democracy and Multiculturalism in the region. Surely it would be more sensible to settle these Syrians in say perhaps the Golan Heights region under Israeli supervision.
Many Israelis already speak conversational Arabic and the cultural and dietary customs are already quite similar.
1
Ich bin ein Berliner...Volkswagen...Dem Volk...anyone who tries to understand how, arguably, the most cultured country in the world could do what Germany did during 1933-45 has to reconcile his or her own primal self with reality. If the people, dem Volk, that produced Beethoven, Mozart, Mann, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Koch, Einstein, Plank, Beayer, and countless other greats, could murder millions with industrial efficiency but without outcry, than
we should all be afraid that such will reoccur. What is it in our psyche that knows that deep down, truly deep down, we are natural born killers? We will never understand our human history for, to understand it, we would have to go into 'The Heart of Darkness' and we are too afraid to do that.
1
Those who yen for the "volk" seems to be always with us. Those who gang up to foist themselves on the rest of us under the name of the 'volk' are dark creatures, living in intellectual caves clubbing stuff and blaming their lot on everybody who isn't them.
Every so often, they rise out of the muck like the zombies they are, and trudge toward the artificial light provided by a fascist crazy whose hideous charisma appeals to them and who urges them to believe what they already do, that the "other" must be eliminated.
The German holocaust was an extreme outlier among many such outliers: unspeakable atrocities by humans against other humans. It was the scope and the victims that make the holocaust seem so extreme, while the millions of others who have died at the hands of tyrants, "rebels" and variously deranged gangs of men go unmarked and the numbers of those who have languished and died in prisons forgotten.
All it takes is for the "volk" chanting their slogans, lighting their torches and given a free pass into the mainstream by above-mentioned fascist crazy. Soon their chants become reality, become burning crosses, become suppressed voting, broken windows, corrupted court rulings, ethnic cleansing, and utter destruction of what the volk can't tolerate: the other.
The holocaust is happening today. Look around.
2
It actually isn't "liberal arrogance" to ignore the fascist hordes. What we need in this country is to have a real democracy for the first time. One where people can really vote regardless of ethnicity and income (and location), where the votes of people in "wired metropolises" count as much as those in the "vast peripheries" and finally, where people with politics outside of the officially sanctioned center right (Democrats) and hard right (Republicans) are allowed to organize political parties that can compete on an equal basis. Then we would not have the monstrosity of the most backward one third ruling over the remaining two thirds.
1
Europe and the Middle East are paying the price for our invasion of Iraq.
I am sympathetic to the immigrants in Germany and God bless Ms. Merkel for taking in the immigrants.
I hope the immigrants do their part, making leaders from their own to teach others the language and customs, and to be productive citizens.
Already, there are groups doing this.
But seeing crime from some Muslim immigrants, even statistically small, can be frightening.
2
In the 18th and early 19th Centuries, when Germany was fragmented into something like 100 little statelets, the idea of a single German people common to all of them was advanced liberal thinking. It was a way to express reason to love your neighbors, they are just like you. It was antiwar.
Nationalism was a higher calling, trying to rise above the hatreds and rivalries of localism driven by minor elites seeking their own narrow advantages. It was a reason to oppose corruption.
With its success, it got hijacked to be used in the opposite way.
The original use would still be possible. It is the difference between the liberal churches and the Bible thumpers preaching against things. It is all in how it is used. It is in the people doing the using.
Volk is not necessarily a nasty idea, but those two in the picture are nasty people. It really is all ad hominem in the end.
3
I recently had my DNA tested by a commercial lab, one of those that will analyze your saliva for $70 and tell you your ethnic makeup. My family history, as far as I knew, was all Ashkenazi Jewish, even those who came to the U.S. in the early 1800s. So I wasn't surprised at all when the results came back 91% "European Jewish" with a sprinkling of various non-Jewish European ethnicities. It confirmed what our family had always said about ourselves. However, I chose not to use my real name when I signed up for the test, knowing what my results were likely to reveal about me. With all the hackings into databases these days, I worried that this most intimate portrait of my identity could be stolen by those who might use it for malign purposes. It seemed to me that these services were, perhaps inadvertantly, creating ethnic registries and the last thing I wanted was to be on a list of "genetic Jews." I don't look stereotypically Jewish (most people assume I'm Irish, for some reason), I don't have an obviously Jewish surname, and I'm not observant of religious tradition. But still, that lark of a test had the potential to "mark" me and in this climate I chose to side with my paranoia. Not one of the best feelings I've had in life.
90
"Business", particularly, the "insurance business" would love to use genetic information to set individual health care rates. The general lack of protection for personal privacy is going to become a major issue in the future....not just your blood, but your thoughts, your images, and financial trails are potentially 'on the market, and for sale to not only the highest bidder, but any bidder'.
The GOP would like you to think that: It's not personal, it's only business", but the cold, hard, fact is that is about as personal as sex.
1
You are wise. We had a small rainbow flag on our porch when we lived in Vail and we would meet people from all over the world because of it. They would come to our door and introduce themselves. We took it down after the Pulse Night Club massacre. We have now moved to another town, a very liberal town, but we now give no outward signs. Moore's election reinforces this.
1
I'm of African origin (with, believe it or not, some Ashkenzic and Sephardic origins). At least you can hide your origins by hiding your name. I can't hide anything about me.
Somehow Roger, you managed to write a whole essay on the German reaction to immigration and the re-emergence of "das Volk" without ever once using the word Islam or Muslim. It's amazing how skillfully you airbrushed that shibboleth out of sight and mind. It cannot be named because it is too inflammatory; but the common denominator of the German AfD and Brexit and Trump (and Trumpismo), is Islam. Actually, for Germans (and for the British too, and even for the Trump voter in America) immigrants are fine, as long as they are legal, their immigration regulated, and they pose no threat to the safety of the citizens. All of these strictures of common sense are violated with the mass migration of Muslims into Europe which the German chancellor, "Mutti Merkel", inaugurated with her soon-regretted, ill-advised, open-door policy. Yet you cannot bring yourself to address this pointed objection and refer instead to the inchoate rage against globalization as such. True there is some of that at work in these nationalist movements; but what gives them their urgency, what gives them their sense of right - their righteousness - is the Muslim Question - and this too is what got Trump elected - as soon as he said the words "Muslim ban" he was destined to become President. Ask the children in Manchester or the shoppers in the Berlin Christmas Market what they think about the question of safety and that of sanity (of the Left), and you will begin to understand das Volk.
62
You can't seriously think they are open and inclusive for everyone else except Muslims. This is hate. First they most openly target Muslims. Read the poem.
1
check out the last sentence from the third paragraph. point taken though.
My impression of Trumpism and Brexit, while it has some racist component, it also has a large economic component that Germany does not have.
The US and UK have had 35 years of Reaganomics / Thatcherism with the resulting huge increase in wealth of Wall St. and the City and the loss of manufacturing.
Germany doesn't have the same 35 years. Germany has good education, job retraining and a respected high-tech manufacturing sector today.
Will their be a financial cost for taking in 1 million immigrants? Absolutely. Just like there was a cost for reuniting East Germany.
I hope the Muslims do their part and learn and adapt to the German culture, become productive citizens, and not get any Muslim zealots who want to force women to cover their face, etc.
1
Gauland of AfD, Farage of UKIP, our own Trump. Why do Democracies propel up such people to the top?
Because the Left Liberals "I am ok, You'r ok" attitude neglects deep social problems that fester till they boil over.
The Volk, just as Trump Nation has legitimate concerns about its survival - they have no education, no skills, no future, can not compete in the New World Order. It is a situation that developed over past generations. The past Administrations did zilch to address them, busy enjoying the party as if it was going to last forever.
The Cohens are partly responsible for this mess. Where were their pens when these boils were festering? Today they do not even have a clue what to do about it, as always. The party is over. Now face up to it.
The misguided policies of Merkel in Germany, Labor in UK, and Obama here are reminiscent of the Weimar that gave rise to the Nazis. The Liberals only care of its own.
Democracies never learn until it is too late.
2
Writing from the U.S. Mr. Cohen seems far removed from reality. I (and I’m half Jewish) am glad that the AFD made it into the Bundestag. Of course it has some halfwits, but overall for Americans is hard to understand the German situation. Germany got millions of Muslim migrants, most of them illiterate or poorly educated from Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan and Northern Africa. Each big city has Arabic/Turkish speaking ghettos.
Dear Mr. Cohen, try to go through Neukölln with a kippah and pls report back here about your experiences. You shouldn’t be necessary a Jew to be constantly insulted in the tram, subway, etc. It’s close to it if you’re a woman wearing “revealing” clothes. Means that you’re with bad morals, therefore fair pray.
As I write above Mr. Cohen, it’s easy to romanticize the German metropolis, but its much harder to live in it. And not because of the AFD.
13
Don't worry about the "Volk",the Germans have learnd their lesson and will not allow history to be repeated.With so many maniacs around the world in leading positions there are others countries to worry about - Russia,North Korea,Kongo/Kinshasa,Nigeria,Syria,Iraq,Israel,Turkey,Hungary,Poland etc.The "Winner Takes All"-mentality is still alive despite the fact that military conflicts creats only losers on both sides in the long run.You have to think greater if you want to make an impact.
2
Lessons don't stay learned. A new generation starts over again with a clean slate, and can mess it up any way they are inclined.
In the early 1960s my father visited his in-laws in the "Ruhrgebiet" part of western Germany. My father, a Jew from Brooklyn, could pass for an Italian, with black curly hair. He went into a very working-class barber shop and was immediately verbally abused: "get out of our country, Italian, you're taking our jobs!". My father, who spoke German, retorted: "Sorry, I'm not Italian, I'm a Jew from America." At this point the Germans in the barber shop fell over each other apologizing, insisting they had nothing against Jews.
6
"The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world."
As I understand this Opinion, if we take these forces seriously, we should try to convince Westerners that their countries will be better places if they take in more Muslim immigrants. That way their citizens will be redeemed for having been barbarians, or having had barbarian ancestors.
Never mind that Western countries will continue to be subject to terrorism, likely in proportion to their Muslim population. Redemption is more important than the terrorist body count.
If this is the best the author can do to address the "forces" of Trump and his fellow travelers, then we are in deep trouble.
To take these forces seriously, I suggest taking Islam seriously and treating it as a human operating system, not an app. My operating system is based on secularism, and I feel threatened by Islam. Infidels are denigrated by the Qu'ran. At worst, apostates, homosexuals, and adulterers targeted for death. How are you going to make people like me feel good about Muslim immigrants? A lot of shaming in this column, but not much addressed to this concern.
17
You can try to find out more about Muslims and Islam on your own. Try muslimmarine.org, for starters. Yes, we have Muslims in our military. Very nice folk.
You've bought Islamophobia hook, line and sinker. I'm sad for you. Your mind is closed.
1
Nidal Hassan, US Army Medical Corp, child of Palestinian immigrants, turned jihadi and opened fire at Fort Hood in 2009, killing 13 and injuring more than 30 others, many with major and permanent damage. Very nice folk?
2
There are more ethnic German Americans than there are any other kind of ethnic Americans. Donald Trump is the grandson of a German Bavarian grandfather who fled to America to evade criminal prosecution for dodging the military draft.
The German Volk that I fear most are occupying the Oval Office of my White House cheering on the Nazi flag waving torch bearing marching chanting anti-Semitic and African slogans whites in Charlottesville while condemning kneeling black NFL athletes and extolling the virtues of Jews minding his business finances.
15
Europe has always had ethnic tensions. This was recognized by the allies at the Potsdam conference in 1945. They wanted to prevent future wars and one of their solutions was to create ethnically homogeneous countries in Europe. About 12 million Germans were repatriated to Germany from Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, the EU has forgotten European history. On the orders of Merkel. the EU told Eastern Europeans countries they had to take a quota of Muslim immigrants. Some said no. Forcing countries to take foreigners they don't want is dangerous given Europe's past. Telling voters that they are stupid and racist is no longer an effective deterrent. Merkel overreached and paid the price in the recent German election. Her party's share of the vote fell from 42% to 33%. Her bossiness has not been popular in the rest of Europe either.
What is currently happening in Catalonia shows that some problems never go away. George Orwell wrote Homage to Catalonia about his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. He fought against Franco's fascist government. Catalonian politicians are being arrested for demanding a vote to secede from Spain. They are backed by the EU. The US seems to have retreated from Europe and some old problems are starting to reemerge.
3
It should also be remembered that Merkel unilaterally opened Germany's borders to a million Muslim migrants without first consulting or having a debate in parliament. Anybody could cross the German border and ask for asylum without having to identify themselves. She presented the German people, or Volk, if you like, with a fait accompli. People who had legitimate objections were labeled as Nazis or racists.
There are undoubtedly racists and Nazis in the AfD, but many others also voted for this party as a protest against the unilateral actions of the entrenched political and economic power structure. The AfD was on the verge of extinction until the migrant crisis hit Germany in 2015. They were able to give voice to people's fears and frustrations with the centrist consensus politics of the established political order.
Now that there is an opposition party of the right in parliament, the other parties of the center and the left will now have to engage in vigorous debates with them and finally earn their keep. Friends in Germany have told me that they have stopped paying attention to the sleepy and usually predictable proceedings in parliament. Democracy needs conflict and a strong opposition to engage the people. The AfD, for all its faults, has apparently reconfigured the stale political landscape in Germany and brought millions of non-voters back to the polls. Let's not despair, give the German people a chance to take on the challenges of this free election.
12
When I think "Volk," I think Hitler.
5
Nazism arose in the 20th century's third decade arose out of the economic dislocation of the Great Depression and the willfully obtuse strangulation of the Treaty of Versailles.
The Tribalism released by the agitation spawned by Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and the AfD, however, sprung from growing economies and relative political stability.
One can only conclude that our species harbors a strong, sometimes hidden strain of fear and rage requiring only the siren of a demagogue to release toxicity is ways that destroy the human comity essential to peaceful survival.
2
Nazis arose years before the Great Depression happened. They can't hide behind that. They arose from defeat and resentment and hate.
2
Ignorance fuels extremism. When a significant portion of a nation's populace is purposefully uninformed or fed propaganda as compared to journalistic news, the risk of bad outcomes needlessly increases.
When an individual or government agency purports to combat unjust conditions, they should never fear honest news coverage by a free press.
Conversely, when political individuals purposefully inflame rhetoric based on misleading and biased information calling itself alternative news, then it's the job of the free press to investigate and report thereby allowing voters to ask important questions to politicians.
2
Many people do not wish to give up whatever control they may have of their own lives to waves of anonymous, impersonal global change. This is not unreasonable. Presently we can see the dynamics of cultures asserting themselves protectively in the Kurdish regions and in Catalonia. Some of the same dynamics were in play in the Quebec independence vote several years ago.
To the extent people value their own tribes, and history, and wish to preserve them, they will resist being swept away by larger forces which they cannot influence. Its about loss of autonomy, real or imagined, as much as prejudice. People, especially people who are conservative by heritage or nature, need and value roots and rootedness. They want human scale.
Can it be ugly and insular, tribal in the dysfunctional and dangerous sense? Absolutely. Instability supports the arising of fear, and people can do crazy things to try to hold on to what is familiar.
But these tendencies also reflect deep, even biological factors. Its not enough just to call people bad who want to hold on to what they know and value.
People need community, and the comfort of enough which is familiar and stable.
8
Mostly I highly appreciate Roger Cohen's opinions.
But why is it so hard to imagine the anxiety that (the majority of) Europeans feel when a uncontrolled influx of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa would continue? While 60-70% of the violent crimes already are commited by young men with these ethnic backgrounds? When over and over again regular muslim representatives state that they can't adapt to certain western core values? Or 70% of the Turkish living in Europe vote for the dictator Erdogan and are being manipulated by him?
Why is it forbidden to fear for the loss of our civilised welfare states when this mass relocation of non western populations continues?
50
The mass migration that's happening in Europe has has happened before. The current wave is driven by global warming (as was the drought that ultimately led to the war in Syria).
It will continue and grow world wide as we fail to address the underlying problem........and IT is the primary rationale behind "the wall". But alas, walls are the failed figments of primitive minds, real choice appears to be either conflagration or reconciliation. Given the current state and direction of world politics, it would seem to be that conflagration on a world scale could easily gain the upper hand. Angela Merkel (and China too) is probably correct in their approach to the problem (temporary pain due to the process of acceptance and integration), but that doesn't mean that the world will support or follow their lead. Bashing heads, and killing is just far to easy.
One cannot repeal the human condition. Any time an easily identifiable, somehow different, largely powerless, population arises within a society, one can be sure that a certain kind of politician will rise up to exploit its presence and gain power. Anyone who grew up in the segregation and racism of the American South could have predicted what is happening in Germany/Britain/America today, and that could have been prevented from happening this time only by controlling immigration, which of course was laudably and generously not done. OK, but just don’t expect the human condition to be anything but what it is.
2
Evolution can and will repeal, and replace the "human condition" if we survive long enough to let it. Given our current knowledge base, and know how, we might even be able to expedite the process.
Think about it: we humans have sensory perception, and mental capacities that are suitable for living on our planet in the 'age' in which we evolved, but, as we evolved we have invented machines, systems, and sensors that far exceed our human abilities to not only probe and understand our planet, but the universe itself. Artificial intelligence is already providing us with 'objective' analysis of information and patterns that our human minds could never comprehend, because we don't have the objectivity or the capacity.
The major obstacle appears to be that the spectrum of evolution does does not move forward uniformly across the whole human population, and that the human mind does not seem to be designed to think 'objectively' (yet). It seems to have evolved to assist our ability to handle and manage the short term context of reality (subjective reality) as opposed to the longer term, objective implications of reality.
Fortunately, it appears that the 'ragged edge' of evolution seems to spin off an Einstein, Newton, or Di Vinci every now and then, giving us access to objective thinkers that are hundreds of years ahead of their peers. They don't become billionaires, but, fortunately for us, they contribute more in one lifetime than all of the billionaires in history.
There is now again the shadow of the Weimar Republic.
"Wehret den Anfaengen!", Stop the beginning!
Mr. Cohen is right, after Volk comes Blut und Boden-blood and soil.
Part of the problem continues to be that Angela Merkel has failed to make the case for Europe. Although the Volk likes the Wine of the Provence and Scottish highland whiskey----they like their cosy Biergarten more.
3
It's the old story of the id vs altruism. The id must protect itself from all outside its borders, at most extending protection to its tribe. Altruism on the other hand yields some protection, not just protection of its tribe, for the good of the whole of humanity.
Politics is pretty old too. The elite try to manipulate the world for the protection of their tribe--the wealthy. They must play to the id when attempting to sway people to their point of view. Sadly that's what appeals to the majority--I, me, mine. It's hard to go against this ideology with pleas to take the larger view.
However, if people come to see that our world would be a better place if we made peace with our "enemies" (those outside the borders of self or tribe,) we may be swayed to band together to share the wealth with others who may be refugees from war or have a longstanding grievance against us.
Let's open our borders of self, tribe and country and see that we are one world. Before it's too late.
6
Yes, because all right-leaning parties in Europe are inherently fascist and extremist... Is it not plain to one's sight that the reason AfD gained popularity is because Germans were sick of living in a country that catered to foreigners rather than themselves? Merkel had hundreds of unfulfilled promises, ranging from building up the economy of previously socialist Eastern Germany, to resolving the refugee crisis. Coming from a Bulgarian Slav, I understand why 13% of the population is seeking some change. Lies after lies coming from government officials do not make one's heart rest easy. I should know, as my parents and I immigrated from a country far beyond corruption 10 years ago. European left-leaning governments are beginning to lose popularity in many countries, and it is quite apparent why that is. This is not a return of "Nazism" but rather a return of governments working for their ethnic populace.
54
Denislav Kasaiavaonov, please remember that all cool-aid tastes good at first.
My mother lived through the Russian Revolution and ensuing civil war. My father left Germany before Hitler's rise to power.
The cool-aid handed out to both Germans and Russians seemed like a tonic at the time. Neither ended well.
That the great and mighty USA should sip some of that (and by no means for the first time) is frightening indeed.
2
.
"Germans were sick of living in a country that catered to foreigners rather than themselves"
Is that what the commenter intended to type? Seriously?
The entire question up for discussion is, who in Germany is "foreign". Subsumed under that:
- Who decides?
- Using what criteria?
Not long ago, the Hamburger in Bonn or the Alsatian in Berlin may have been viewed as "foreign". But various small states banded together in a federation for mutual benefit.
The federation thrived. We call it "Germany", although its boundaries have shifted over time.
Now, there is a new, looser federation: the European Union. Germany belongs to it. Sometimes, Germany serves the interests of the federation, just as Bavarians sometimes serve the interests of Frankfurters, and just as France sometimes serves the interests of the federation.
The alternative is an endless succession of petty skirmishes. One need not be German to know that Germans would soon be sick of living in a country that repeatedly engaged in petty skirmishes.
The wounded, and the families of the dead, would be particularly sick of that.
1
Look who voted for AfD: it was not the smartest.
The prosperity of Merkel's Germany speaks for itself: where do you find a country doing better?
The people who are afraid they can't adjust to the world as it changes vote for the past: it's an act of desperation on their part, clinging to ethnicity as a substitute for a reasoned approach to the world. Their fear turns them into angry haters. What's your model, Denislav? Hungary? Poland? Have you even thought that far?
1
It's worth pointing out that only European-derived people are expected to be "inclusive. " It's unthinkable for anyone else. I personally like diversity and have always lived in places that are "multikulti" (to use a recognizable German word).
But it's also worth mentioning that it's European -derived places that the others want to be included in.
If that's lost, where will they migrate to?
11
Demolino, the first sips of cool-aid are delicious!
It must be that, say, 100 years ago a majority of the people didn't share in the lifestyles of the people in control. Now that the majority of the people have more control over their lives, they want to live like the people who used to lord it over them.
3
Dear Mr. Cohen, while I agree with you on most of your thoughts, please do me, and - at least as I see it - also yourself, and your English (i.e. not German) speaking readers a favour: Do not try to hinge your thoughts on German expressions, terms, phrases etc. because obviously, your German is not good enough, to master such a tricky approach. Please forgive me for being so blunt! So, "Volk" means "people"? No, it does not! In fact, English has got no word for the German term "Volk", and that's why most of the time it has to be translated as "people". "People" is not very precise; see it's meaning in "We, the people...", compared to "All the people, attending Trump's inauguration...". The first "people" would translate into German as "Volk", the second as "Leute". For the lack of a one-to-one equivalent let's say, "Volk" is somewhere in the middle of the triangle "Nation - People - Tribe" i.e. depending on context, "Volk" may translate best as "nation", "people" or "tribe"; rarely even as the English word, coming from the same root: "folk". Like so many words used in political movements it is basically neutral, can be used positive, as in one of the decisive phrases of the German constitution: "Alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus." (= all state power originates in the people), or negative/suppressive/segregative, as did the movement called "Völkische Bewegung" which included the Nazis, and who's latest revenants/zombies are these AfD guys.
14
While, Albert Neunstein, I would not dare to compare my facility in German to yours, I speak it quite well, and do understand exactly what Cohen is communicating.
I also know that "HOW" a word is used, in German and in English (and even a bit in French) matters every bit as much as what the word means by any linguistic definition. In English, wherever that is spoken, words are frequently used, implying subtle shadings, that are screeching "dog whistles" to those who agree. So too in German.
Volk is one such word, and a very good example, regardless of what any dictionary says.
1
Excellent explanation!!!
Part of the problem is that many of the people outside the interconnected cities already feel stupid. That's why they are still there. Young, open minded, talented people look to the cities and see opportunity. The ones left behind are afraid of the cities, where they see smarty-pants elites, degenerates, foreigners, crime and people who don't look like them.
So when they get told they're stupid bigots, it just reinforces their dislike of all the liberals in the cities, and they double down on their beliefs. And that leaves them wide open to the right-wing demagogues, who just have to affirm those beliefs to win over "das Volk."
3
So if I'm reading you right, the idea is to pretend the stupid bigots aren't stupid bigots. Political correctness, in other words.
"Words, like history, are many shaded" - Yes so true. So what does "we the people" in the constitution mean today?
1
Not me.
Angela Merkel badly misjudged
(a) the amount of stress that introducing 1,750,000 individuals of any origin - this is the number from 2015 to today, with 1,2 millions in 2015 - would cause to a population of about 80 million;
(b) the inclination of Muslims to peacefully integrate in a modern, secular society;
(c) the burden on social services (schools, hospitals, police, social services) of almost 2 million people with a serious language barrier and many an ailment;
(d) the demographic time-bomb of introducing any population with a god-given mandate to produce large offspring into a country with a very low birth rate;
(e) the immense cultural problem to teach women's rights to religious people of any denomination (try teaching the pope, for starters.)
AfD is the dangerous result of Merkel's lack of judgement -- the origin of which may or may not be found in her own history. Let us not forget that her father marched young Angela with his family into communist East Germany to evangelize.
Her bet was power grab -- she had no mandate for this. She should have called a referendum on such an irreversible move.
The word Volk is old, and was definitely not invented by the Nazis. Das deutsche Volk, means the the German people; die deutsche Bevölkerung means the German population as in:
"We the population the United States of America" for "We the people of the United States of America."
Volk is not a scary word, but Merkel has become a scary name to many.
25
The Electoral Covfefe and Faux News handed us an obnoxious bully and a lot of Volk think that's great. I can't believe some of my friends support it.
The 800-pound gorilla is overpopulation. Planet earth is not getting any bigger, so each person's share gets less.
A friend in Britain said the recent immigrants have overwhelmed the public transport system, making it almost impossible to get to work. That is why he voted to exit. All they want is to reduce their discomfort.
In Germany last year, some of the new immigrants had set up a makeshift playground for their kids inside the fenced grounds of an abandoned factory. One day as we walked to work, a man with a camera approached us. "Where are the immigrants?" he asked. We pointed. He hurried off to get his picture.
It was cozy and comfortable in Germany. I felt so welcome, so at home, so at peace. The Volk were calm and dignified, the streets were clean.
Coming back home to my birthplace, wow! The food is bad. My employer's health care program is poor. Garbage litters the roads. Our leader is poorly educated. He said publicly that he can get away with murder. Who thinks like that? Not folk like me. Live and let live.
In your article you say, "Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid." Indeed you are right. But until we can all agree, each side will continue to think the other side is stupid, and that message is coming across too often.
2
I read that a German asked this question recently, "Why can other countries have national pride, but Germany cannot have national pride?" 20th century German history does put Germans in a unique dilemma. I agree that it shouldn't be prohibited for Germans to like things German. This shouldn't be viewed as innately wrong. Yet the question is, how does one do this while maintaining awareness and respect for the enormous violence and atrocity which came out of early 20th century German nationalism and racial hatred?
When I take a vacation to Germany, I am wanting to experience Germans and German food, language, culture -- not the culture, food, language of the Middle East. When I vacation in Sweden, I want to meet Swedes, and immerse myself in Swedish culture, not that of Sudan or Syria. If I want Middle Eastern culture I'll vacation in the Middle East. This doesn't mean there should be no immigrants to Germany, but it implies some type of balance. Some thoughtfulness about how immigration is done -- not as a knee jerk reaction and out of "white guilt" or "German guilt", but as a considered move.
America has a "melting pot" heritage, but European nations don't have that. For me the question is, how can European nations peacefully incorporate immigrants and refugees, while themselves still being able to (allowed to) have national pride and a sense of folk or ethnic identity?
14
It is a common missconception to think that E.U. Nations have some sort of magical borders. Migration is going on for dozens of Millenia over here. You can not e.g. for shure tell a Swede from a Italian whithout asking where he/she grow up.
There was a cartoon a couple of years back where a skin head yelled at a black dude to go back where he came from and he was like: "Why should I go to Köln?"
Cohen writes: "[T]he most dangerous thing would be to fail to take these rightist, xenophobic currents seriously, to assume they will go away because logically they should; after all, the world has moved on. But not all the world: wired metropolises yes, vast peripheries no."
I would say "wired metropolises MAYBE[.]" I think Cohen may be too optimistic.
This is a subject that our family is more than interested in. My husband is a naturalized citizen from Germany. We have family there so keep track of their politics. Our family looks like many families in the U.S. Our daughter-in-law is of Chinese descent, my brother's wife is black, and an immigrant from Barbados, my husband's wife's granddaughter is bi-racial who is engaged to an immigrant from Finland, my nephew's wife is hispanic. So, are we supposed to roll over for "white supremacist? It is much worse in this country than it is in Germany. I speak with our German relatives and friends and ask for their thoughts on contemporary issues. They have a much different attitude because of their WWII history. Yes, there is a minority in Germany that is biased, but its a very small minority compared to how many bigots live in this country. That is our shame.
9
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity . . . WBY "The Second Coming"
1.2 million foreigners were admitted WITHOUT ALLOWING A VOTE IN THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT on the matter.
When you practice undemocratic liberalism, you get backlash.
20
"...But not all the world: wired metropolises yes, vast peripheries no. The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world. Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid." This is brilliant. Humiliating trump's supporters just feeds the monster which is rapidly becoming the Hydra.
It is a mystery to me why it isn't routinely pointed out that the Nazis failed and destroyed Germany in almost every conceivable way, including that women of the "master race" were -- probably pursuant Stalin's order -- mass raped by Soviet "untermenschen." This cannot be an attractive goal.
I believe tribalism's appeal is directly proportional to insularity and ignorance: Every western democracy underserves the 30% of its population in this category until something ugly and disturbing happens (e.g., Trump).
Some original thinking is required on how to open the minds of this 30% before they are recruited by the ever-present fringe.
2
From a simple german to the guy in the ivory tower - yes we are taking our country back. You ask: Take back Germany from whom?
From people like you. From those few that define our culture to please their own tastes. Those who denounce the small people as a basket of deplorables, who believe we have no culture, all we need is panem et circenses.
Like our minister of defense, Ms Grusula, who want to rename barracks with names of WW2 Heros like Rommel, Hindenburg, or even older Generals like Moltke, who by every standard were just soldiers and committed no war crimes ( www.deutschlandfunk.de/umbenennung-von-kasernen-ueberzogen-und-hysterisc... ).
Should we be inspired by people like Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner or Martin Luther ? But wait, all those had been outspoken antisemitics.
And yes, islam meddles in this forced void. We are told to accept a society, that has a strong token of identity, they are encouraged to stand up to their identity, though nobody needs to tell them, they just do.
Which brings me back to you and you band of merry nihilists. Like the 1% of the wealthy blocks the rest from economic ascent, you are the 1% that blocks the rest from climbing up maslow's hierarchy of needs. It is more than beer and soccer, we need an identity. Somethink that makes us a Volk. Especially since we have to deal with other identities. If you are failing, and you do, we will look for other 'Führer'.
By the way, i didn't and never will vote for the AfD.
5
After reading the upper portion of your paragraph I have a hard time believing your last assertion.
At your throat or at your feet.
2
I think this comment serves very well to illustrate the effect of NY Times reporting on Germany of the last several decades. And who would blame a person living somewhere Michigan from thinking like this, with one of the most respected newspapers in the U.S. consistently promoting "concern" about Germany? The anti-German venom you spread, sometimes subtly, sometimes less so, does influence people.
How do you think an average Michigan reader would understand the headline? Someone who doesn't have any special interest in Germany? It will be read as "Hey guys! Freak show! The Nazis are back!" Unsurprisingly, another user felt reminded of a female SS guard looking at Ms Weidel. I believe that all this is fully intended, both by Mr. Cohen himself and by the editorial board of the New York Times, despite the more nuanced content of the article itself. It is a form of hate and revenge directed against 80 million people for crimes committed before their birth. Look at Cohen's articles "Europe's deepest debt" and "An unreliable Germany and the Volkswagen debacle", or his contribution "Is Germany complacent" to 'Die Zeit' to get an impression of less veiled expressions of this attitude.
These articles in particular show what happens when some people believe they can lash out at another nationality without losing their reputation among their liberal peer groups. I hope there will be an end to the respectability of this.
3
An similar feeling word Here would be clan, but with twist, a deliberate misspelling. KLAN. Yes, shudder.
2
Simple words like Volk come pre-loaded with lots of other words. Similar to 'states rights'. Loaded.
America, rip out the morphine drip now; They are goose-stepping down 5th Ave, up Main St., through the White House and into the Supreme Court.
4
Cosmopolitans and immigrants will not make America great again according to Stephen Miller and his neo-fascist boss.
1
A balanced article, on the whole. Cohen has apparently resisted the temptation to use the German election result as an opportunity to spew out his, well, feelings about Germany and the Germans, as he so skillfully did when the VW diesel scandal and the euro crisis were in the headlines.
Possibly, because even from a New York Times perspective, the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of pointing a finger at those "Germans showing their true nazi face again" has become too obvious in the world of Trump and Brexit, of Netanyahu, Kaczynski, Orban, and Le Pen. The undercurrent of prejudice must therefore remain as a gentle stream in the background.
"Return of the German Volk", was the headline. "Excuse me?", is my tired reply, tired of the double standard constantly applied to Germany, tired of the vague insinuations used to disguise slurs as civilized discourse. Cohen, if you want to say something there, spell it out, and make a case for it.
You see, I am part of this Volk, so are my friends and family. So are many people whose ancestors were not part of it. We are not "returning" anywhere, we do not like Gauland's racism, and we will not elect a grown-up version of Trump as our head of state, okay?
13
There has always been hatred in the world, those vermin (others). But now we have Leaders and government controlled by hatred with megaphones.
Usually, this hatred was directed at the Jews, the Blacks, now Mexicans and Muslims as well. Obviously, many whites believed the message.
When and if will America awake from this stupor and see the dangerous clown and his clown car entourage.
The a Republicans have shamelessly embraced this travesty. Russia certainly aided and abetted. The fault of the outdated Electoral College, where some states votes are weighted as more than one but several. This perfect storm created our current disaster.
1
Taking in more than a million people at one shot was excessive. Merkel should have been more modest.
Let us hope that the million she took in refrain from terrorist acts and raping German women. Otherwise we will see more like Gauland and what the New York Times says will make no difference.
Why progressives are utterly lacking in common sense is a mystery to me.
5
It is true that the Nazis used the term "Volk" excessively (Volkswagen, Volksempfänger for radio), but until you do not invent a new word for "people", we have to live with it, even if it comes out of Alexander Gauland's mouth.
In fact, he represents the former right wing of the Christian Democratic party, which was brushed aside by Angela Merkel. And just like Oskar Lafontaine formed a new party on the left when Schröder moved the Social Democrats to the centre, so did Gauland on the right. A new leader of the Christian Democrats might change that.
3
How is this different that Sharia law?
And the largest German car company retains the Nazi-given name "Volkswagen"- the promised car for the Deutsche Volk.
1
VW better take the Volk out of its name, Hitler used the word.
5
Hitler ate bread, wore underpants, drank beer, as far as I know he read a book or two, maybe we should burn all that and prohibit the use of it, because he did. Volk is, as stated in the article, a simple word in our language to describe the people of Germany. For my understanding, it includes everyone who decides to live legally in this country, independent where they or their parents were born. There are a lot of words that can be misused in every language, in many ways. To invent a new name just because someone else misused it, is simply wrong IMHO.
2
There are reasons why politics are shifting to the right in Europe. If this article was more balanced it would have stated them. Lets start with the obvious: immigration. Just before Xmas the number of refugees that arrived in Europe passed the million mark. It has been mass chaos. Thirteen thousand refugees arrived at Munich train station in one day in September, & the population of some villages in Germany doubled as refugees had to be accommodated in gyms & church halls. Was Europe’s socialist system the cause of the great influx of Muslim refugees? They aren't going to Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Iran. Could it be the the magnet is free stuff...welfare. There are no jobs for the refugees, so they go on public assistance. That's not going to happen in Kuwait...even if they could get in. Before the current crisis, Europe needed to ratchet back its social welfare programs. But now they’ve just added a million more hungry mouths to feed. Was that smart? Seems like someone should have asked this question. I think it is also fair to ask does it make sense to bring refugees 2,000 miles to Germany when there're closer alternatives? This column answers none of these questions. European politicians are understandably reflecting public sentiment. That's why they're moving to the right. Accepting more refugees has become a political taboo. After what happened, asylum is the third rail in Germany immigration policy. The right is getting stronger because the left totally screwed this up.
8
Certainly, we are reliving the experience of Germany in the 20's and 30's. We have a leader who can do no wrong in the eyes of his followers. We have a population of immigrants to demonize as rapists and murderers. There are external threats from mud people diluting our white nation. The Jews are again ruling the world from their banks. No lie is too outrageous; no call for violence too far beyond the pall.
This is not going away because of protests with thousands in the streets. Roy Moore will be a Senator soon. Roy, who is a font of hatred, bigotry, and Dominionism will be voting on laws that impact us all. The ONLY way this stops is for voters to give a damn, get off their fannies, and actually vote, hurdles and all. Stop with the phony "There is no difference, so why vote" nonsense.
BTW - The line quoted from "For What It's Worth" was written by Steven Stills of Buffalo Springfield, not Bob Dylan. That aside, it is certainly appropriate these days.
3
The line is from Dylan's 'Ballad of a Thin Man' on Highway 61 Revisited. '...You don't know what it is, do you, Mr Jones?' Not 'Something's happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear...' from 'For What It's Worth'. Sorry to be pedantic.
I don't think the Nazis are back, though given his family history, nobody could blame Mr. Cohen for being a little skittish!
Nonetheless, though not having as many J-points as Mr. Cohen (I am a mere halfie, though the right half, and not raised), I'd like to disagree. Merkel's loaded the country with more migrants than it can reasonably assimilate, particularly as it doesn't have the sort of immigrant history that New World nations have. While most countries, most prominently our own, can and do benefit from immigration, it must be carefully managed, just as you have to watch what you eat or you'll get diabetes and heart disease.
1
Alexander Gauland is on a personal revenge path against his former party, the Christian Democratic Union. He was humiliated by the secretary of this party, Hermann Gröhe, a man that was called a Depp (stupid) in a Spiegel-Online report of today. So he left the CDU and Joined the AfD. He will soon disappear since this new party has no practicable program.
The much bigger problem is the rise of millions of frustrated and mainly discontent people, mainly in the Eastern part of Germany bordering to Poland and the Czech Republic. They were easy fodder for the power dreaming of the AfD. The scene is reminiscent to the election of November 1932 when the NSDAP lodged a surprise victory. But the general condition is different today. Most of these Eastern voters aren't taken seriously by those in the Western part of the country.
1
There is only one way to destroy tribalism but it will never be implemented. Every Western nation has blood and soil citizenship. Take that away and things will change. Why should anybody automatically become a citizen based on these pseudo Nazi criteria? Citizenship should be earned through merit. Lets have a debate on who is worthy of citizenship.
1
Who defines who deserves to be a citizen ?
If someone doesn't earn his merit, is he/she without a citizenship, do they loose all their rights ? Like the right to vote ?
There is a good reason why this idea will never be implemented - it is inhuman, it is folly.
1
German leadership was the Not-Sees.
The German people are the Not-Sees.
Was it 20 million? A hundred Million?
Willkommen Komeraden in der Bürgerbräukeller!
Richard writes, "Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
This is untrue. My tenuous interest in astronomy was kindled by a knowledgeable friend who made me feel stupid about my complete ignorance of the topic. I was persuaded to study philosophy after being made to feel stupid about by lack of acquaintance with Plato and Aristotle, whom I realized I should know.
Being made to feel stupid is not fun nor is it especially good for one's self esteem. But it is one of the most persuasive motivators around.
I fear you are not speaking of being made to feel stupid. You are likely speaking of stupid people who refuse to feel stupid.
1
Voters in Germany and the US are helping the terrorists. Extreme positions on the right are not the answer for the world's ills. Extremism on one side, be it Christianity, Islam, or economics, breeds extremism on the other side. Moving into extremist corners is not a sign of strength and is no solution. The only solution is love and understanding, which our US Executive Branch certainly lacks.
"Peace for our time"
Neville Chamberlain after he Munich Agreement 1938 with Hitler.
By the way:
We have millions of refugees from muslim countries coming to europe. And only in that direction. We are imbalanced, we need a reason for those people not to come, unless there is an utter need.
1
Poor oxen on their way to goring. The hypocrisy of rank capitalists dependent on a classist society - like this author - who mouth socialist platitudes while they live like privileged potentates fear those they loathe - they being the working classes of the world. The people who do the paying, the fighting and the dying so swells like this author may jet around the world, extending their enormous carbon footprints, while lecturing the rest of us. Your day is coming to a close. Yes the People, the Volk of your nightmares, are on the rise. The luxurious lifestyles that prey on societies will indeed be....impacted. Hypocrisy is a greater crime than any street felony and many smartasses will be made to pay the price.
5
Another case of Reductio ad Hitlerum in the NY Times. This fallacy appears almost daily in its pagess.
-Hitler was a vegetarian. Mr X is a vegetarian. Therefore Mr X is a Nazi.
-Hitler said 'Volk'. Gauland said 'Volk'. Therefore Gauland is a Nazi.
Nazi, Nazi, Nazi. Just keep yelling Nazi and pointing the finger at people you disagree with. Not an argument.
13
It would be wonderful if Israel would take in Syrian refugees and let them live in the Golan Heights. Roger Cohen has considerable public influence in Israel (much more than in the US White House and Congress). Could he use his influence to encourage the Israel government to do a little bit to help with the refugee problem right at their doorstep. The Golan Heights used to be part of Syria so it would be a reasonable request.
11
Our own ruling party has spent the last twenty years on a rhetorical romp from homeland (heimat!) under threat to "real America" to "take our country back." So before we go criticizing the resurgent fascist splinter in Germany's eye, we may want to look at the plank in our own.
Or on second thought, perhaps not. Maybe considering the times, the lugenpresse should keep mum... Oops! Sorry, slipped into Nazi German again. Meant to say "the lying media."
9
All we need, Roger Cohen, is - oy - `the return of the German Volk`. Lord spare the world from the machinations of another Dritte Reich redux. Germany of the 20th century is gone with the wind, danke sehr und vielmals. Electing AfD extremist reps to the Reichstag - `take back our country and our Volk!`- is as heinous and reprehensible as electing Donald Trump America`s 45th President.
5
At least Germany got Merkel through its parliamentary system and she is also de facto leader of the free world; succeeding in doing what FDR did in winning four terms in office.
We got Trump through an electoral system in which the vote of the 'volk didn't really count and Trumpism is now headed in even more extreme directions with the election of extremist Roy Moore in an Alabama senate primary.
21
A comment? All right.
I notice that the abomination of multi-generational refugee families is
repeating itself everywhere. There i s today,close on by this essay, the sentiment that "We are all Jews now.". This will probably be news to the Palestinians,
many of whom are third- - or fourth-generation refugees and are treated like a bone in the throat of their brother Arab nations--no regular jobs, no regular schools, , etc. etc. Many refugees seem worse off than Gaza because Gaza at least has the world's attention.
arcaneo ne
9
"treated like a bone in the throat of their brother Arab nations"
But those refugees can't go home either, can they? Why not?
Because the war in which they lost their homes has never
been formally ended with a valid ironclad peace treaty. Despite
the fact that there is at this moment much less Israeli-
Palestinian violence, at the moment there is only a lull.
I further note that while the Geneva Conventions forbid
forced transfer out of one's homeland, and forbid as well
governments refusing to allow political prisoners to return
t o their respective homelands if they are already outside those homelands, Cuba(according to yesterday's NYTimes)
is doing exactly that, yet there is at best only the most
minimal protest. I'll believe you and those like you are not
hypocrites
when I see you apply the Geneva Conventions in all cases
of forced transfer and exile, and not just against the
favorite enemy of so many people.
arcaneone
America's VolksParty controls both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. America is now the greatest threat the world has ever known.
148
It's to our great good fortune that they don't know what to do with their power; or knowing, are unable to use it effectively. After at least eight years of being committed to opposition rather than achievement, they've forgotten the elements of governing... if they every knew them.
1
Rich, what would you call the party that has turned Chicago, Detroit, Philly, Baltimore & DC into crumbling, decaying cities?
It's good to be the King.....
2
or it would be if America's Volksparty was actually more intelligent and better organised than a bunch of pre-schoolers...
Germany STILL needs to be watched. Two world wars taught the world.
2
When we come up with a good answer to counter nationalism, watch us and maybe for once copy us.
It isn't surprising that a country that suddenly took in 1 million refugees would experience a backlash against that decision. It's made even less surprising when none of the mainstream parties seriously questioned the decision, leaving doubters nowhere to go except the far right.
The AfD is the beneficiary of a one-off event and the resulting protest vote. Unless, they are able to sustain their gains over time people shouldn't get overly concerned. Vigilant yes, overly concerned no.
30
To which I would add the frightfully Germanic word "homeland," which until George Bush the younger stepped onto the stage, hardly existed in the American vocabulary. Now it is institutionalized.
9
Well, often Mr Cohen irritates me with his ill-informed Francophilia (ie, like most French, based on a selective, rosy view of French culture and history, as if they weren't one of the (two) top, ruthless colonial powers - burning the Summer Palace in Beijing is akin to say Japanese troops grounding Versailles with the help of Koreans because some diplomats would be killed during some local revolution riot in Paris; or still the recent history of the entire denial and makeup of their WWII role - including the fact that their resistance was objectively a failure that 3 months away from D-day had been completely decapitated by the Germans as the recent Pantheon-induction of last leader & hero Pierre Brossolette recently exposed and whose role was covered if not wiped for 75 years) but in this case he wrote an excellent piece of precise, broad-viewed, clear synthesis - I would dare to say French-influenced thinking at its best - of the current state of the world, as good as any that you would be able to fit in less than 20 paragraphs.
3
I'm not as worried about Germany as my own country the USA. We have an incompetent fool as president. Germany has competent leader as prime minister and as they say a fish rots from the head.
14
Uh, Roger Cohen, how many Syrian refugees has Israel taken in?
You know, Israel has annexed by right of conquest a pretty underpopulated place where they could give haven to Syrian refugees, some of whom would be feel right at home there: the Golan Heights. Why should Syrian refugees have to move all the way to cold, rainy German, when the sunny, mild Golan Heights is right next door in what the world community still considers Syria?
17
Steve, you seem to forget that the "conquest" was the result of a defensive war, an attack meant to annihilate Israel. I don't see you offering your home back to the Native Americans, land certainly taken by conquest, much of which happened only a few decades before Israel was founded by its British conquerors. And our nation is bigger than Israel by an order of magnitude, yet many of our citizens don't want to accept Syrian refugees either.
2
Uh, Steve do you remember a group of evil guys in Germany like 70-80 years ago? I'll give you a hint: the groups name begins with an N and ends in an azi. A lot of the people in Israel were victims of this group.
Germany should take in 100 times the poor huddled masses from around the world they have already taken in. They owe it to the world for their past sins. The people of Israel were sinned against. They only thing they owe the world is their own survival.
1
I find it very interesting that this right-ward shift is happening world-wide. Yes, the German swing to "Volk" and "völkisch" is especially worrisome, but it has startling similarities with Trump's "Make America Great Again" and the Brexit emphasis on "taking back control". The trends in Poland, Hungary and Turkey are much more overtly aimed at destroying democratic institutions, but with the same nationalist fervor.
This phenomenon will hopefully run its course without world-wide conflagration, but only if the societal and especially democratic institutions remain up to the task. In Germany this means in the short run forming a stable government which learns to deal "democratically" with the anti-democratic AfD. In the longer run the outcome will be determined by how well Germany deals with "integration", both the integration of the old East Germany (there are huge cultural and social differences, as demonstrated by the relative popularity of the AfD in East and West), and the integration of the new refugees, as well as the better integration of the previous waves of "guest workers".
In the US it will mean surviving the incompetence and idiocy of two of the three democratic pillars - the Presidency and Congress, both currently completely dysfunctional. The judicial system is the only one, which still seems to be partially functional. The current Constitution, with its artificial two-party system, where radical strains can co-opt an entire party, may not be up to the task.
5
You forgot to include Putin's Russia in the mix plus the internet and social media. We are in uncharted territory here. The Fascists in the thirties were very successful at using the new medium of radio to their advantage. The internet, as has already been seen (2016) is far more powerful. I think WB Yeats poem "The Second Coming" is appropriate right now.
2
The two party system is never even mentioned in the Constitution. It developed as a self protection racket for political operatives many years after the signing. With a hodge-podge of parties a) the people would get what they want, and b) political careers would be much shorter. Which is exactly what the Founders intended.
This, actually, is the root of our problem. Even I, liberal as the day is long, couldn't bring myself to vote for Clinton. I stayed home. Imagine if all those voters who "held their nose and voted for Trump" had been given a real choice. Or if the DNC hadn't had control over the Electors. We might be talking about Pres. Sanders right now!
1
Or, another way to look at it: People in Europe are tired of being blown to pieces or run down by lorries, and then being told that it is racist to object.
141
If your definition of "object" is to demonize a whole population for the acts of a few extremists, then yes that would be racist. But nearly all people, including >99% of the population you perhaps demonize, are " tired of being blown to pieces or run down by lorries"
5
Yeah, but the answer isn't to hate all non-while Europeans or to fear all "others."
2
Being tired of terrorism is only too understandable, but it's not a justification for hateful racism. The racists of Europe and America are tired of the presence of onon-Europeans and vigorously want them gone from their countries without regard as to whether they commit acts of murderous rampage or not.
2
Trump, and his ally, Putin, support the rise of these detestable alt-Reich movements, in the United States and Europe. Putin's motive is clear: Weaken the west. What is Trump's?
10
To hear adoring mobs chant his name, perhaps?
6
Money, power and confirmation of his superiority.
3
German volk today, resurgence of dangerous nationalism in Germany?
No surprise to me. All across the world most people identify by racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, national identities. Nobel prizes for peace, Pulitzers, genius awards, etc. are given out to people who talk at best of "mutual toleration", "multi-culturalism", "respecting the other's viewpoint", when any dunce can observe that all these racial, ethnic, religious, etc. identities are harmful, divisive, act in immutable fashion, and that mutual toleration is merely these systems running in parallel, alternately aggressive/passive aggressive, playing one day the victim, next day attacking, ruining countless lives with every form of pernicious accusation, employing thousands of the best minds to develop technology by which a race or ethnicity or religion or culture or nation can be protected over the others...
Let me just just say outright that most people are cowards if not entirely stupid. Any dunce can observe that races, ethnicities need to interbreed, and fast, that religion must decline precipitously, that concepts such as "mutual toleration" are absurd. People must form their identities in vastly more useful fashion to each other, become seriously educated, acquire vocation. It has to be the height of irony that any dunce in society is familiar with jobs created and destroyed yet people persist in utterly useless racial, ethnic, religious, etc. identifications. I thank my stars I became a writer, a man.
6
Indeed, far-right leaders need popular legitimacy to justify their raison d'être. Britain's former UKIP leader, Nigel Farage loves to reflect the views of the "British people," and Germany's AfD leader, Alexander Gauland has vowed to give the "German people" a homeland back (dem Deutschen Volk eine Heimat). And Trump speaks only for himself, if not for the 46% of US voters.
As alarming as the fact that the AfD has now "94" seats in the parliament, the question is whether its lawmakers will be able to get their act together inside the Bundestag. As in the US there is hope and confidence, that AfD’s momentum will soon be stopped by constitutional safeguards and the slow grind of parliamentary procedure. Many of the votes they gained were cast in protest against Merkl's policy. If AfD lawmakers become rabble-rousers they will alienate much of the population, that loves law and order.
10
Last week I met a cousin of my in-laws at a funeral. He was a very bright auto tech who works exclusively on Mercedes cars.
I asked him if he spoke German, since many of the parts contain instructions in only that language. He laughed and said he did not, but he said the Germans "over-engineered" their product, like it was a full employment project for people with engineering degrees. Changing transmission fluid, a 5 minute process on U.S. vehicles, requires removal of a fluid pan and six aluminum bolts which expand/contract with temperature and frequently brake during the process, at about $50 a pop.
If England, as Napoleon commented, is "a nation of shopkeepers," Gernany is a nation of engineers. But of what?
6
That reminds me of when I was a military spouse in Germany in the 1960's. The range in the kitchen of our apartment in post housing made me wonder how the Germans had the courage (chuzpah?) to start a war.
"Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
But they are stupid. They are stupid because they won't listen. They are stupid because they refuse to think. We hear the term "critical thinking" a lot. I just call it "thinking". Those who follow the racists aren't thinking, they are reacting. They are being emotional. Logic and reason have no no effect on them. They feel, so they do. The purveyor's of racism feed that hate, those ancient tribal emotions.
Hate overpowers thinking, always did, always will. Hate overpowers reason. Hate makes people stupid. That's why there is so much stupidity.
271
That may be your opinion but if someone is tell you that you are stupid. It is less likely for you to vote for said candidate especially when other candidates tell you what you want to hear.
3
This is easy. You need to convince the approximately 70 million stupid people who did not vote for H of your brilliance.
Too bad reason is so helpless against stupidity, once stupidity is fully weaponized. The neocon Jews who tried to "protect" Likud Israel by abandoning the hated Carter and Democratic liberalism in 1980 to help the Reagan Republicans make the white American masses stupider than ever found out in Charlottesville just what a dangerous card fascist racism is to play. Now these Jews, like it or not, have been part of the rise of Republican fascism that's given us the "Christian" theocrat Robert Moore for dessert. What will the "Christian" fanaticism so eagerly bankrolled by Adelson and AIPAC end up giving Israel in the end? What a shock that the racism neocons encouraged against blacks since Reagan is now waving swastikas right along with nooses.
2
In our current climate it would be very easy to dismiss those who keep saying they want their country back as simply out of touch or racist but that would be too easy. Anytime there are major shifts to society there are always those who are left behind. Rather than turning our backs on them we should listen to the pain beneath the rhetoric and find solutions where we can.
FDR understood this. He was perhaps the only president who had a social worker as an advisor. Francis Perkins helped FDR address the immediate concerns of the American people until recovery took place. Programs like social security, the civilian conservation corps, the civilian works agency, the committee on economic security, and the fireside chats all demonstrated that the president cared about the concerns of the American people and was taking concrete steps to address their concerns.
Change is scary. Multiculturalism, inequality, the refugee and migrant crisis, the disdain for the elites are all coming from a place of fear. Right now we need a marshall plan for the world. Our governments need to stop fighting, stop judging, and come up with solutions that will make their citizens lives better. Doing so will put the pesky problem with xenophobia to bed for the most part.
57
I'd argue that a "fear of elites" does not come out of fear but critical thinking. For example the 160 private jets crowding the runways at Davos, hardly suggest good things to come for the majority of people. Anyone with any sense of the moment would suspect the good intentions of the damning conformity demanded by the efficiency-obsessed promoters of globalizations.
The elites—those who enjoy privileges and prerogatives bought by money or position—determine how well or how poorly we live. One simply has travel by commercial airline, or walk the streets of any major city and look up at infernal towering shives and shanks, exiting to wipe out any sense of individual human, or personally acquired tastes.
No there are excellent, thoughtful reasons to both fear and abhor the individual-breaking mores and methods of the "elites."
2
Ami, FDR addressed the concerns of the *white* American people, not all "the American people. He allowed black people to be summarily excluded from all those New Deal programs you cited.
I am not disputing the good he did, nor that racial discrimination was the price of getting white consensus, but let us not whitewash the fact that those programs were passed only by perpetuating racial injustice and inequality.
We have not changed so much since then, I'm afraid. Economic equality is based on social equality, not the other way round. To many whites perceive non-whites as a threat, not a potential alliance for economic relief.
1
As long as the economy works, right? -for both the government and people. Now is the time to look at the next fifty years accurately and realistically. Government and politicians are particularly inept at this, including Democrats.
1
Yes, we should, "beware." Yeats also referred to time when, "the worst are full of passionate intensity," while, "the best lack all conviction." A segment of would-be leaders has always relied on fear and hate. It's when this kind of demagogue succeeds we should be fearful. Donald Trump is the outcome of rising hate and fear stirred by a rapidly changing world which has not featured leaders who want to represent those left behind. Trump filled the void, not with a message of inclusion and progress, but with appeals to division and regress. Absent leaders who can build unity and optimism, we will reap the whirlwind.
175
"Trump filled the void, not with a message of inclusion and progress..."
Ms. Clinton's message was "Forward together." It clearly did not resonate with enough voters. Those who oppose Trump need to understand why it didn't. Though self-examination is hard, It is just as important to understand why the so-called "best" lacked conviction.
Hate and fear have been the tool of the GOP since the Nixon days. The tool
has since been honed and automated to the point that it has now turned on it's master. The GOP sowed the wind, now the reaping has begun.
4
"Absent leaders who can build unity and optimism, we will reap the whirlwind."
Agreed. We can have 100% citizen participation in our democracy but it is no use if we don't have decent leaders to vote for. So how do we produce decent leaders? Since Ike there has not been a decent leader in America. You may want to count Barak Obama as a decent leader. In that case this society cannot claim credit for producing him as a leader since he was so inexperienced. Looking back at history I am confident to say that good leaders are given, a gift to the society. I am particularly impressed by the extraordinary high concentration of great talent in America at the time of founding of this nation. Many of them are also young and inexperienced. That is how I see America as exceptional and I am afraid it is no more.
What has enabled extremists has been an uninformed populace. Social media has usurped the role of the press. Fake news abounds mon that new media. The recent revelation of how Russia has manipulated our uninformed is amazing. An it was easy!
In our country we have an administration that despises public education, has an excellent propaganda machine propelled by Faux News, and knows how to use social media. An example is Facebook is full of praise for how Trump is handling the disaster in Puerto Rico, in reality it as worse than Bush and N.O.
The mainstream media needs support by readership and listeners.
52
"What has enabled extremists has been an uninformed populace."
A former US President once said that people don't usually vote their hopes, they vote their fears. It is important to understand what those fears are if they are to be effectively countered. Ignoring or belittling them is not a viable option.
1
I find myself always concerned by those who proclaim that they wish to "take back our country" as if some nefarious force has it. It would be one thing to "take back one's country" from a colonial power, or a tyrannical dictator, or a Hitler for instance...but in the current meaning it seems to be a desire to take the country back to a fantasized past, or take it from those who offer too many civil rights to people considered "inferior" by far right wing groups. "taking back the country" would be taking it from the rest of the country.
85
Much as I want to argue against the position in this article, and want to believe that this 'völkisch' strain in Germany is an American-perspective mirage based on World War II-based perceptions, I have to admit it's quite spot on. The only line I would dispute is "even a country with a strong economy and low unemployment is not immune to the anger and fear that feeds the AfD". Germany, like America, cannot be said to have one economic identity, and one employment identity. There are clearly two -- the vast majority of Germany, which is economically and employment-wise in good shape, and certain regions of East Germany, which are depressed and have rampant unemployment. There have been populist protest parties in the west which have had much in common with the AfD but were not explicitly right-wing, such as the law-and-order Schill Partei in Hamburg in the late 90's. It's the reactionary right-wing support the AfD gets, and stokes, in East Germany that is most troubling, and unique, about the current developments.
43
Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!
If America wants to be free of immigants and all white again, then the "fine people" Trump supporters should start by speaking German and make him their fuhrer.
9
Your implied notion is that Germans are inherently racist and this is nonsense. Germans have a deep sense of history and what their country caused and have worked to atone for it ever since. They have far more introspection and the only reason that AfD was able to garner 13% was because people have for so long been trained that they cannot object to anything happening in their country by foreigners without labeling (themselves) racist. But one million NEW refugees mostly male, lacking education, a totally different culture, etc. getting billions of euros per year in state benefits was too much even for the self-effacing Germans. When your kid can no longer play sports because all the sports halls have been turned Refugee housing and women get followed by strange men in grocery stores who can't speak a word of German you can see why people feel like they have to do something.
And, the leader of the AfD by the way is a married lesbian with kids. Not exactly fitting the stereotypical picture.
4
I am always amazed how American commentary of Germany always ends up in the range of twelve years last century. Having been born in the 70s, my view is more contemporary and my reaction to the topic of extremism is that fringe groups (on the left or right, peaceful or violent) do exist and every once in a while get more attention. It is indeed up to us all to correct those tendencies and their underlying causes.
But the example of the AfD should be highly educative for Americans. The German political system leads to such fringe groups only receiving a reasonably small number of votes (13% which represents less than 10% of all Germans). Certainly, the AfD is now in the parliament, but not as part of a governing coalition, only as a very small minority.
In contrast, in the US, a fringe movement has managed to attain the highest power in the land (even if only by implicit support), mainly because of a non-proportional voting system. It's important to remember that less than 30% of Americans actually voted for Trump. That is quite dangerous and a clear sign that America should look much more at election reform.
Words can indeed be used in many ways. "Volk" has a positive connotation for me. It's simply a descriptor of the population, which as you pointed out, in modern Germany as well as the US is multicultural. There is no need for eternal comparisons to a time that has long gone by.
196
Thank you.
1
Volk should have a positive connotation but to ignore the Evil from a time long gone by makes us doomed to repeat it. Even though many are gone by either a evil hand or just time the haunting visions in their nightmares and stench of death lives on.
3
Interesting that "Volk" has a positive connotation for you--I get that. For some of us, however, that word can only be associated with the Nazi era. So much so, that the common use of the words "folk" or "folks" by today's leaders, even those of whom I agree with, sends shivers up my spine.
"The worst form of liberal arrogance is to dismiss the forces that brought Trump to power and are feeding resurgent nationalism around the world. Nobody was ever persuaded by being made to feel stupid."
That may well be. But bending over backwards to accommodate the intolerable gives us the nightmare we're living today.
Roger Cohen, we do see history repeating itself in the world today. Maybe not with a clown like Trump despite the forces that propelled him there. But certainly overseas.
The manipulation of past memory to fuel a desire to recreate a past that never existed can't end well. There are ways to power, and then, changed behavior that makes a mockery of said power.
Which is what we're seeing here now--everything predicted with a Trump election is coming true, and then some. Yes, he's worse than even the most imaginative liberal could imagine.
Today's Boston Globe has an article on 50 immigrants arrested by ICE agents. I haven't read it yet, but its very presence reminds me of a Globe front-page parody in April 1, of 2016, projected to April 2017, with every Trump campaign promise coming true that day.
What was intended as parody, a frightening glimpse of something that surely couldn't happen, is actually happening.
Yes, Roger Cohen, the world-- "it is a changing." Which begs the question, what now?
65
Germany is experiencing the same types of problems that other countries do, but their manufacturing sector has softened the impact. Try to imagine from one perspective the struggle to find good work and then watching your country welcome millions from around the world. I'm not trying to justify anything, just offering observations. Neoliberal economic policies appear to have a consistent downside.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/world/europe/germany-election-inequal...®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=9&pgtype=sectionfront
Merkel Says Germans ‘Never Had It Better.’ But Many Feel Left Behind.
German poverty may sound like an oxymoron. But the disparity between the rich and poor has widened during Ms. Merkel’s 12 years in power, leaving nearly 16 percent of the population at risk of poverty, according to government figures. This incongruity has ushered in greater insecurity in a country that prides itself on its equitable social market system.
That prosperity is often credited to Germany’s early embrace of neoliberal economic programs, versions of which are now being snapped into place even by President Emmanuel Macron of France.
Many are the working poor whose incomes are not enough to sustain them. More than seven million people hold so-called mini-jobs, part-time positions without any contributions to health insurance.
24
"More than seven million people hold so-called mini-jobs, part-time positions without any contributions to health insurance."
That may be so, but they still have full access to free healthcare and not even the AfD disputes that. Looking at the political spectrum, the AfD sits to the left of the Freedom Caucus and their politics largely align with the center of the GOP. When GOP representative speak of the American People, they mean 'Real Americans', white and rural.
3
Which is going to make things worse as Europe built a strong culture around a group identity. Which makes it very hard to transition from a culture with a long memory, to one which would respond positively to a increase in diversity beyond the typical European, do we want to spend more or less on welfare elections. Combine that with a tightening job market and you don't have a pretty situation.
1
The rightest trend in Europe and America so skillfully analyzed by Mr. Cohen reflects one of the challenges to the survival of democracy. Diverse societies, although their advantages greatly outweigh their disadvantages, can strain the sense of community essential to the success of a polity dependent on voluntary consent.
America, which has faced this challenge throughout its history, has attempted to overcome it by replacing ethnic and religious uniformity with adherence to political ideals as the source of our unity. The suspicion and disdain that have greeted each wave of immigrants, however, underscore our incomplete success in achieving this goal. Except in times of crisis, our sense of community remains rather loose and often contentious, a partial explanation for why we experience such difficulty in building a consensus to support government programs to aid the vulnerable among us, who often belong disproportionately to marginalized groups.
The influx of immigrants into Europe indicates that the continental democracies will also face the dilemma of how to build social unity from diverse ethnic and cultural elements. The revived popularity of the term, "volk" in Germany mirrors the emphasis among some Trump supporters on white grievances.
Richard Luettgen rightly notes that much of the rightest reaction here and in Europe stems from the pace of cultural and economic change. Here and in Europe, our welfare depends on how well we grapple with this problem.
26
But European societies are not built that way in that will not be changed quickly on a continent with a long memory, and a strong culture in difficult economic times.
3
"The influx of immigrants into Europe indicates that the continental democracies will also face the dilemma of how to build social unity from diverse ethnic and cultural elements."
One of the big differences between Germany and other countries in Europe, and the US, is that they have never been and are not now multi-cultural societies. For all of the challenges the US has faced with race and immigration, we are still much more about the "out of many, one" ideal than Europe. The other major difference is the US's current immigration laws and guidelines, which place a high priority the potential of all immigrants for successful assimilation.
8
Yes -
but let's not forget that in Germany only 13 percent of ''the Volk'' went for ''taking back our country'' and how much was it in our ''homeland''?
135
"Homeland ... "
I knew that America was transforming itself into Amerika when its ignorant, tone-deaf politicians began using a word so redolent of Nazi Germany.
5
The Nazis in Germany got 33% of the vote in 1932, but were in power a year later. That's also fewer than in our homeland.
4
The chick definitely looks scary, like all those 1970s Nazi concentration camp porn movies. I can see Alice Weidel in jack boots, with a whip. Alexander Gauland, on the other hand, simply looks like an aging German actor phoning in a hemorrhoid commercial. But nobody on Germany’s far-right holds a candle in scariness to Geert Wilders of the Netherlands. That guy would scare God off his throne.
Social movement forward is, to a great extent, progressive in ideological cast. There are exceptions, such as the Third Reich and Myanmar, but they tend not to last for one thousand years and more like twelve or thirteen. Yet wise leaders manage the introduction of change favoring progressive values with an eye to what the “volk” can accommodate without rebelling. Angela Merkel, for all her success at “unity” governments and yet another mandate as German chancellor, clearly miscalculated that pace – not as badly yet as Brits have, or as we have, but her pace of change has been too rapid, as well. The same can be said pretty much throughout the West.
We can demonize a very natural response to a too-rapid thrust forward that leaves people high and dry who knew less challenged verities and aren’t comfortable with needing to turn on a dime to accept new ones; but we’re still left with that rising “populist” reaction.
Effective leaders need to learn not so much to retrench as to better pace productive change to fit within the limitations and capacity for change of the “volk”.
70
Perhaps there was a time when "effective leaders" were able to "pace productive change." That time is long past. The pace of the growth of knowledge, both human and now non-human, is accelerating. This growth is rapid during peacetime and even more rapid during war. Our laws are hopelessly behind our technological capacity which spans the globe and exists supra-nationally. In the words of the author Alvin Toffler, we have encountered "Future Shock."
62
Paul:
Your view of the pressing nature of progressive change despite limitations in popular capacity to accommodate it simply condemns us to perpetual cycles of populist rebellion. That ain't no way to run a cathouse or grow a society successfully.
Our leaders need to find ways to address the pressures to change in ways and at a pace that people can accommodate WITHOUT rebelling. Or our societies will consist of narrow elites, pompously self-satisfied that they've done "the right thing", while the vast bulk of our populations will be left behind, miserable and perpetually warring.
34
''while the vast bulk of our populations will be left behind, miserable and perpetually warring.''
Not really in Germany - Germans love their workers and ''the vast bulk'' of the German population is currently pretty well cared off -(with good wages - long vacations - secure jobs - excellent payable health care and free education) - so it's more or less the small-mindedness and all the other very unpleasant Trumplike character trades which brings out the worst (also in the German) 'people'...
43