The word “swastika” derives from Sanskrit स्वस्तिक meaning “conducive to well-being.” The swastika symbol, 卐 (right-facing or clockwise) or 卍 (left-facing, counterclockwise, or sauwastika), represents an ancient religious icon in cultures of Eurasia.
Used as a sign of divinity and spirituality in Indian religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, in the Western world it was a symbol of auspiciousness and good luck until the 1930s when German Nazis tiled the right-facing figure as an insignia of the so-called Aryan race and, thereby, corrupted and perverted its long-standing positive meaning.
And the big lie ended in the death and injury of millions of civilians and military service members throughout the world and in the Holocaust terminating the lives of millions more.
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Reich Minister of Propaganda, tilted his swastika clenched hand when he declared ultimately:
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.
And what about all the millions who went along with the big lie in word and action, from the citizenry to throughout the ranks of government? What accountability do they, should they have in the aftermath of the lie? What judgment have they and should they still undergo for their culpability?
The post-War Nuremberg Trials brought to justice some of the high-ranking officials, while others suffered no consequences. An example in the latter category was Kurt Waldheim, a former Secretary-General of the United Nations who became a candidate for and won the presidency of Austria in 1986.
The World Jewish Congress disclosed that during WWII, Waldheim served as a German military officer active in the Balkans when tens of thousands of Jews from Salonica were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration camp in Poland.
Henry Wallace, progressive Democrat and Vice President of the United States, 1941-1945 under Franklin Delano Roosevelt defined a “fascist,” foreign and domestic:
A fascist is one whose lust for money or power,” he said, “is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.
This big lie, the cornerstone on which many countries including the United States were built, was given so much oxygen over the past few decades, and especially during the Trump regime as to combust figuratively as well as literally.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. — Voltaire
On its surface, the motto “Make America Great Again” appears somewhat reasonable and something to achieve if one is ignorant about U.S. history.
The problem, the big lie embedded within the far-right-facing MAGA insignia is that it represents a call to action, a call to take the country back to a mythical age that never existed of a white Christian nativist United States in the German equivalent of an Aryan race where non-Aryans must be put in their “place,” expelled, or terminated.
The outcome of the lie resulted in nearly one-half million people dead, a collapse of the economy, further wage and health gaps between white people and people of color, insurrectionists attempting to hold the government hostage as well as our democratic institutions.
And for what? For a narcissistic sociopath to gain and hold onto power through appealing to white grievance politics.
The post-Trump Senate impeachment trial and future civil tribunals may ultimately bring some degree of justice to Trump and possibly some of the primary perpetrators under him for the corruption surrounding this presidency. It seems perfectly clear that others – the colluders and actors in perpetuating the big lie – will suffer no consequences.
Like Kurt Waldheim before, some perpetrators remain in elected office and others have thrown in their metaphoric hats.
One such person is Sarah Huckabee Sanders:
With the radical left now in control of Washington, your governor is your last line of defense. In fact, your governor must be on the front line. So today I announce my candidacy for governor of Arkansas,
said Sanders in a nearly eight-minute announcement video released Monday, January 25, 2021.
“Enabler” is the term given to those who fail to act to help abusers. “Passive bystander” or “bad Samaritan” is the name for people who are conscious of bad actions developing around them but fail to intervene or even amplify the abuse.
Enabling and passively standing by take many forms, including literally conspiring with an abuser in a sinister plot, contributing in the denial process of aggressors by asserting or downplaying the seriousness and making excuses for their behaviors, translating for others what the person “really meant,” downright lying, and so on.
How many times have we heard, “He didn’t mean it that way. What he really meant to say was…” and “You are misunderstanding him.”
Sarah Huckabee Goebbels, Trump Minister of Propaganda and Disinformation, frequently verbally attacked members of the press at her White House press briefings who posed important questions or saw through the big lie by challenging the president’s reasoning or truthfulness.
For example, at a press briefing January 11, 2018, just hours before more of Trump’s racist immigration comments, several reporters asked Sanders for clarification of the president’s early-morning tweets concerning a House of Representatives reauthorization vote on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which they found contradictory and perplexing.
“House votes on controversial FISA ACT today.’ This is the act that may have been used, with the help of the discredited and phony Dossier, to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump Campaign by the previous administration and others? — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2018
Sanders initially responded,
We weren’t confused.
His tweet today was contradictory,” said Hallie Jackson, NBC Chief White House correspondent. “It was confusing. It just was.
Unable to offer any reasoned clarification, Huckabee Goebbels went into personal attack mode: “Uh…” she replied, “I think that the premise of your question is completely ridiculous and shows the lack of knowledge that you have on this process.”
I often wondered how Trump’s enablers could and still can sleep at night and get back up in the morning willing to degrade and prostrate themselves by attacking our democratic institutions and seriously dismantling our country’s standing in the world.
Each time anyone enables an abusive action, they keep perpetrators and themselves further from the truth and from help, and they diminish themselves and their integrity more than just a bit.
Throughout his campaign and throughout his term in office, Donald Trump energized his base of supporters by consistently blaming and attacking the media generally as well as specific outlets. A very brief sampling includes:
[Journalists are] among the most dishonest human beings on earth.” He continually called them “liars” whenever they write stories unflattering to him and his administration, though The Washington Post documented Trump making over 30,000 lies in office.
The failing New York Times wrote a big, long front-page story yesterday. And it was very much discredited, as you know.
At press conferences, Trump told reporters to “sit down” when they asked questions he did not like, and he referred to a “running war” with the media. He even accused “freedom of the press” as the cause of terrorist bombings in the U.S.
Donald Trump’s combative Press Secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders – who “always [does her] best to treat people…respectively…” — was asked to leave a Virginia restaurant for defending and attempting to justify Trump’s divisive policies and constant torrent of lies, and for supporting Trump’s bigotry.
While no one should be denied service based on their views or social identities, the would-be autocrat’s lackey got a bitter taste of Trump’s own toxic medicine.
At White House press briefings, Huckabee Sanders reiterated Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ assertion of supposed Biblical mandates to adhere to civil law in their justification for the separation of migrant children from their families as they fled terror in their native lands.
Sanders defended the Supreme Court’s decision favoring the owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, Jack Phillips, who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado on religious grounds. When pressed by Michael Shear, a reporter for The New York Times, Sanders asserted it would be fine for businesses to hang a sign in their window saying they will not serve LGBTQ people.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the mean girl we all had to endure in middle school, continually violated her vow to uphold her Evangelical Christian beliefs by seriously disobeying the 9th Commandment: “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” by lying through her teeth.
Where is the equivalency of the Nuremberg Trials to hold Trump’s co-conspirators accountable?
Why have people like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Kevin McCarthy, Mitch O’Connell, Marjorie Taylor Green, Matt Goetz, Jim Jordan, Rand Paul, Louis Gohmert, and so many others not yet been punished in some way for their clearly impeachable actions?
For others, however, unfortunately lying itself does not constitute a punishable offense, at least not legally. But perpetuating the big lie should deem anyone running for office unelectable.
Regrettably, though, so many welcome the big lie and vote accordingly.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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