Immorality in Government
Living through this period of confrontation, polarization, hate, and absence of compassion, it is hard to avoid reading about the desperate state of the nation; the trauma has been examined and analyzed thousands of times. The recent publication of a book by a best-selling author, and a documentary by an award-winning filmmaker provide a backdrop for The United States in 2022. The book is They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent, by Sarah Kendzior. The documentary is by Ken Burns, The U.S. and the Holocaust.
In her book, Kendzior describes an international conspiracy theory of the last two decades of the 20th Century involving an organization that came to be known as “The Octopus.” She calls it “a vast transnational network of corruption stretching from the DOJ to the CIA to the FBI to numerous private law and technology firms around the world.” Two men investigating the organization were found dead, their deaths ruled suicides.
Kendzior believes The Octopus was a global kleptocracy. The fact that these deaths and others associated with the Octopus were never explained supports the contention in her subtitle, that failure to pursue investigations makes the public complacent. Long histories of abuse by Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, although known to many insiders, were ignored for years.
Similarly, she asks why Americans should trust a government that launched the Iraq War on false pretenses, or did nothing to halt the deception that allowed the financial system to collapse in 2008. In this context, the Trump administration was hardly an aberration. In her opinion, “The Trump administration was a transnational crime syndicate masquerading as a government.”
A characteristic of complacency is “normalcy bias,” what Kendzior defines as “the idea that if a situation is truly dangerous, if massive misdeeds are being committed in plain sight, somebody would intervene and stop them.” The danger of complacency is exposed in Ken Burns’s The U.S. and the Holocaust. Disbelief was a response heard frequently in the documentary. The Holocaust was a conspiracy literally beyond belief.
The documentary is divided into three episodes. The first, covering the years prior to 1938, chronicles Hitler’s rise to become dictator of Germany, his attacks on Jewish-owned business, laws denying Jews German citizenship, establishment of concentration camps, and subjugation of Austria.
The second episode covers 1938 to 1942. Hitler signed the Munich Agreement with Great Britain, France, and Italy, enabling German to annex a part of western Czechoslovakia, but go no further, it was an attempt to appease Hitler. Hitler violated the agreement, absorbing all of Czechoslovakia and invading Poland in September 1939. France and Great Britain immediately declared war on Germany. Subsequently, Germany invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, and France in 1940, then Yugoslavia, Greece and the Soviet Union in 1941. Jews were murdered in the occupied countries or were deported to killing centers and put to death along with Roma, homosexuals, and disabled persons.
The third episode, beginning with 1942, documents the plight of Jews attempting to escape the German advance and find refuge beyond Hitler’s reach. Before the end of 1942 the U.S., British and French Allies knew the Nazis had begun murdering every Jewish man, woman and child on the continent. American Jews appealed to President Franklin Roosevelt to offer immigration to those fleeing from the Nazis. Roosevelt insisted that all effort be directed to winning the war. He also knew that the American public was against allowing massive immigration. Agencies in his administration blocked efforts on the parts of Jewish organizations to help Jews escape. The majority of Americans were complacent, refusing to believe that the Nazis could be killing millions of Jews, despite the headlines of almost all daily newspapers.
At the end of the documentary Burns added footage linking today’s white supremacy movement to the Holocaust. The killer of 11 Jews at a Pittsburgh synagogue was reportedly motivated by conspiracy theories about Jewish leaders and immigration. The rioters in Charlottesville chanted, “You will not replace us.” Rioters at the U.S. Capitol chanted freedom while they carried Nazi flags and wore “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirts.
Kendzior draws a distinction between Trump and Hitler. She calls Trump “an autocrat, a kleptocrat, a criminal, and a racist,” but she does not call him a fascist. “Fascism requires loyalty to the state.” For Trump and his accomplices, “the state is just something to sell. They do not care if the buyers are foreign or domestic.”
Trumpism has made denial of facts acceptable. The lack of morality and honesty in government is stunning. As we approach mid-term elections, the course for democracy will be set for years to come. When extreme candidates take positions restricting voting rights and overwriting election results, voters may understand the immorality of the positions, and their extreme positions will become the candidates’ undoing.