{"id":10428,"date":"2020-07-27T05:12:24","date_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10428"},"modified":"2020-07-27T05:12:24","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T12:12:24","slug":"american-catastrophe-through-german-eyes-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=10428","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;American Catastrophe Through German Eyes&#8221;, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <span class=\"css-1baulvz last-byline\">Roger Cohen,\u00a0<\/span>Opinion Columnist, June 25, 2020<\/p>\n<p><em>Trump says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, Hitler issued his \u2018Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n<p>PARIS \u2014 No people has found the American lurch toward authoritarianism under President Trump more alarming than the Germans. For postwar Germany, the United States was savior, protector and liberal democratic model. Now, Germans, in shock, speak of the \u201cAmerican catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">A <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/adage.com\/article\/media\/germanys-leading-newsweekly-decries-trumps-incendiary-approach\/2261056\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">recent cover of the weekly magazine Der Spiegel<\/a> portrays Trump in the Oval Office holding a lighted match, with a country ablaze visible through his window. The headline: \u201cDer Feuerteufel,\u201d or, literally, \u201cthe Fire Devil.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-79elbk\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"css-z3e15g\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-wrapper-hidden\"><picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale&amp;width=600\" media=\"(max-width: 599px) and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 3),(max-width: 599px) and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 3),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution: 3dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution: 288dpi)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale&amp;width=1200\" media=\"(max-width: 599px) and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(max-width: 599px) and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution: 2dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution: 192dpi)\" \/><source srcset=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-mobileMasterAt3x.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale&amp;width=1800\" media=\"(max-width: 599px) and (min-device-pixel-ratio: 1),(max-width: 599px) and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 1),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution: 1dppx),(max-width: 599px) and (min-resolution: 96dpi)\" \/><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"css-1m50asq\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp&amp;disable=upscale\" sizes=\"((min-width: 600px) and (max-width: 1004px)) 84vw, (min-width: 1005px) 60vw, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-articleLarge.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 600w, https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-jumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 776w, https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/24cohen2\/merlin_174906717_81b6af5e-e4d6-43ab-83cd-87b56e73d46a-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&amp;auto=webp 1551w\" \/><\/picture><\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1a48zt4 ehw59r15\" data-testid=\"photoviewer-children\">\n<figure class=\"css-18sc81u e1g7ppur0\"><figcaption class=\"css-1l44abu ewdxa0s0\"><span class=\"css-cnj6d5 e1z0qqy90\"><span class=\"css-1ly73wi e1tej78p0\">Credit&#8230;<\/span>Der Spiegel<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Germans have a particular relationship to fire. The Reichstag fire of 1933 enabled Hitler and the Nazis to scrap the fragile Weimar democracy that had brought them to power. Hitler\u2019s murderous fantasies could now become reality. War, Auschwitz and the German catastrophe followed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-1-wrapper\" class=\"css-1r07izm\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">I have known many thoughtful German diplomats over the years, including Michael Steiner, who labored to stop the Balkan wars of the 1990s, and Wolfgang Ischinger, the former German ambassador to the United States. It always seemed to me that their particular passion for freedom, democracy and openness stemmed from the knowledge of how easily these are lost.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Michael Steinberg, a professor of history at Brown University and the former president of the American Academy in Berlin, wrote to me this week:<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cThe American catastrophe seems to get worse every day, but the events in Portland have particularly alarmed me as a kind of strategic experiment for fascism. The playbook from the German fall of democracy in 1933 seems well in place, including rogue military factions, the destabilization of cities, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Steinberg continued, \u201cThe basic comparison involves racism as a political strategy: a racist imaginary of a pure homeland, with cities demonized as places of decadence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Trump provokes outrage in a cascade designed to blunt alarm. He deadens reactions through volume and repetition. But something about the recent use of unmarked cars and camouflage-clad federal agents without clear identifying insignia detaining protesters shattered any inclination to shrug.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">From the deployment of those federal units in Portland, Oregon\u2019s largest city, <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/24\/us\/portland-oregon-protests-white-race.html\">where protesters have been demanding racial justice and police accountability<\/a>, it\u2019s not a huge leap to the use of paramilitaries (like the German Freikorps in the 1920s) to buttress a \u201cLaw and Order\u201d campaign. The Freikorps battled communists. Today, Trump claims to battle \u201canarchists,\u201d \u201cterrorists\u201d and violent leftists. It\u2019s the leitmotif of his quest for a second term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-2-wrapper\" class=\"css-1r07izm\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">Perhaps the years I spent covering Argentina in the 1980s, in the aftermath of the military junta, made me particularly sensitive to the use of unmarked cars \u2014 in the Argentine case, Ford Falcons \u2014 to grab left-wing political opponents off the street. They were \u201cdisappeared,\u201d a word whose lingering psychological devastation I measured in countless tear-filled rooms. Later I went to Berlin, where there was only one story: totalitarian tragedy and the labors of democratic salvation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">The Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Customs and Border Protection <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-global-race-protests-agents\/us-homeland-security-confirms-three-units-sent-paramilitary-officers-to-portland-idUSKCN24M2RL&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1595604281633000&amp;usg=AFQjCNESMShE-qwX6DEJY8-UmYcYsMRIdg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">confirmed this week<\/a> that it has deployed officers from three paramilitary-style units to join the federal crackdown in Portland. The Trump administration, facing lawsuits, has cited post-9\/11 legislation establishing the department to justify its action. Chicago is now among several cities being targeted as Trump seeks to foment confrontation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">As Tom Ridge, a Republican who was the first head of the Department of Homeland Security, noted in an interview with the Sirius XM host Michael Smerconish, the department was \u201c<a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.siriusxm.com\/clips\/clip\/a9914a41-78d6-4402-8150-b8f14a44945b\/715571de-a566-4492-ba13-bbe09f516300\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">not established to be the president\u2019s personal militia<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">In wartime, the Third Geneva Convention, to which the United States is a party, requires even irregular forces to wear \u201ca fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance.\u201d This is critical not only to protecting civilians but also to ensuring accountability for misconduct.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">When paramilitary-style units have no identifying insignia, there is no transparency, no accountability \u2014 and that means impunity. Democracy dies. Think of all this as setting the scene for Trump\u2019s own \u201cstate of emergency\u201d if he does not like the November election result. Social media is combustible enough for a physical fire to be unnecessary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">The president says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, after the Reichstag burned, Hitler issued the \u201cDecree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State\u201d as his means to seize power.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">German horror at Trump has many components. He\u2019s the fear-mongering showman wielding nationalism, racism and violence as if the 20th century held no lessons. He\u2019s the would-be destroyer of the multilateral institutions that brought European peace and made it possible for Germans to raise their bowed heads again. He is a fascist in the making.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\"><\/aside>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"story-ad-3-wrapper\" class=\"css-1r07izm\">\n<div id=\"story-ad-3-slug\" class=\"css-l9onyx\">\n<p>As <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/157112\/germany-gets-coronavirus&amp;sa=D&amp;ust=1595605994586000&amp;usg=AFQjCNH0rL7W7j6lrXzrAGOt2JzfuSTxVw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ian Beacock argued recently in The New Republic,<\/a> Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, got it right on the virus. Not for her the imagery of war \u2014 all that talk of the silent, invisible enemy to be vanquished. No, for her the challenge of the virus has been a lesson in the power of democracy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"css-1fanzo5 StoryBodyCompanionColumn\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">\u201cWe are not condemned to accept the spread of this virus as an inevitable fact of life,\u201d <a class=\"css-1g7m0tk\" title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bundeskanzlerin.de\/bkin-en\/news\/statement-chancellor-1732302\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">she said. <\/a>\u201cWe thrive not because we are forced to do something, but because we share knowledge and encourage active participation.\u201d She went on to say that success largely depends \u201con each and every one of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\">It worked. Merkel was addressing all democratic citizens, Americans included. No wonder Trump cannot stand her, a woman trained as a scientist whose life lesson has been the sacred value of freedom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-158dogj evys1bk0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/07\/24\/opinion\/trump-germany.html?action=click&amp;algo=top_conversion&amp;block=trending_recirc&amp;fellback=false&amp;imp_id=782396842&amp;impression_id=ae1c91c2-cf2c-11ea-a4a8-0b77fe93917d&amp;index=2&amp;pgtype=Article&amp;region=footer&amp;req_id=290876866&amp;surface=most-popular\">The New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Roger Cohen,\u00a0Opinion Columnist, June 25, 2020 Trump says he wants to protect law-abiding citizens. In 1933, Hitler issued his \u2018Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.\u2019 PARIS \u2014 No people has found the American lurch toward authoritarianism under President Trump more alarming than the Germans. For postwar Germany, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10429,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10428\/revisions\/10429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}