Change that tune! (3 minute 30 second read)

 

Praise band

            Across Europe, Asia, The Middle East, Africa, the Americas including the United States there are admirers  of former President Trump and Putin. In France the far right candidate Marine Le Pen a former FOP (Friend of Putin and Russia) is now distancing herself from him in her messaging. Let’s face it. It just doesn’t look good sucking up to the new Hitler when there’s an election coming up. Trump is slow on the uptake on doing the same because he’s been a FOP  for many years. He still is. At this link  you can hear Le Pen talk about agreeing with Trump, taking Russia’s side, blaming the US for Putin invading Ukraine and abolishing NATO and pulling out of the European Union.

            Prime Minister Orban of Hungary didn’t hesitate to criticize Zelenskyy just as soon as he was reelected. Now he can continue being a FOP. I believe that Le Pen of France will do the same if elected. She will rule according to her true nature and will undermine NATO as well. I believe the same will hold true everywhere that right wing nationalists achieve power, including the United States, if Trump or someone like him waiting in the Rashist (Russian Fascist) wing attains power. Like Trump, they will quickly return to undermining NATO—the main impediment to Putin’s onslaught.

Putin obviously fears NATO.

Messaging

            It all comes down to messaging. It isn’t that a man like Trump or woman like Le Pen have changed their views. They just changed their messaging to appeal to a wider group of people than just fascists. Their nature and ideology remain the same. The only epiphany that they and those like them have had is that is that their extreme nature doesn’t appeal to a wide enough voting base. If anything they have only become worse and more adept at selling their hateful divisive agendas. People that admire Putin or those like him don’t act like Gandhi when they attain power.

            Once in power they consolidate personal power like Trump did when in office and continues to do out of office. All across the nation in appropriately named “Red” states, the Republican Trump Party is consolidating their power by taking complete control of the election process. They are creating laws that made heretofore illegal acts of suppression “legal.”

The writing is on the wall.

This time around.

            When Hitler started his rise to power he had his admirers and detractors. The admirers won. Detractors like Dietrich Bonhoeffer lost. Hitler, like Putin, had the support of the Russian people just like Stalin did. Hitler also had his supporters in the West along with those that said the United States should stay out of war in Europe as he laid waste to the nations of Europe.

            Now Putin is laying waste to Ukraine. Tens of thousands dead. Millions of peaceful Ukrainians have had their lives destroyed for generations to come. Did Hitler stop with one country? Did appeasing Hitler work? Did the Vichy government of France installed by Hitler have the support of French citizens? Hitler had the Japanese. Putin has the Chinese. Alliances are being made.

            This time around Putin has been actively involved in building alliances in Western nations as well as working their populations with propaganda. Hitler tried that in the United States. He failed. Will Putin succeed where Hitler failed? Do the admirers of Putin ever talk about admiring those that aren’t like Putin or Hitler or that don’t excuse their actions?

The letter “Z” is the new swastika.

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer