part two

Adding on to my previous post, I don’t want to sound like I think Hitler’s Germany was perfect except for the small problem of genocide, because of course that would be appalling. But considering where Germany had been before Hitler rose to power, surely the people deserved to be able to put their faith in a leader who offered them more than poverty and disillusionment. I almost don’t blame them for choosing to look past his, well, ridiculous rantings and ravings in Mein Kampf, and to see someone who could lead their country to the greatness they felt they had never really had. Returning to the Obama comparison, we can surely relate to the feeling of wanting to put the rather unfortunate past leadership behind us and throw ourselves behind a bright, promising young leader. And putting ourselves on Hitler’s timeline, for a little perspective, we’re still in the honeymoon period. It’s the equivalent of, what? The spring of 1933? No, I don’t think that in a few years we’ll find ourselves in a similar situation to that of the Germans in the late ‘30s, but I do think it’s possible that Obama will make some mistakes, and I know I, for one, will have trouble accepting that. For that reason, I think we have to check ourselves any time we find ourselves settling into hero-worship, as tempting as that might be. That doesn’t mean we can’t do some fist pumping, Yes, we can chanting, jumping up and down for Obama, because I completely support that. But if we’re going to be harsh, in retrospect, towards the German people for not seeing what is so starkly and nauseatingly obvious looking back, we should probably be careful ourselves.