[PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was a reporter for the Daily Astorian (in Astoria, Oregon) and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as an Oregon state government manager and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing pubic policy – to what I write. If you are reading this, thanks for doing so and please don’t hesitate to respond so we can engage in a dialogue, not just a monologue.]

After a recent visit to the D-Day killing fields in Normandy, France, I had an unsettling, uncomfortable thought, one which first crossed my mind on a previous visit to Germany.

The thought is this: What prompted the German people to react positively enough to Adolph Hitler that they allowed him try to conquer Europe, rule the world, and come close to wiping out an entire race of people?

These thoughts were driven home even more starkly when I got home as I read the book, “1944: FDR and the Year that Changed History,” by Jay Wink, a New York Times best selling author. His book lays out, in sordid detail, the actions of Germany as, under Hitler, it worked to wipe out a race of people in ways too traumatic to describe here.

Incredible that the German people could allow their leader to engage in this genocide.

What’s more, could the nearly unthinkable happen again, including to us in the United States?

My unsettling answer: Yes.

Listen only to one Donald Trump who tries to rally Americans to oppose the losses of the Obama years (he would describe the losses in far more strident terms), to recover from what he would call the economic malaise of the last few years, and to rid the United States of a race – or, rather, races — of people. We call them immigrants.

Trump doesn’t admit this part, but he would have to scrap the U.S. Constitution, plus spend billions of dollars over many years to achieve his objective to break up families and send immigrants somewhere, thus enabling this country to emerge with a master race, free of immigrants.

To underline the reality, think back to what you know of Hitler’s rise to power. To help, here’s a quote from an academician who wrote about that development.

“By the early 1930s, Germany was in desperate shape. Its defeat in World War I and the harsh conditions imposed by the United States, Britain and France in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles – including debilitating reparation payments to the victors – had left Germany humiliated and impoverished, with ruinous inflation eating away at its economy.

“It all made for fertile ground for Hitler’s radical nationalistic ideology. The Nazi leader proposed to stop all reparation payments, to give all Germans jobs and food, and to make them proud to be German again. And he blamed Jews for most of Germany’s problems.”

So, consider what Trump advocates. This from a recent column by Leonard Pitts drawing comparisons between Hitler and Trump:

• Like Hitler, Trump has watched approvingly as his followers use violence to silence hecklers, dissenters and protesters.
• Like Hitler, Trump offers few real plans or strategies for confronting the nation’s challenges, giving voters instead the assurance that he, by force of personality alone, will defeat them.
• Like Hitler, Trump has presented the electorate a scapegoat for its fears and vulnerabilities. Hitler gave his people the Jews. Trump has given his the Muslims.
• Like Hitler, Trump proposes to register, surveil and restrict the scapegoat populace. Nor, like Hitler, is he overly concerned with the niceties of civil or human rights. “We’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago,” he has said.

My hope – yes, my prayer — is that citizens in United States will realize the specter of what Trump proposes before it is allowed to happen.

Footnote: I would challenge Donald Trump to read the 1944 book mentioned above. Here is a quote from page 169, which recounts the actions by the Nazis to rout Jews from their homes in what looked like a move to deport, but which actually was the first step of a death march:

“In the provinces, in Baja or Ruthenia or Kecskemet, there was chaos and confusion. In city after city, Nazi storm troopers swarmed through the streets, launching bruising roundups: Families were dragged from their homes, leaving behind unfinished bowls of soup, a slab of dough waiting to be kneaded, and books and bags and other belongings strewn in the corridors or streets, awaiting looters or the ready fingers of the Hungarian police. And ahead of them – though few wanted to admit it to themselves and few, if any, could fully comprehend what lay in store – was the last stop, the place where Jews from all across Europe were gathered for slaughter. Many were wearing their finest clothes, as if they were off to the theater or to a wedding.”