Republican view of the fall of an empire that is neither real nor wanted, and isn't falling

[DFW]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/opinion/germany-europe-populism.html

As usual, Republicans are doing their Emily Litella routine, warning about the collapse of an empire that isn't there in the first place, and whose citizens want nothing of the sort. Republican pundit Ross Douthat (play with THAT name all you like, but obvious ones like Mrs. Doubtfire and Asshat are already taken), apparently infected by the "America First" slogan, thinks that any economic power that can flex its muscle to lord over its neighbors automatically wants to do it. The jerk probably speaks no German and has never spent any time here talking to ordinary Germans.

His editorial carries the title "Watching The German Empire Fall." It showed up in the International New York Times yesterday, so it probably showed up in the NYT in the States on Thursday. He thinks "the third German empire is a different animal altogether. Repudiating both militarism and racist mysticism, it has been built slowly and painstakingly across three generations......using a mix of democratic and bureaucratic means."

WHAT empire? The Germans have had their share of empires and most Germans want no more of them. They know they are the big economic powerhouse of Europe, and are comfortable in that role, but see no reason to bash their neighbors into submission because of it. That is exactly the mentality that Adenauer and DeGaulle worked to prevent from rising in either of their countries ever again. Douthat is seeing Germany through very American, no, make that REPUBLICAN eyes. No more Teddy Roosevelt for them. No more "speak softly and carry a big stick." That is SO Obama to them. Douthat seems to prefer the Cheney-Trump-Bolton version: "Speak loudly, and bash anyone who talks back with a bigger stick." He doesn't seem to understand that most Germans today are tired of that mentality. But Republicans since Nixon have never understood that Europe has never liked us more than when we used our power less, and that they have never liked us less than when we flouted our power more.

Toay's Germany is no empire, and the last three generations have been busily (and not always successfully) trying to crawl out from under the stigma of the disastrous Third Empire (Drittes Reich) that ended--anything BUT voluntarily--in 1945. Its physical manifestations may be gone, but the mentality and the memories take longer to erase. Bureaucracy can aid in the building up of an empire, Both Hitler and Mussolini demonstrated that admirably, though the Soviets tried it too, and drowned in their own paperwork. But democracy is usually the enemy of empires. Even Nazi Luftwaffe boss Hermann Göring knew that:

“Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or fascist dictorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace makers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

The Republicans know it, too. There is a good reason that voter suppression and electoral fraud in the United States is being perpetrated exclusively by Republicans--they still dream of the empire that most of America--and the rest of the world--doesn't want.

I think what Douthat REALLY fears is not the fall of a non-existent German empire, but the fall of an American empire Republicans haven't stopped dreaming of since their Saint Ronnie couched it in terms of the "shining city on the hill." But, of course, he can't write THAT in the New York Times, so he projects it onto Germany. What Göring understood is still true. The people don't want it.

[bobbieinok]

1. Douthat is a real RW GOP nutcase

[DFW]

2. Agreed. He is a nasty character hiding behind his suit and tie

I sent an abbreviated version of this post to the letters section of the NYT. I doubt they'll run any of it, but I hope they get some blowback from the German embassy or their delegation to the UN.