It didn’t begin with the Big Lie. No, not the one you’re thinking about—but the one where Germany was “stabbed in the back,” and though they preferred to continue fighting, they were forced to surrender and sign the Treaty of Versailles. This was blamed on leftists, communists, and Jews who favored equality. It ended for the Weimar Republic with the breaking of glass, the eruption of flames and the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933. This too was blamed on leftists and enabled Hitler to suspend the right of assembly, the right to a free press, the right to free speech, and any restraints on the part of police officers. Hitler, without winning any election, was dictator.
Nazi lawyers came to the US to study our segregationist Jim Crow laws. Such laws limited the participation of African-American, Asian-Americans, and Native Americans in quotidian life and increased their difficulties when they tried to vote in elections. Nazis were impressed by how our white supremacist legislatures needed no scientific or judicial basis to enact legislation. These laws enabled American doctors to practice eugenics and to exterminate inferior individuals via infanticide, poisons, and forced sterilizations. Gas chambers were proposed, (yes, you read that right. In the USA) but seen as too progressive an option to activate.
Flash forward to 2021: The big lie is now the Republicans’ claim of a stolen election. The big lie consists of Republicans enacting laws to limit the participation of African-Americans in elections. The big lie is now Republicans continuing to fight the election results. The big lie consists of euphemizing the Storming of the Capital, a day of broken glass, beatings, body wastes, thefts, and manslaughter, as a typical tour or, if it wasn’t, the fault lied with leftist organizations.
Even more interesting: now Mike Pence is blamed. Classic abuser strategy--blame the victim. Gaslighting. Even more interesting: Mike Pence now identifies with the aggressor and denies the seriousness of the experience.
That is why black lives matter. Because 88 years ago, it was us. And American laws and American science formed the basis of Nazi extermination camps. Going back for our future should be intolerable. Because what begins as limited to one group in one country 88 years ago ended up in the destruction of world Jewry. People who favor equality don't favor these plans. People afraid of equality blame nameless, faceless, baseless others. Once it was the Communists. Now it is Antifa. But it didn’t begin with the Big Lie. It began with Jim Crow. And countries are watching.
And Mike Pence--will the scales ever fall from your eyes? If only Trump matters--no one's lives matter. He is the Big Liar.