Donald Trump, "The Stab in the Back," and the "Stolen Election"

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"Either this nation shall kill racism, or racism shall kill this nation." (S. Jonas, August, 2018)

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Introduction

To my knowledge, in capitalist parliamentary democracies over time no losing electoral candidates have ever used the theme of "stolen election" in a continued quest to convert a loss into a win. However, something similar has happened before. We begin this column with a re-telling of a that similar story which occurred in Prussia/The-Weimar-Republic/Nazi-Germany between the two World Wars. Although not exactly in parallel of course, it does bear some strong similarities to the "Stolen Election" theme which the Trumpites began preparing in the 2016 campaign (which they were certain they were going to lose) and for the 2020 campaign when they thought too they were going to lose). So, to begin, let us return to the Western Front of World War I in Europe in the Spring of 1918.

How World War I Came to its Conclusion, on the European Western Front

In that Spring, on that Front, the Prussian Army launched what proved to be its last major offensive of the War. As it happened, since the Russian Revolution on October 25, 1917 [November 7, new calendar] and the departure of Russia from The Great War, with a significant increase in the number of troops at their disposal, the Prussian military leadership felt that they could win the war. After all, Prussia now faced only one front. But even so, military conditions proved to be too much for an exhausted army, and the offensive failed. Also, the British naval blockade had been proving to be increasingly effective in depriving Germany of both military and civilian goods, and food.

And so, the government began the negotiations with the Western Powers that eventually led to the Armistice of November 11, 1918, and then after that to the Versailles Treaty, which proved to be so disastrous for the whole of Europe and indeed the World, in the long run. Germany's President under the Prussian Emperor during this turbulent period was one Friedrich Ebert. He was a Social Democrat, but a rather right-wing one at that. For example, in the next year, after the conclusion of the War, he played a significant role in the crushing of several communist revolutionary attempt. Also, he was identified as a Jew by the German Right (even though it was not certain that he was one). In one person, then he served to catalyze the Right's rapidly developing concept of and campaign for the "betrayal" of the German nation which led to the Prussian loss in the War, which was, in their view, supposedly engineered by the Left and the Jews.

As it happened, in that Spring of 1981, the two leading commanders of the Prussian Army, Generals Paul von Hindenburg (later the Weimar Republic President who appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933) and Erich Ludendorff (who became a Hitler supporter from the mid-1920s), were totally opposed to the movement to end the war. They thought that somehow Germany could fight on and did not only because the civilian government was weak-kneed, and had thus decided to implement the policy to bring the War to an end. That the civilian government, especially the Social Democratic Party that was part of it, undertook this policy, after the War and especially after the imposition of the onerous Versailles Treaty, the policy came to be called, by the German Right, the "Stab in the Back." This phrase was used over-and-over again, to justify the development of various right-wing parties in Weimar Germany, most especially the Nazi Party and the movement that grew under its leadership. It became such a valuable crowd-mobilizing slogan for them that Hitler and Goebbels were still using it in speeches into the late 1930s.

Now Turning to the United States of Trump (he wishes)

(Reminder: this text was originally published in October, 2016.) As everybody in the United States and indeed around the world who has any interest in the U.S. Presidential elections knows, Donald Trump, at the end of the last Presidential debate, on October 19, 2016, said that he would not necessarily accept the result of the vote on November 8. If he thought that "something was going on" (a phrase that he used constantly to describe supposed conspiracies of all sorts [of course without defining them, much less proving their existence]), he would not do so. In the past several weeks he and his surrogates have been ramping up the claim that the election is somehow "rigged," somehow by the Clinton forces, by the media, and by the very new claim that there will be massive voter fraud [again note that this was in 2016], by the millions. This fraud will, of course, occur only in "certain neighborhoods," "you know which ones I'm talking about."

It is well-known that the standard Republicans have already begun the plotting to obstruct a Clinton Presidency to the greatest degree possible. Senator John McCain (remember him --- now dissed as weak-kneed by many an Arizona Republican) had already announced that should the Democrats fail to gain 50 seats in the new Senate, that the Repubs. would block any Supreme Court nominees she proposes. Since the oldest members of the Court were at that time liberals, this would mean that eventually the reactionary Court majority would be re-established, by attrition. (Gee, and guess what happened?) But back to Trump.

I have been fully convinced for some weeks now that Donald Trump, having realized for some weeks now (the Repubs. have very sophisticated, high-priced, private polling) that he is going to lose. As I said above [Note: and again, remember, this was written in 2016, not 2020), I believe that Trump will be using the false charge of a "rigged election," along with the "media/Hillary conspiracy to savage him," as his "Stab in the Back." I think that the appointment of Breitbart's Steve Bannon is part of the development of this strategy. In Trump's view (whether he truly believes that he was stabbed in the back or not, and given how he seems to think, he may very well truly believe it) he is THE one who can save the United States from all of its enemies, at home and abroad.

Once having let himself loose of the Repub. Party, he will be able to openly align with the Far Right, including its openly racist, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic elements. (Trump's Jews will have a problem with that one, but in the Nazis' early days, there were "Jews for Hitler," in an organization called the Association of German National Jews.) Trump right now [that was in October, 2016] seems stuck at around 39-40% of the vote. But it is useful to recall that Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazi Party's full name; clever, eh wot?) never got more than 37% of the vote in a free election. Also, there will eventually be an armed uniformed militia in those states where the gun laws are so loose that they can be established. Can you say "Rittenhouse/Sturmabteilung," or "Oath Keepers" or "Proud Boys?" After all, in certain "open carry" states armed Trump supporters were already showing up at his

There is much more to say about this, if my prediction is correct. But let me say at this time: a) I think that the idea that when he loses Trump will go do some "Trump TV" show is and always has been a cover " too complicated, much too expensive, with a projected success rate of around 20%; b) that the Breitbart et al/Far Right takeover of the campaign was organized by Trump and his closest (mainly family) advisors when they saw, before many others did, that he would not/could not win this year and thus decided to move firmly in that direction; c) that in terms of historical models, he is much more like Mussolini (not an original thought to be sure) because he does not have a firm ideology, like Hitler did. Like Mussolini, he believes in himself, he believes in power, and he truly believes that he "can save the nation." More on all of this, down-the-line.

This is truly scary stuff folks, but in my view, it is all part of his long-range plan, of which the "rigged election," the U.S. "stab in the back" for the 21st century, is a central piece.

Back to the Present

The purpose of this column is to show that "Stop the Steal" had an historical predecessor and to predict that should all the "stuff" that is coming out about Trump now somehow pull him down, the myth itself will live on in some form or another, even without him. Why? Because it will become a very useful tool in the ongoing, historical, Republo-fascist campaign to create ever-wider voter suppression using a variety of modalities.

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Post Note 1: If the text of this column sounds familiar to some of my readers, that is because it is based in large part on a column that I published on The Greanville Post on October 4, 2016. It makes several points for Trump's current situation and that of the Nation as a whole. An important one is that the Attempted Insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021 did not spring like Athena, whole from the head of Zeus (sorry to have dis-honored both Zeus and Athena, but I do like the analogy). Rather it sprang from the heads of Trump and Bannon and who-knows-who-else, just as the Jan. 6 Insurrection-Attempt had, as documented by the January 6^th Committee, been planned out in advance (and it may well be that the Jan. 6^th Committee final report will provide a great deal of detail on just how far in advance "far in advance" was in this case).

Post Note 2: Finally, Trump is in REAL trouble this time. Here are the four crimes for which the Jan. 6 Committee alone is making referrals to the Department of Justice: "Obstruction of an Official Proceeding;" "Conspiracy to Defraud the United States," "Conspiracy to Make a False Statement," " Inciting or Aiding an Insurrection." And the list goes on, starting with "The Mar-a-Largo" papers. And there are "Georgia," "the Trish James suit," the revitalized rape charge from the 1990s (to which Trump is already reacting with Magic Trick #3: Roy Cohn's mantra: "When you run into a problem, just sue".) Indeed, The Daily Kos puts the total of crimes with which Trump has been charged at 55. And then of course there's the "Tax Stuff." Could be real trouble, e.g.: income tax evasion is a matter of the numbers; "charitable giving, in cash, with no records underlying the claims can be real trouble.

In a future column (likely next week) we will be discussing Trump's present perilous situation further. Of course, he does have his "Seven Magic Tricks." But magic can stop working at any point in time, that is if it's not real "magic" but rather masterful illusion a la Penn and Teller. And Trump's "tricks" are not actually tricks but combinations of poltico-economic strategy and tactics. I have just labelled them "magic tricks." It happens that I think that finally one or more of them are going to stop working for History's Greatest Con Man. And when they do, I predict that if he can find a place to take him and if he can figure out a way to get whatever fungible assets he has left out of the country he will flee. As noted, I will be dealing with that possibility next week.

(Article changed on Dec 22, 2022 at 10:12 PM EST)