Reader hopes Americans will remember the past four years

Published 9:09 am Friday, January 8, 2021

Perhaps because my brother was in the U.S. Army signal corps during WWII and my father-in-law was a U.S. Marine who fought at Iwo Jima, my wife and I have watched almost every WWII documentary that is available. Often, however, I have wondered how in the world could Adolf Hitler, a pathetic figure as a young man, rise to the pinnacle of power. The German people were intelligent, and their universities were among the best in the world. It made no sense to me at all.

After the past four years here in the U.S., however, I believe I understand. Just tell people what they want to hear regardless of its truth. In fact, the more preposterous it is the better. Simply repeat it over and over, even in the face of rebuttals. People may begin to think that nobody would keep on telling such whoppers unless they were really true after all.

We have now seen that such a strategy works and works all too well. And it led the takeover of the U. S. capitol, which calls to mind the Nazis burning of the Reichstag, the seat of Germany’s pre-war government.

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So, will we Americans let ourselves be bamboozled again? Not, I suspect and hope, as long as we remember these past four years.

Milton Scarborough

Danville