Normalizing Inauguration Day
Monday, January 20 is Inauguration Day, and while many of you will be celebrating, please try to have some consideration for those who are mourning the Death of Democracy.
I hope those of you who voted for Literally Hitler are happy. I can say that because I’m a really tolerant person, unlike you.
You probably think elections have consequences. That’s the trouble with democracy – anyone can win, even billionaire tycoons of German descent.
If you think the Hitler reference is over the top, I respectfully suggest it’s because you’re ignorant and probably flunked history in school. That’s OK. I still think you can be a good person. It’s never too late to adopt the correct views.
The parallels are inescapable. Granted, one was appointed by the German president and the other was elected by the American people, but other than that, their paths to power were exactly the same.
The problem with politics is that candidates try to win by defeating their opponents. But if you’re on the Right Side of History, winning isn’t enough. The ultimate goal should be to impose the correct views and stop the spread of inaccurate ideas. Only then can we all come together in a spirit of unity and acceptance.
No doubt you’ve heard about the incoming president’s plans to take over Canada and Greenland. And you thought he was making an ironic joke when he said he would be a dictator for one day. Remember, the first thing Hitler did was close down the Berlin comedy clubs. Then he annexed the Sudetenland. No joke.
Inaugurations are historic events, happening only every four years. In the entire history of the United States, there have been fewer than 60 such ceremonies, and only the last 20 have been televised. The first TV inauguration was Harry Truman’s in 1949, although barely 1 percent of American households owned a television at the time. Presumably the masses huddled for “watch parties” at the estates of the One Percent.
By President Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration – the first to be televised in color – most American homes had at least one television, although few had color TVs.
If nothing else, Monday’s ceremony warrants your attention as a historic occasion, even if you’re sure it will usher in The End of Democracy. But I’m confident that anyone who truly believes that has by now fled to Canada (soon to be the 51st state, so the joke’s on them).
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[This column originally appeared in the January 16, 2025 Wakefield Daily Item.]
Filed under: Columns & Essays, History, Humor, News, Opinion, Politics, Wakefield | 8 Comments
Tags: America, Canada, Capitol, D.C., democracy, Donald Trump, elections, Germany, Greenland, Harry S. Truman, History, Humor, inaguration, John F. Kennedy, joke, Mark Sardella, Opinion, Politics, President, Television, TV, United States, unity, Wakefield Daily Item, Washington, White House
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Mark Sardella 
Mark, facts matter. Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party won 230 out of 608 Riechstag seats in the 1932 election (more than any other party), at which point Hindenburg, who was President, appointed Hitler Chancellor. The problem was that there was no Vice President and Hindenburg, who was 80 years old, died. Hitler then gets 288 seats in the 1933 election which was the last one, but over 17 Million Germans voted for him in what was basically a fair election, 43.9% of the vote, and they did it because they were more afraid of the Communists than the Nazis. Yes, Hitler skillfully blamed the Riechstag fire on the Communists and while it’s generally presumed that the Nazis did it, I wouldn’t put it past the KPD (Communists) to have done it.
Stalin very much wanted a Communist Revolution in Germany — it’s where Marx was from — and the German Wiemar Republic needs to be viewed in that context. It’s easy enough to understand why they did it, but the German people democratically voted Hitler into power. Now there are two important things to remember here. First, Germany had a parliamentary form of government, much like Canada and Israel. In a parliamentary system, the executive (e.g. Prime Minister) is the leader of the majority party in the legislature — in ours the President is separately elected and that would prevent a Hitler, particularly since we have a two party system. And this is a republic, not a democracy,
But Hitler was elected.
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Hitler had been appointed Chancellor and the Nazi’s were already in power before the 1933 election. I don’t know that I would characterize the 1933 election as “fair.” But Hitler gained power from his appointment and was using that power to consolidate control of the government before the “basically fair” 1933 election.
Thank you Ed for drilling down on the facts and details of how Hitler came to power. There are stark differences between how Trump came to power and how Hitler came to power. I am truly trying to understand how people believe somehow that Trump is a modern day Hitler. Hitler started wars of aggression, organized industrial scale annihilation of an entire group of people because of their religion and status in German society and had full intentions of conquering the world with super weapons that no one would have. So if Trump is the next Hitler, I guess our military will be invading Panama, Greenland and Canada in the next few years after all he is part German. Nuts.
Peter,
That was the point of my reply to Ed. Hitler was already in power before the 1933 “election,” via his appointment as chancellor. Regardless of the what happened subsequently, my point was that he and Trump came to power in very different ways.
Mark- I agree with the way they rose to power but to equate Trump policies to Hitler’s reign does not compute. I don’t care for him but I also don’t feel he will be another Hitler. The pendulum has obviously swung as it always does. Trump will still be held to the limitations of a duly elected president and not a British King should he attempt to exceed his powers. He loves to bluff. Greenland and Canada may agree to favorable treaties with USA but we are never going to merge as one nation. Thats his real goal. Thank you your reply.
We can argue all day about exactly how Hitler came to power and do not underestimate the propaganda value of 24 days of national newspaper headlines during his trial for the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. (Also do not overlook the SA (“Brownshirts”) nor what happened to them (the “night of long knives”) in 1934.) One could cite the Nuremberg Racial Purity Laws (September, 1935) as the date the Nazis truly were in control of Germany as the Reichstag formally approved these, but it was the 1933 Enabling Act, combined with the 1933 election results that really put Hitler into power. Yes there was voter intimidation from the SA in the 1933 — and do not forget that they and the Communists were on street corners, with rifles, and occasionally shooting at each other. (We have pictures of this.)But all the accounts I have read are that the 1933 election was more or less fair. If nothing else, it was a referendum on Hitler’s having assumed power. I also need to point out the mess Germany was in circa 1930 — people would bring in a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. Unemployment was 30%-40% depending on the source, people were hurting and the country was unstable. Germany had three national elections inside of nine months — two in 1932 and a third in 1933 — that’s how unstable the country was. Political activists were literally shooting at each other on street corners!
As tumultuous as things may be in this country, this is not the German Wiemar Republic. Not even close…
I also need to add that the Holocaust did not start with the Jews, the murdering actually started with “Aktion T4” and the organized murder of the mentally retarded. It could have been stopped at that point — and almost was –but then it expanded to the point where it wasn’t possible to stop. And the underlying logic for this horror started with the Eugenics movement that had been popular with American academics in the 1920s.
We are quibbling over one line in a humor column. It wasn’t meant to be a scholarly treatise.
Ok. It was humor. You got me!! Thank God. Sent from my iPhone