By Osa Mbonu-Amadi
As Robert A. Brady wrote in his “The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism” published by The Viking Press in 1937, the Nazi have a theory for manipulating the masses:
“According to the Nazis the mass of the people are dumb. They are unintelligent, childlike and inarticulate. They will accept without serious question whatever they hear or are told. They believe everything they read. They do not bother to think, they feel. Their lives are not pivoted on logic, but on emotion. They have no real initiative, no true creative powers, and they are incapable of any sort of self discipline. They desire to be fed, to be entertained with exotic and melodramatic fancies, and they yearn to follow.
“Like the child they are unstable, irresponsible, and capricious, turning easily from one brightly coloured fancy to another. They will be attracted by whatever is simple and naive, whatever is dark, dangerous, and thrilling, whatever is extreme in size, or distance, or accomplishment, whatever is heroic and unheard of, whatever brings the gasp of wonder and the hush of awe.
“They are likewise essentially and naively pleasure-loving. But, though lovers of ease, they are so thoroughly irrational that they do not count the cost of achieving their pleasures. Like the child who worked assiduously for hours in the garden, or the soldier wallowing in the mud of the front-line trenches, they will be satisfied for their labour and sacrifices by a cheap bauble, a bit of praise from some furtively admired hero, a medal, a badge, or a bit of palely reflected but resonantly heralded glory.
“Nor, the Nazis assume, are the rank and file able to tell the difference between symbols and realities. Thus they may be given symbols instead of realities. They can be made to fight for “God and Fatherland, “for “German Kultur,” for “Blood and “Honour. They can be made to endure poverty and die in rags and filth for “Mother and Home,” the “Leader,”’ the “People.” They can be brought to sacrifice everything for “the good of the community,” and to escape ‘Jewish Marxism.” If necessary they can be conditioned to people the forests with demons, be fearful of black cats, and vomit at the sight of a Jew,
“The “leaders,” in other words, are free to choose not only the causes for which they wish to rally the support of the people, but also the symbols which sway their emotions. Properly conditioned, these symbols need have no necessary relationship to the real interests of the run of mankind.”
After watching the reactions of many Americans and reading the comments of supporters of Trump and Elon Musk regarding the recent launch of Space X and the attempt to bring back the two astronauts stranded at the International Space Station, I cannot, but be convinced that men are repeating history. The world is back to the threshold of German Führer, this time, American Führer!
