Given his non-stop antics, it is tempting to simply dismiss POSTIT (my current acronym to describe you-know-who) as a ridiculous clown, an international embarrassment with a rapidly degenerating mental state. The assumption, presumably, is that grownups around him will keep our Federal Government running until such time as the office is filled by a functional human being.
But yesterday’s tweet by POSTIT, which took the U.S. Military by surprise, gives the lie to that. It reads, in part:
“…please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory.”
This was an astonishingly direct and overt shout-out — practically a love letter — to Joseph Goebbels’ concept of Wehrmacht, or total war. In his efforts as Minister of Propaganda for the National Socialist Party, Goebbels conflated the need to wipe out the “degenerate” Jews with a directive that the Party should focus all of its energies on, essentially, decisive and overwhelming victory over its enemies.
Goebbels cleverly pioneered an important concept in effecting radical political change: The key to bringing about the transformation of a democracy into a fascist state is to conflate the concept of total war against a perceived external enemy with the degradation of specific groups of people within one’s own country.
It’s pretty clear, given the specificity of his message, that POSTIT is embracing that philosophy, which was highly effective for Goebbels, at least in the short term. You must admit, whatever your political leanings, that the eventual extermination of millions of ordinary citizens under Nazi rule was an impressive achievement.
No doubt POSTIT hopes he can eventually top that achievement. He is, after all, a highly ambitious and self-confident fellow.