Trump supporters display blind loyalty

I was watching a focus group of what I would call really hard core Trump supporters being interviewed when the subject of Jan. 6 came up. Their reaction stunned me. The vast majority of them took the position that any and all violence committed that day was by Democrats who had infiltrated those poor innocent patriots in their charge to save democracy.

One young man said, “I think I saw some Democrats in there.” All the others shook their heads up and down. The same participant said it was analogous to the 1933 Reichstag fire in Germany. The Reichstag fire was key to Hitler’s rise to absolute dictatorship. Since the fire was set by a Communist, it gave Chancellor Hitler the opportunity to demagogue nonfascist political parties as weak against crime and the cause of all of Germany’s economic woes — does any of this sound familiar? It worked. Hitler obtained absolute power within months. Rest lightly on your Red Ripple laurels folks. Even if we have avoided this fate temporarily, it still looms in many guises, and that young man with fire in his eyes, internet access and biased limited intellect, stands down; but stands by.

Richard Hoffman

Whitehall Township