One of the most depressing things about being interested in history lies in recognizing when it repeats itself.
It happened yesterday, when Der Furor and "Vice-President" Vance ambushed and berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on live television during an Oval Office meeting. The cheap schoolyard bullying of an ally fighting for his nation's life was appalling, cast our nation in the worst possible light, and mirrored the actions of a different autocratic bully that took place over a hundred years ago.
As the world spiraled toward World War II in the late 1930's, Nazi German dictator Adolf Hitler treated two European leaders to the same savage bullying used by Der Furor on President Zelenskyy.
The first was Hitler’s ambush and relentless bullying of Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schussnig in February of 1938, as he sought to absorb Austria into the German Reich. You can read about it here, and there's also a dramatic report of it in William Shirer's classic history The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
Chancellor Schussnig was not the only European leader to suffer Hitler's bullying abuse. A year later, in March of 1939, Czech President Emil Hacha was bullied into a nervous breakdown by the Nazi leader ... an event also dramatically recounted in Shirer's history.
It's the lowest hanging of fruit to compare the Orange Airhorn to Adolf Hitler, one of the most terrible dictators in history, but in the embarrassing and despicable bullying of the President of Ukraine, history has clearly repeated itself.
The despicable behavior of Der Furor and "Vice-President" Vance, and the shameless toadying of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose embarrassing version of what we all saw on live television would be laughable were it not so shabby, have driven yet another nail into the lid of the coffin containing what's left of our national honor and dignity.
Have a good day, and reflect that our nation has turned from reliable ally and defender of the weak to the international equivalent of a cheap, ugly bully.
More thoughts coming.
Bilbo
