There is a terrific essay from 1941 in Harper’s magazine, “Who Goes Nazi?”, by one Dorothy Thompson, that has been making the rounds recently. The idea is pretty simple and simply brilliant: Ms. Thompson assembles a hypothetical party in Manhattan and surveys the crowd and asks the titular question. The people are caricatures – my guess is if any of them were too carefully drawn there would be a libel suit – but you get the picture. It’s making the rounds these days because of the facile anti-Trump conflation of Trump and Hitler, which is a bit strong but anyway, it’s still a brilliant essay, especially when one thinks about the moment of publication – August 1941, Lend-Lease in full swing, isolationism dominating the American political landscape, Pearl Harbor still months ahead. As a historian, I prefer to see it in that light, as a whimsical thought piece with a dark twist. It’s how I like my fiction, for that matter, so as an experimental non-fiction piece, it’s natural that I’d be attracted to it.
But there’s a part of me that does see it as a timely thing to reconstruct. Not as a means to condemn Trump voters, mind you – this isn’t a game of “who really voted for the carrot-topped imbecile”. Rather, I think it’s a game we should always play. We should look around us and think, “Who Goes Nazi?”. I mean it seriously: if a media-savvy demagogue, hailing from the majority caste but not from the ruling class (note the difference there), with an undisguised desire to exterminate a significant but still derided minority, and a nihilist streak that seems to almost encourage a descent to war, were to come to political prominence, who would join in his (or her – Marie Le Pen I’m thinking of you) will to power?
Miss Thompson wrote from the perspective of a well-off Manhattan socialite; her characters – she named them Mr or Mrs A through L, along with “Bill” the Bronx City College engineering student and “the butler” – were of a very specific milieu. They are, by and large, well educated, white (a couple are Jewish, but given the times they were almost necessary), and thus had some justification to come to what feels like a classic pre-war five room Upper West Side flat for a dinner or cocktail party. But we can play the game today, can’t we? Sure we can! And it’s actually more fun if we play it in a more general setting… where we have a broader cross-section of humanity.
I’m sitting in seat 23C on a United flight from Houston to Seattle. Let’s take a spin through coach class, shall we?
First off, the “Who Goes Nazi?” game basically had two categories of people: Nazis and anti-Nazis. This is largely because Thompson had already winnowed down the people she was considering to those who, as I mentioned, would be found in a pre-war five room flat. On an airplane in economy class (not even premium economy – times are tough), we have much broader representation. So I think it’s fair to look at a broader number of categories:
- Nazi: this is Thompson’s Nazi, the officer class Nazi, the person who would join the party and seek some decent rank in it, and seek to advance the party locally. They are true believers. And they have an intense capacity for hatred.
- Anti-Nazi: in simple terms, these are people who would oppose the rise of Nazis locally. Classically we’d say they are liberals, but they are also localists, people who value place over tribe. They are, as it were, classic Tories – not Thatcherites, not Boris clones, but more like Chestertonian idealists. They will fight, reluctantly, but bravely.
- Nazi supporters: These are normal, everyday people who would vote for the Nazis, not necessarily with any real ardor but more in the “hey, they’ll make the trains run on time, and I don’t like the Jews either” sort of way. They wouldn’t staff Auschwitz, but if they lived nearby, they’d bring baked goods to the guards on alternate Wednesdays, weather permitting.
- Nazi non-supporters: Again, normal, everyday people who would not vote for the Nazis, and once the Nazis took power, would resist in varying ways: some might hide Jews, while others might simply do nothing to help the regime. They would feel queasy around the camps, and probably move to town and quietly avoid anything Nazi-ish. Baked goods would be provided to people wearing yellow stars every Saturday, even in the rain.
- Gun runners: This would be a virulent non-Nazi, the type that doesn’t just fight the regime, but crosses the border from a place where they are otherwise safe to fight the Nazis. They love humanity and the world, and their love is so intense they must fight and kill and die for it… and their opposite are:
- Ustase: A local in a non-occupied territory that forms and supports a Nazi-like cause and acts against local authorities to pogrom, oppress, and kill. The Nazi feels hatred; the Ustase feels rage.
Now of course, this is a purely speculative exercise, and highly – highly – judgmental. On that basis I’m not sure I enjoy it, but in a metal tube, maintaining 540 miles per hour of speed, traveling between Houston and Seattle, after missing a connection and spending four hours reading Wikipedia to pass the time, I can indulge a bit of judgmental speculation. Merely as a sample, of course: the real exercise is applying this to people you know, and know well, and seeing how they pan out.
Seat 21A: Nazi non-supporter
This gentleman is a tall, somewhat heavy-set African American. He struggled to make space in the overhead bin, and got no help (or even gestures of understanding) from the people around him. He owes nothing to the world and at the same time, would not assist a minority party with roots in the majority caste from oppressing anyone. He’s already oppressed, but would he run guns? Based on his weight, probably not. Maybe, but I’m guessing no.
Seats 21B and 21C: Nazi supporters
Mid 20s, she’s in yoga pants, hair tied up, he looks natural in an REI let’s-hike-Rainier srt of way. Now this might be counterintuitive: they’re on their way to Seattle so naturally, one might think, they’re blue state liberals. But here’s the trick: lots of progressives are, in their heart of hearts, fascists. They know they are right, and they harbor a secret hatred of some group that they may not even express to themselves. Maybe it’s rich people; maybe it’s gas guzzling suburbanites; maybe it’s Republicans. But they have already slipped Casual comfort in hating a class of people, instead of feeling hatred towards specific individuals. Kind of like how Europeans were generally okay with hating Jews as a class. Some Jewish people were probably awful – but some of all people are awful. It’s fine to dislike awful people – but it’s a logical fallacy, and a moral fault, to dislike all of one kind of people simply because they are of one tribe.
Thus, the progressives (that I’ve judged them to be – remember this is a very judgmental and speculative parlour game) in seats 21B and C are already aligned, on some level, with the Nazi project to channel hate into politics. The demagogue Nazi leader simply needs to attune his or her hatred towards that class or tribe that the swing voting group vilifies. If our contemporary Hitler directs his or her vitriolic hatred towards Republicans, say, the new Nazi leader has their ready-made tribe in the form of our tussle-headed friends in row 21. My guess is that they start out as being against the latter-day Adolf, but – with latter day Goebbels propaganda and latter day Himmler’s convenient organizational regimes – come to realize he’s fighting against their shared enemy, and then sign up as willing – if not leading – helpers to the regime.
Seat 22D: Nazi
This guy parked himself in his seat, worked on his spreadsheet, complained about the 20 minute delay in departure, and is drinking Perrier. He didn’t acknowledge the flight attendant who offered him a snack and a drink – he brought is own Perrier, dammit, so why are you interrupting my spreadsheeting? He’s reading the New Yorker now but he’s doing so because he’s superior. I’m sure he’ll vote for Bernie Sanders but he’ll do so because he knows better than you and I. He’s a bit older, but can at least hope to be an Gruppenfuhrer before pensioning out. Good luck to him.
Before I forget: the guy in seat 20C is a total total Nazi. He’s got a tie on for a flight that left at 6:30pm and gets in at 9:30pm, and just interrupted the aisle and prevented the flight attendants from getting their cart through and got close to yelling them about it. He will be in the bunker taking cyanide when the Red Army pierces the outer defenses of the capital.
Flight attendants: Will divide evenly between Ustase and Gun Runners
Flight attendants by definition already love travel, love crossing borders. And their rank – essentially working class – makes them unlikely to advance to being either true Nazis or full blown Anti-Nazis. But there is a sharp and obvious division between the flight attendants who fundamentally hate their passengers, and those who love them. Both commit acts of kindness regularly because they have to if they want to keep their jobs, but having travelled over two and a half million air miles on various airlines, it’s become reasonably clear to me which acts of kindness are spontaneous and committed versus those that are routine and required.
So – as Thompson indicates – kindness, natural and spontaneous kindness, is key to being a non-Nazi. Key to being free, in fact. But when one has that kindness, and one is unempowered, in difficult times you have to act. You have to run guns to the Free French outpost in Brazzaville, as Louis lets on to Rick in Casablanca. But similarly, if you lack that kindness – if in fact your natural tendency is towards contempt – then you’ll form the Black Hand, or organize the guerrillas for Franco in Catalonia behind Republican lines, or conduct logistics for the Bay of Pigs invaders.
Based on my seat, the two first class flight attendants will split evenly, and their barely cordial interactions indicate it: the older white guy is Ustase, and the slightly younger Asian American is a gun runner. The economy class attendants are solidly gun runners. In fact they may be smuggling right now – the older one, certainly, is up to something, and if she needs my help, she has it.
Seat 24D and 23E: Nazi non-supporter… but oh dear
There are two women sitting together wearing Moslem head coverings – I don’t know the term, but their faces are uncovered but their head and hair is. They obviously won’t support the regime as, like the guy in seat 21A, they’ll probably be subject to persecution. But when you start to look at the world through the 1941 lens of Ms. Thompson, you also start to see the absences that Europe created during those chaotic and horrible and insane and evil years. I’ve been to Dachau, and the silence and space there make you realize how many people once were there – and then were not. These women won’t support the regime, but more than that, they will be the regime’s target. No reason why, except there needs to be a target. The progressives in 21B and 21C will be their friends until they won’t be. And then there will be silence.
This gets to another point: there is a huge gulf between the non-supporters of totalitarianism and the gun runners. The non-supporters are not bad, really, but in times of evil, you can’t just not say “I don’t like it” – at least, I don’t think that’s valid. As someone who is otherwise pragmatic, I’m almost uncomfortable saying this, but only almost. Pragmatism is a proper philosophy and an almost invaluable skill during times of evolution; but moral certainty is required when the world is at peril, or else the Nazis win. And when the world falls back to evolution, we must drop the sense of moral certainty because it makes us tiresome and dull. Thompson lived in one of those (thankfully) rare moments of peril, and her essay captures the stark clarity of that moment. We live in that limbo transition world, where we may emerge into a moment of peril, or we might fall back into a slow evolution, but neither one seems to be essence of our times right now. Maybe that’s why I have six categories for Thompson’s parlor game, instead of her easy two.
Seat 23B: Anti Nazi
The guy next to me has been watching videos, trying to avoid interaction with the overly friendly woman in 23A, drinking water on ice and eating pretzels, basically being a normal, unobtrusive, kind but not showy, quiet but not cold airline traveler. He’s respectful of all of us, and he’s just trying to visit his brother in Bellevue. The flight is delayed, he’s worried about getting in too late. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to get to Seattle, that’s all.
There isn’t an obvious kindness to this guy, but there is a kind of acceptance of what all 180 of us on this flight are dealing with, and that maybe is a greater kindness: it’s a tolerance, an acceptance. And that means that if the demagogue tries to come to power, the guy in 23B next to me is going to fight it from the first day, not with violence – not with gun running – but with the quiet and effective denial of the wise man. Why is this media-savvy man hating, he will ask. I don’t need to impeach him, I don’t need to hate him, I can just simply articulate and project the absurdity that I find him to be. Or her: Marie Le Pen, why do you say any of this? The man in 23B doesn’t need to object with the Warren-esque “I have a plan” chaotic activity of Macron, he can simply say, “why do you yell so loudly? Be quiet – give me the quiet one”. And if it gets really bad, then yes, sign me up, I’ll fight.
The anti-Nazi next to me is who I want to be, although I fear my own internal capacity for rage makes me more of a gun runner. It’s why I got fired from my last job, for “inappropriate agitation for organizational change” (I’m quoting directly from my manager’s written reasons for terminating me). I am not a simple anti-Nazi, reluctant to fight, but when called, I am all too ready to fight and defend and overcome. Indeed, too ready: I am a gun runner, although probably clumsy enough at it to lead inevitably to the firing squad.
So here’s my last view:
Seats 23D / 23E / 23F: Nazi non-supporters
It’s a family of four: mom, dad, seven year old son, four month old son. They’re Hispanic, they live in Houston, visiting family in Seattle to introduce the newborn. Dad is a bit stern; Mom is a bit overwhelmed. Older son seems pretty smart – he’s reading to himself in the window seat – and the baby is just happy, not a care in the world, smiling at everyone (even Dad, who seems to find it hard to smile) and especially at Mom, and me, and anyone who makes eye contact.
These people may or may not be targets of a minority regime that comes out of a majority caste. They may or may not be a part of the majority caste itself, depending on how the demagogue defines it and shapes it to his will. But this family has the strength, and the kindness, to avoid the demagoguery, to avoid the simplicity of a message of them versus the good. They have enough of the good themselves to stay away.
My hope, actually, is that the sons – both the precocious seven year old and the engagingly endearing infant – stay confident and healthy and lovely and become anti-Nazis. Or even better, that because of the love they receive, from their parents and from the world, they have instilled within them a seed that makes them actively, even aggressively, reject the notion that any caste, any class, any race, any creed, could hate another, could use the power of opposition to attract power, could even suggest the idea of another group being deserving of erasure. I’m really hoping that kid in 23F buys a gin joint in a neutral country, preferably with a witty piano player and a bar staff made up of comic relief refugees, and eventually realizes his capacity for good, and makes it to the Free French brigade in Brazzaville. I hope my son does that, too, actually. I hope I do, although I expect I’ll be shot by the fascists before I make the border. Although that probably is irrelevant: I’m probably too old to do any good any more.
In the meantime, there are parlour games to be played on nighttime flights to the coast. I wonder about that guy in 25E…