Reading Malcom Gladwell's "Talking to Strangers" and his description of the two British leaders who actually ever spoke to Hitler before the world war, the description was so shot through with deja vu I could only stand up and stretch to be sure I was still in the present.
Both men misread Hitler so thoroughly because they made a basic assumption, borne of their British class system: Any man who rises to leadership must be special, a man who had, figuratively speaking, drawn the sword out of the stone.
But Hitler was not a special man. He was not crazy, but he was simply willful and not particularly bright. He was exactly what he appeared to be and neither Brit could see that. They had always dealt with people who said one thing in public, another with friends and another in the company of people who were not in their own club. But Hitler simply said what he meant. Neither, to my knowledge, had ever read "Mein Kampf," --or, if either had, clearly neither learned anything from it.
Hitler was just a "vulgar little man" not the sort who could be consequential in the eyes of the British aristocracy.
Mr. Trump, similarly, has been dismissed, misread as simply a rabble rouser who could not be taken seriously, even when he says he will not accept the results of any election which ejects him from the White House.
And any election which results in rejection, will be, by definition, a fraud, and unacceptable.
It will have been stolen by mail in ballot fraud, by fraudulent voters crossing state lines--as he said they did in 2016 to give New Hampshire to Hillary.
So, he will insist the election, if he loses, is null and void.
People have already done game theory about this.
The case will go to the Supreme Court, which will have only 8 justices by November, and Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will vote for Trump. Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayer and Roberts for Biden, so there will be no decision.
If Roberts goes for Trump, in the interest of avoiding a Constitutional crisis, the Democratic House and newly shifted Democratic Senate will refuse to accept the Court's verdict.
Then the street fight will begin, first in the old Confederacy and Mountain West, but most viciously in places like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Attorney General Barr will order in Homeland Security and every federal agent from the FBI to the US Marshals, all decked out in camo, but this time they will need to look like actual soldiers, because the Joint Chiefs of Staff will order in their troops and then you will have the spectacle of the 101 st airborne shooting at Homeland Security.
Who do you think wins that fight?
Then you have state national guards under the command of governors, and Mr. Trump will order them federalized them, but each case will be resolved differently. In the South the national guard will support Trump, but not in Blue states.
The most peaceful parts of the country will be the Red State heart of the Confederacy and Mountain West.
The coasts will erupt in bloodshed, but the Army will contain it mainly by refusing to obey Trump.
The real bleeding will flow from Kansas north to Wisconsin, right up the middle of the country.
In the end, we'll have a bicoastal nation, with some Midwestern member states (Minnesota, Illinois and maybe Michigan.)
And that may not be such a bad thing.
The Northeast and West Coast will prosper economically. The South and those defiant Red States will struggle, but they'll establish enough trading links to be viable.
And the continent will be, like Europe, divided, but in some ways happier.
Rich people from Michigan will still be able to fly south to Florida for the winter and commerce and banking between the new nation states will continue. Travel between states may require passports and there may be tax barriers set up. But Amazon and Face Book will still bind the states together, so, in the end it won't matter much to the citizen of New Hampshire he cannot just hop on a plane to South Carolina, because he never really had much to do with South Carolina, apart from one excursion to Hilton Head.
Those big military bases, the military contracts to industry will, of course end in the South and that will cause some financial pain. The South will be poorer for the poor and middle class, but most of the upper 1% will still thrive, as it always has in the old Confederacy.
And for the coastal states, life will actually be more pleasant, unburdened by having to send far more dollars to the South to support Social Security and Medicare and education and FEMA, those states will be wealthier and less burdened.
Lincoln looked at the wars among European states and held fast to the idea that this continent should be held together by one nation. But times have changed. And we won't have kings in the various states.
So, in the long run, we'll likely be better off.
As the fat man told Michael Corleone, sometimes you have to go to the mattresses and just have a war, to let the bad blood out.
Both men misread Hitler so thoroughly because they made a basic assumption, borne of their British class system: Any man who rises to leadership must be special, a man who had, figuratively speaking, drawn the sword out of the stone.
But Hitler was not a special man. He was not crazy, but he was simply willful and not particularly bright. He was exactly what he appeared to be and neither Brit could see that. They had always dealt with people who said one thing in public, another with friends and another in the company of people who were not in their own club. But Hitler simply said what he meant. Neither, to my knowledge, had ever read "Mein Kampf," --or, if either had, clearly neither learned anything from it.
Hitler was just a "vulgar little man" not the sort who could be consequential in the eyes of the British aristocracy.
Mr. Trump, similarly, has been dismissed, misread as simply a rabble rouser who could not be taken seriously, even when he says he will not accept the results of any election which ejects him from the White House.
And any election which results in rejection, will be, by definition, a fraud, and unacceptable.
It will have been stolen by mail in ballot fraud, by fraudulent voters crossing state lines--as he said they did in 2016 to give New Hampshire to Hillary.
So, he will insist the election, if he loses, is null and void.
People have already done game theory about this.
The case will go to the Supreme Court, which will have only 8 justices by November, and Alito, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch will vote for Trump. Breyer, Kagan, Sotomayer and Roberts for Biden, so there will be no decision.
If Roberts goes for Trump, in the interest of avoiding a Constitutional crisis, the Democratic House and newly shifted Democratic Senate will refuse to accept the Court's verdict.
Then the street fight will begin, first in the old Confederacy and Mountain West, but most viciously in places like New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Colorado.
Attorney General Barr will order in Homeland Security and every federal agent from the FBI to the US Marshals, all decked out in camo, but this time they will need to look like actual soldiers, because the Joint Chiefs of Staff will order in their troops and then you will have the spectacle of the 101 st airborne shooting at Homeland Security.
Who do you think wins that fight?
Then you have state national guards under the command of governors, and Mr. Trump will order them federalized them, but each case will be resolved differently. In the South the national guard will support Trump, but not in Blue states.
The most peaceful parts of the country will be the Red State heart of the Confederacy and Mountain West.
The coasts will erupt in bloodshed, but the Army will contain it mainly by refusing to obey Trump.
The real bleeding will flow from Kansas north to Wisconsin, right up the middle of the country.
In the end, we'll have a bicoastal nation, with some Midwestern member states (Minnesota, Illinois and maybe Michigan.)
And that may not be such a bad thing.
The Northeast and West Coast will prosper economically. The South and those defiant Red States will struggle, but they'll establish enough trading links to be viable.
And the continent will be, like Europe, divided, but in some ways happier.
Rich people from Michigan will still be able to fly south to Florida for the winter and commerce and banking between the new nation states will continue. Travel between states may require passports and there may be tax barriers set up. But Amazon and Face Book will still bind the states together, so, in the end it won't matter much to the citizen of New Hampshire he cannot just hop on a plane to South Carolina, because he never really had much to do with South Carolina, apart from one excursion to Hilton Head.
Those big military bases, the military contracts to industry will, of course end in the South and that will cause some financial pain. The South will be poorer for the poor and middle class, but most of the upper 1% will still thrive, as it always has in the old Confederacy.
And for the coastal states, life will actually be more pleasant, unburdened by having to send far more dollars to the South to support Social Security and Medicare and education and FEMA, those states will be wealthier and less burdened.
Lincoln looked at the wars among European states and held fast to the idea that this continent should be held together by one nation. But times have changed. And we won't have kings in the various states.
So, in the long run, we'll likely be better off.
As the fat man told Michael Corleone, sometimes you have to go to the mattresses and just have a war, to let the bad blood out.
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