Not unreasonable to be reminded of past evil

Jim Carrey's artwork re. Trump rallies

I don't expect my local Republican acquaintances, with whom I do not wish to break bonds, to care at all about this I.G. dismissal thing (inspector general). Has Mike Pompeo issued an apology for his misconduct? I'm willing to concede that it's not even a firing offense.
My GOP acquaintances search in such a predictable way to rationalize, as they bristle at even the mention of possible wayward actions by the Trump administration. They go to churches where they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with people who feel they're in league with Trump no matter what. They diminish any dissenters in simplistic and personal terms. And it goes on and on and on.
The danger is if our overall population just decides to shrug, or worse yet to start to be amused. Our news media has never had it so good for getting eyeballs. Newspapers may still be on the ropes. But the electronic media which is so totally unfettered is swimming with histrionics about what is going on politically. Can you imagine how the likes of Trump would have been treated and processed by the old "gatekeeper media" which had a basic sense of propriety? Of restraint? Of reason?
My Republican friends would scoff at me sharing such thoughts - they'd laugh and point fingers. We ought to care because we should realize where all this might be heading. We can pray this doesn't happen. Oh, I don't really pray because I doubt anyone is listening. And if the so-called Christian faith in America has become little more than a blowhorn for Trump and his vain stooges/cronies, I'll have no choice but to withdraw from Christianity. I'm almost there now. This is not the kind of Christianity that guided my late mother's life.
If our current circumstances lead to a breakdown of American life - dystopia - could we see the collapse of Christianity, a relegation to the scrap heap of history? Well, don't ever say I didn't share a heads-up.
 
Looking past caricature/generalization
I am prompted to write this by some old video footage from the 1930s. Sometimes when we see Nazi officials in more casual situations, away from the impassioned and seemingly crazed speeches, they can come off as somewhat normal. Initially I wrote "normal and reasonable" and then felt inhibited. I plead with you on this: despite the obvious evil represented by the Nazis, we must remember that many of those people at least started out on a more reasonable plane, motivated by the standard things in politics. I saw video of one of those notorious people calmly talking about the standard or garden variety aims in politics.
I guess my point is this: people are complicated. It may be at our peril to simply dismiss the Nazis as unadulterated evil and leave it at that. It helps us forget about them? Furthermore, I'll stress that many of these people just got corruptible the longer they were in power. Power as an elixir, a drug.
One can suggest that power can bring out the best in people and also the worst.
There is a slow process of cronies getting leverage under Trump now, e.g. with the Postal Service. With the Nazis the outcome became horrendous and unspeakable. But were the most evil elements the wellspring for these people all along? The Nazis developed over a long time. The U.S. had Jesse Owens and other athletes in the "Nazi Olympics." Didn't Walt Disney have a little animated piece called "The Third Reich is All Right with Me?"
The Nazis wanted to prop up Germany after World War I. They pledged stability and prosperity, generic goals for politicians. But then the power elixir built up. The darkest side of these people found avenues for realizing their aims. We see in America now this man named Donald Trump wielding power like a hammer, in a manner he might not have realized when first elected. It appears he was stunned when first elected, as if he wasn't even expecting it. Didn't Melania cry in reaction? Legend has it.
Trump found that his personality sold in the reality TV universe - entertainment. As president he would have to don a whole new mantle. He could have done this in a benevolent way. Some prominent conservatives stated prior to the election that Trump would mature into the presidency and show an air that was different from his campaign rallies. Fine, he could be a conservative like George W. Bush.
We know how things turned out. Trump is steadily eroding the separation of powers in government, acting in ways where the word "tyrant" should not be out of the equation. So the feds are now acquiring "riot gear" in anticipation of possible disorder? Will we eventually see "re-education camps" for people not wanting to get on the Trump bandwagon? Each week - hell, each day - we see more revelations about the basic danger in the Trump presidency, in his abject foolishness and ignorance. Family separations at the border should have been a firebell.
Again, he has so many otherwise intelligent people eating out of his hands - no ability to objectively weigh what's going on. The pandemic is having the effect of accentuating all of Trump's worst traits, when he could have surprised us. He never surprises us on the up side. Instead we tune into the media and hear nonstop revelations from the "fake news" - it isn't, really - about the new disgusting stuff. Republicans sit on their hands, equivocate like mad.
It has been said that "Godwin's Rule" gets violated all the time. It's the rule about how we should never compare anything that happens in the present to the Nazis. The Nazis were unique. The problem is that the Nazis at least started out life normal. God knows what happened to them, to infect them, but it's unreasonable to suggest this was a one-time phenomenon in world history, thus it should just be conveniently left in a dumpster and ignored.
No, the worst traits of people never go away. Vigilance is always needed. I'll commit the same sin as many people and violate Godwin's Law by reference to the Nazis.
A close and wise friend advised me that "there are people around Trump who are keeping an eye on him." In other words, preventing total catastrophe? Preventing a descent into Germany of the mid-20th Century? So it's just an assumption we make? "Don't worry."
We can be excused for worrying now. No, I cannot predict the future. But as we see the Republican Party degenerating into total sheep, like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, we wonder where the stability is going to come from. If this whole situation crashes and burns, could it wipe out the Christian faith? If it does, I do not know where I will turn.
 
Addendum: The video I refer to is from Mark Felton Productions, where we see old Nazi footage in ways that present the people as nuanced, not just the caricatures that make it so easy to condemn in a single stroke. We dismiss it at our peril. Human beings have enduring traits. We are corruptible.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com