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forward a rational program, but by creating a convincing picture of
a single odious enemy, and lumping a number of quite different op–
ponents together under this stereotype.
This trick worked wonders when
it
was first used under the
Weimar Republic. While the academics were assured that Hitler
was really a moderate, and beguiled by his racy exposure of democratic
hypocrisy, the business community and the non-political masses were
being mobilized against the liberal enemy. And meanwhile the idealism
of youth was attracted by denunciations of materialism and mystical
appeals to self-sacrifice.
When he writes, "The choice of the enemy
is
the decisive action
in determining the nature of political struggle," Mr. Burnham-un–
wittingly perhaps-is borrowing this Hitlerian technique. He too paints
a savage picture of liberalism in secret league with Communism, and
then by an extraordinary sleight of hand reaches the conclusion that
this conspiracy has managed
to
get control of all the levers of power
in Washington, all the media of mass communication, and the whole
educational system. Under this single stereotype of the do-gooding
fellow-traveling pacifist dupe of Khrushchev, Mr. Burnham lumps
together F .D.R. and John Kennedy, Hubert Humphrey and Averell
Harriman, not
to
mention the whole staff of the
New York Times.
And
if anybody objects that this kind of higher lunacy could have no appeal
to an educated electorate, I can only recall that the Nazi denunciation
of Weimar Liberalism was swallowed hook, line and sinker, by the
great majority of educated Germans-business men, university pro–
fessors, bishops and all.
Having noticed the ominous resemblances between the German
anti-liberal crusade of the twenties, and the American anti-liberal
crusade of the sixties, one must give full weight to the differences as
well. What distinguished Hitler as a demagogue was the unique
openness with which he publicized his determination to smash the
Weimar democracy, and create a
Reich
in which the German
Herrenvolk
would rebuild European civilization by making the Slavs and the
colored peoples their hewers of wood and drawers of water. The
Germans were not raped by Hitler. They fell in love with his overt
racism and open violence: and the propaganda of his speeches
was reinforced by the physical violence of the S.A. and the S.S.
Mr. Burnham's belief in the superiority of Western man is closely
linked with the Nazi concept of
Herrenvolk.
But there is no trace either
in his writings or in the behavior of the Republican candidate whom
he serves of the Nazi cult of violence. That is why it is absurd
to
call