How the Nazis Did It

I stopped at my favorite coffee store, Boulevard Coffee, in the funky part of Carmichael. It’s a place that was established in the late 70s, was very hippy-ish, whole-foods-ish, wheat-flour-ish. Now they sell Droll Designs and $15 hazelnut-flavored honey and are the only place I can find my favorite coffee beans (Tanzania peaberry). I go there on the way home from the chiro, and I went there today.

I felt even bluer – I had just found out that my chiropractor voted for Bush.

I ordered my coffee beans and looked at the Droll and overheard this snippet of a conversation:

One woman: Everyone who has come in here has been so cranky this morning.

Another woman: They must be Democrats.

It sent a current of cold rage running through my being, the way she said “Democrats” with such dismissive contempt.

And I thought, that is the answer to the question I have heard off and on through my life: “How could the Nazis gain power in Germany?”

Because that woman said “They must be Democrats” the way the Nazis, and the people who joined/tolerated them, used to say “They must be Jews.”

How to reason with a mindset like that?

There is no reasoning. There is only fighting and winning or losing and what follows.

Evil is truly afoot in the land, and the ones who are “power-up” think I am anathema.