There is reason for concern about fascism rising in the United States. The reason is primarily Trumpism, followed by racism, followed by right-wing seditionist impulses.
The notion that public health will lead us to fascism due to efforts to control COVID is ludicrous, dangerous, and offensive. We have had a very mild response, in my opinion, to COVID, almost irresponsibly respectful of those who do not want to change their behavior from selfishness.
I see no argument made, other than hype by Dr. Vinay Prasad, that would make me worry about Anthony Fauci leading a repressive fascist regime, or the CDC taking over as the Bureau of State Control.
I have written one of the first books about Nazi medical experiments and the ethics thereof, and early on, I have argued that Trump’s rhetoric and his divisiveness, his racism, his homophobia, and his appeals to white nationalism were somewhat analogous to what was going on in Germany in the 1930’s.
I haven’t changed my opinion since he became president, nor since his more public looney followers attacked the Capitol.
But to mix the two—the public health effort to fight a plague with political forces that we ought to be watching carefully—is imbecilic.
Remember, ironically, one of the attributes of National Socialism was a keen concern for public health, including worries about smoking and diet.
Indeed, the race hygiene theory is consumed with the views that genetic threats have to be eliminated to preserve the health of the Volk, the people, as is well-documented by people like Robert Proctor and many others, whether it’s the wholesome bread movement or the awarding of prizes to the most eugenically sound parent at various state fairs. The Nazi Party took public health extremely seriously.
What it didn’t take seriously was the humanity of all humans. What it didn’t take seriously is the equality and fundamental rights of human beings.
Why would Dr. Prasad ignore the former, a public health push of the Nazis, and ignore the latter completely? That’s what makes the analogy and his argument not only imbecilic, but ignorant and dangerous. It makes it fundamentally racist.
It’s anti-Semitic, anti-gay, anti-Romani people. It cheapens the deaths of those who died in camps for political objections, or in the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, religious objections.
People today who try to impose mandates for vaccination don’t intend to round up anybody and put them in a camp, kill them, and bake them in ovens to destroy the evidence.
So, what I’m saying is this: I don’t think the public health side of Germany led to Naziism or to a Nazi genocide. What led to Nazi genocide was racism. They are very different.
Our public health movement is not fueled by racism.
The public health movement today is international. It is deeply concerned with the rights of the poor and those who have very few resources. Many of the groups that it is concerned with—the WHO, UN, various European groups, U.S. groups, and so on—are precisely the groups that the Nazis didn’t give a damn about.
I have to say, rarely will I claim to be the world’s expert on much, but I’m up there on the Nazis. I’ve studied it for decades, and I did it, just so you know, because my dad was in the troops that liberated Dachau.
When he finally talked about what he saw there, I started to try and understand what the hell had happened there. That’s what led me to study the euthanasia programs, but also the camp experiments. I’ve been at it for a while. I did get an apology from the German Medical Association about 20 years ago for their roles.
So, I feel pretty comfortable that I understand when the analogies are right and when they’re not.
Not only is this egregious, it’s unnecessary. You don’t need to go down that road to make points. If you think current public health efforts are overbearing or intrude too much on individual rights, what takes you from that position to allege that the next thing we’re going to see is a public health movement worldwide under the banner of fascism?
You don’t need it. You can get all the traction you want and have an argument without getting to that metaphor.
There are plenty of people who hold opinions like that about mandates or passports, but I rarely hear them mentioning Hitler or fascism or making other allegations of mass human rights violations.
It comes up whenever people really get angry about abortion. It comes up whenever people get angry about assisted suicide.
Sometimes in the animal rights movement, when people get going on the slaughter of animals for science, pretty soon Nazi metaphors are waltzing around. So, I can’t say it’s the first time I’ve seen egregious abuse, but it has to be called out and condemned, lest we lose sight of what the issue is with respect to at least fascism in Germany and that is—and I’ll say it again—racism.
I’m sure there are going to be complaints by Dr. Prasad’s admirers that this is another instance of cancel culture. But sometimes self-cancellation has to be taken seriously.
When you’re making the metaphors—and I’m claiming that racism in general and anti-Semitism in particular are the pertinent attributes of German fascism—when you forecast moving from showing a vaccine card to go to a Knicks game, to stormtroopers marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in the name of public health, you’re going to find a lot of people, who had relatives die in camps and are very sensitive to the anti-Semitism lurking behind the white nationalism of Trump, fully outraged by what he’s saying.
