Saturday, February 13, 2016

Latinos For Trump?

In one of the more bizarre articles written this political season, Ruben Navarrette has opined that Chicanos in the Southwest will support Donald Trump. His thinking is that fully assimilated Chicanos are nationalists who hate Mexican immigrants as much as the next racist. He may be right because this has all happened before.

In 1921, Dr. Max Naumann (r) organized the Association of German National Jews (Verband nationaldeutscher Juden). They were fully assimilated right-wing German nationalists who just happened to be Jewish. Naumann thought Jewish immigrants to Germany from Eastern Europe were a human disease with their vulgar lower class ways and speaking Yiddish instead of German.

Naumann and his organization supported the Nazi rise to power, attracted by Hitler's strength and convinced he would expel the dirty immigrants while accepting loyal Germans with Jewish ancestry. They were sure that Hitler would "Make Germany Great Again."

In 1935, the Nazis outlawed his association and threw Naumann into a concentration camp. He was later released, a broken man, and died a few months before the start of World War Two. By the end of the war most of Naumann's 3,500 followers had died in the camps.

So, Ruben, good luck with that whole Trump "won't touch loyal Americans of Mexican heritage" thing but don't complain to me when you are being loaded into a cattle car bound for Calexico. I'll have my own life and liberty to worry about.

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