Today I’ve been thinking about how our current moment resonates with other times. For instance 1939, when the German American Bund held a pro-Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden.

For as long as I’ve been alive, all sensible people have considered Nazis the embodiment of evil for six million very good reasons. So we should be careful throwing the word around, and the rhetoric comparing That Fucking Guy to Adolf Hitler seemed overblown at first. TFG is not an ideologue; he is motivated entirely by self-interest. But over time that self-interest has led him to some dark places. The current scapegoating of immigrants is a calculated move, but that doesn’t mean it won’t end up having consequences for large numbers of people. And he has been crystal-clear about his intention to use the levers of government to punish his political enemies, given the chance.

If it came to a choice, I don’t doubt that TFG would sacrifice the lives of six million people to save his own pasty white ass. He wouldn’t think twice about it.

So I think the comparison is apt; TFG may not be a Hitler yet. But the time to stop him from becoming one is now.

It’s worth noting that the 1939 rally was the beginning of the end for the Bund. Check out this litany of woes enumerated by yer Wikipedia:

Two months after the rally, the Hollywood feature film Confessions of a Nazi Spy was released by the Warner Brothers studio, ridiculing the Nazis and their American sympathizers. The Bund also came under investigation. After its financial records were seized in a raid on the group’s Yorkville, Manhattan headquarters on the Upper Eastside, authorities discovered that $14,000 dollars (worth about $273,000 dollars in 2021) which were raised by the Bund during the rally were unaccounted for – [leader Frtiz] Kuhn had spent them on his mistress and various personal expenses. Kuhn was later convicted of embezzlement and sent to Sing Sing prison in upstate Ossining, New York in December 1939. Kuhn’s successor as the Bund’s leader was Gerhard Wilhelm Kunze, a spy for German military intelligence who fled south from the United States in November 1941. However, cooperative Mexican authorities forced Kunze to return to the United States, where he was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for espionage. The Bund’s final national leader was George Froboese, who was in charge of the organization when Germany declared war on the United States, several days after the Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 11, 1941. Froboese committed suicide a year later in 1942 after he received a federal grand jury subpoena.

Early indications are that this week’s rally will be an electoral disaster for MAGA. Just for starters, there are hundreds of thousands of Puerto Rican Americans in the swing state of Pennsylvania, and they are pissed.

It’s not clear why a political campaign would kick itself in the balls this way, unless they know they are going to lose and are trying to stir up a race war to cover their post-election shenanigans. But I don’t think it’s going to work. Call me Pollyanna — and I know I live in a bubble up here among the trees — I think what we saw at MSG was 20,000 of the most extreme people in a country of 350 million.

I know there’s anger out there. I know there’s hate. There’s also video games, the NFL, chicken wings, the Golden Bacherlorette, and a thousand other things to distract people. The race war feels like a stretch.

Another time I’ve been brooding on is 2004, the most depressing political year of my adult life. I could forgive my fellow-countrymen for electing George W. Bush once; he pretended to be a “compassionate conservative,” people were ready for a change from the Clinton years, and Al Gore (bless his heart) was a bit of a dud. But when we re-elected W. in full knowledge of what he was actually like, it was hard to swallow.

Likewise, I can forgive people who voted for TFG in 2016. He was an unknown factor and many people don’t like Hillary for one reason or another — most of them dumb, but it is what it is. 2020 is a harder sell, and if you’re still willing to vote for him now, knowing all we know… it’s just flabbergasting to me. I have not the words to describe how fucked-up it is that this election looks close.

Finally, I’ve been thinking of 1969, a year for which I was alive but not cognizant. In my mind it represents a time of turmoil and transition, and for those of us who have watched Withnail and I a hundred or more times, its symbolic importance is clear. “They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworth’s, man,” says Danny. “The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over.”

1969 was the year of the moon landing, and also the Manson Family. The Kennedys and Dr. King were dead, the great wave of the Sixties had broken and rolled back… but man, there was a fuckload of amazing music made that year.

In the course of doing maintenance on this site I recently came across a compilation of some of the more soothing songs from that troubled era. I’ve been finding it very helpful to my state of mind, so I offer it to you here by way of a balm. The original liner notes are here. Peace and love, man, peace and love.