1/29/25

 Wednesday, January 29, 2025

D+83

I started noting anniversaries on June 1, 2023, so there seems to be no reason to continue except for events that occurred very recently.  As I recall, I started the practice at a time when I was having difficulty finding subjects to write about, but I wanted to continue writing something each day.  I have this challenge increasingly frequently (age, mental acuity?) and wondered just today whether I should stop journaling.  The issue is a bit like my abstinence from coffee, tea, carbonated, and alcoholic drinks, which I take day to day.  Mostly, I consider having a cup of coffee rather than a Coke or cognac, but so far have stayed away from all of these bladder irritants, knowing what a coffee-binger I was most of my life and the pain price I've paid over many years.

In bed after 10 and up at 6:05 from a long, vivid dream of being hired as the exec at The Spanish Center but not speaking Spanish and suggesting serving as 'acting' exec with a press release listing my background with experiences helpful to the requirements of the Center, JD, MULS, USMC, HOP, etc.  Like most dreams, strange, weird.  Geri got up at 7:30 saying 'It was the best night I've had since the surgery.'  Her PT session also went well and she felt fine all morning but turned unwell early in the afternoon and has been in bed, using an ice pack under her knee.  She got up around 3:30, feeling better, but noting that the day in the ER at CSMO set her back on her recovery, a full day of inactivity, and a missed physical therapy appointment.  This morning's PT session has taken a toll this afternoon.

Prednisone, day 285,, 5 +2.5 mg, day 22  Verzana, day 8/14.  5 mg..prednisone at 6:25.  Other meds before 9:00.      

How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days: He used the constitution to shatter the constitution  is an article by Timothy W. Ryback in the January 9, 2025 edition of The Atlantic.  Excerpts:

Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered.

What follows is a step-by-step description of carefully, methodically, Hitler used legal means to destroy the Weimar constitutional republic and install himself as a dictator and his National Socialist Party as his enforcers.  Germany was politically deeply divided at the time, or "polarized" as we say now.  Six million Germans were Communists.  The Social Democrats and Communists collectively commanded 221 seats, or roughly 38 percent, of the 584-seat Reichstag, enough to prevent Hitler from getting the 2/3rds vote he needed to pass an Ermächtigungsgesetz (“empowering law”) that was crucial to his political survival. Passing such a law h would dismantle the separation of powers, grant Hitler’s executive branch the authority to make laws without parliamentary approval, and allow Hitler to rule by decree, bypassing democratic institutions and the constitution—required the support of a two-thirds majority in the fractious Reichstag.   He started by calling a national election in March 1933 and declaring war on his own government. 

The story that follows details the step-by-step process Hitler used to destroy Weimar, relying on what the author describes as "his unerring instinct for detecting the weaknesses in structures and processes."  I note that Hitler was operating with  a deeply divided, multi-party government,  with multiple Nationaist parties and multiple socialist parties, unlike the current American government with Republican Trumpists in control of the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.   In Hitler's and Germany's case, the burning of the Reichstag provided an excuse for declaring a national emergency and banning the Communist Party, which in turn Hitler form a coalition with other parties and pass the  Ermächtigungsgesetz (“empowering law”) that made Hitler a dictator.  What 'national emergencies' with Trump and the Republicans declare in his march to dictatorial power?  Or will he simply, like Andrew Jackson, simply refuse to obey court orders.

The 2008 documentary, Andrew Jackson: Good, Evil and the Presidency, which aired on PBS, depicted Jackson as the United States’ first imperial president. One of Jackson’s most infamous presidential actions was his enforcement of Native American removal that resulted in the Trail of Tears and the deaths of approximately 4,000 Cherokees. The Trail of Tears occurred despite the Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v. Georgia (1832) that favored the rights of Native Americans. In response to the ruling, Jackson allegedly said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Although this statement, which has been repeatedly attributed to Jackson, is likely apocryphal, neither Jackson nor the state of Georgia enforced the ruling. Whether Jackson uttered the famous phrase or not, both Jackson’s contemporary critics and modern historians, such as Daniel Walker Howe, who have studied his presidency have depicted him as a powerful executive who pushed the constitutional boundaries of presidential power. [“Now let him enforce it”: The long history of the imperial presidency, 27 MARCH 2017 – LAURA ELLYN SMITH, ncph..org]

Trump has already defied Congress' power of the purse with the two-page OMB memo instructing agencies and departments of the government to 'temporarily pause' all grants and loans despite Art. I, sec. 8 of the Constitution and the Impoundment Control Act.  Trump argues that the 'temporary pause' is not an 'impoundment' because it is only 'temporary.'  Will the craven Court agree?  Will the craven Congress?  Is Trump following in Hitler's footsteps?  I do believe.

LTMW at the voracious birds flocking to our feeders, including a murmuration of starlings, my regular house finch visitors, and what is becoming my favorite (though I love them all), the red-breasted nuthatch who lets me come within 18 inches of him or her while he munches on a suet cake.  A red-bellied woodpecker is doing a job on the capacin suet cake while hairy woodpecker perches atop the other shepherd's crook.