Ace:
All of this is interesting —Â hey, I learned something; I had no idea David Brat was a full-on libertarian — but the piece is written as if to suggest the excerpts here constitute Dangerous Thoughts and therefore Campaign Fodder.
David Brat, the Virginia Republican who shocked House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) Tuesday, wrote in 2011 that Hitler’s rise “could all happen again, quite easily.”
And?
Mr. Brat’s remarks, in a 2011 issue of Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, came three years before he defeated the only Jewish Republican in Congress.
What?
They’re suggesting Brat is pro-Hitler? How else can one read their noting that Brat said that Hitler could rise again, and then mention that in reference to the defeat of the GOP’s only Jewish Congressmen as if they’re linked?
Here’s what he actually wrote:
Capitalism is here to stay, and we need a church model that corresponds to that reality. Read Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s diagnosis of the weak modern Christian democratic man was spot on. Jesus was a great man. Jesus said he was the Son of God. Jesus made things happen. Jesus had faith. Jesus actually made people better. Then came the Christians. What happened? What went wrong? We appear to be a bit passive. Hitler came along, and he did not meet with unified resistance. I have the sinking feeling that it could all happen again, quite easily. The church should rise up higher than Nietzsche could see and prove him wrong. We should love our neighbor so much that we actually believe in right and wrong, and do something about it. If we all did the right thing and had the guts to spread the word, we would not need the government to backstop every action we take.
Jesus Christ Almighty, the guy is upset by the fact that Christians (and Americans, generally, I think he’d say) are too “morally weak” to stand firm in the face of Hitlerian evil — and urges them to be more resolute against a New Hitler — and yet this writer frames this as some sort of Ekdahlian Hitler rehabilitation.
The ”elites,” both in Europe and now here, are falling.
And they’re scared.
They will say anything.
I suspect it will get worse before it gets better.
WSJ and the good professor both miss the point. If WSJ is suggesting Professor Brat is an anti-Semite, just say so. If Professor Brat is musing why German Christians didn’t stand up to Hitler, I suggest this historical note that anti-Semitism in the 1930s was more prevalent. Across Europe, and also present here in America back then. Very few Christians stood with the Jews. If they did, they did so very quietly.
Hold on a min. It sounds like the WSJ (by the well known lefty tactic of taking Brat’s words out of context,) is comparing Cantor to Hitler.
And in doing so, they are creating an even worse act of antisemitism, than they falsely accuse Brat of doing.