CRANK UP THE PARANOIA

Hitler did it, it worked for him,

his rallies of his paranoid cult

of true believers gave them

a sense of the validity of their fears,

his vehicle to rule a nation

of educated, civilized people,

a depression in 1929, the crisis

he needed to become the Savior

of a nation in a social struggle,

he had named their enemies,

he villified them successfully,

the reasons for their paranoia,

manifested their fears and prejudices,

a paranoia, they all embraced,

It was us against them, the enemy,

their fellow citizens in a democracy.

Ran for office, got himself elected,

took over a faltering democracy,

manufactured threats everywhere.

Took a once democratic people,

demonized their friends and neighbors,

cranked up a litany of paranoid fears,

he set up the first concentration camps

early in the Spring of Nineteen Thirty Three.

4/21/23