Saturday, October 31, 2020

Musings on Supporting and Defending the Constitution

      By Rudy Barnes, Jr.


As an Army officer and an elected official I have pledged to support and defend the Constitution as the bedrock of the American rule of law.  I never imagined that anarchists would swear to the same oath, but The Oath Keepers do just that.  They revere the Second Amendment and show up at protests brandishing assault weapons and predicting civil war.


The Oath Keepers is an umbrella organization of radical-right militias that claim to support and defend the Constitution; but they are anarchists pretending to be patriots.  They promote Donald Trump’s demagoguery, and they oppose all who enforce legal restrictions on their right to bear arms at public protests as part of a corrupt deep state.


The militias of the Oath Keepers include the Boogaloos and Proud Boys.  They resemble the white supremacists of the KKK who terrorized blacks in the JIm Crow South, and the brownshirts who supported Hitler’s Nazis.  They make the Second Amendment the greatest commandment of the Constitution and have pledged to use force against any gun restrictions.


The radical-right militias of the Oath Keepers aren’t the only threat to the Constitution.  Antifa (for antifascists) includes radical leftist groups who have used violence at public protests.  These radical-right and radical-left groups come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they share an expectation of civil war and use force to promote their radical politics.    


Militant anarchists represent a formidable threat of domestic terrorism, and those militias on the right are especially dangerous since they have supporters in law enforcement and the military.  Their greatest danger is compromising the loyalty of those in the military and law enforcement who are the last bastion of defense for the Constitution and its rule of law.


The U.S. military is a paradox of an authoritarian regime within a libertarian democracy, but its military laws, values and strict chain of command provide accountability that resists corruption by local militias.  Local law enforcement agencies are more susceptible to corruption by local militias since they lack centralized rules of engagement on the use of lethal force.


The U.S. military has fought militias to promote democracy and the rule of law overseas.  It’s a sad irony that home-grown militias now pose a threat to U.S. democracy and its rule of law, and even more ironic that those militias seek to subvert the law enforcement agencies that are needed to support and defend the Constitution and its rule of law against anarchy.


The Second Amendment was passed as part of the Bill of Rights in 1791, and provides: A well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.  The Constitution also provides the legal foundation for the military and law enforcement agencies to provide for national security and public safety. Today brandishing weapons at public events is a threat to public safety and should be banned.



Notes:


Stewart Rhodes founded the Oath Keepers in 2009.  “It’s a pro-Trump militant group that has recruited thousands of police, soldiers and veterans. Rhodes has been talking about civil war since 2009. He once cast himself as a revolutionary but now sees his role as defending the president. He had put out a call for his followers to protect the country against what he called an “insurrection” to undermine Donald Trump.

Rhodes’s warnings of conflict only grew louder.  When a teenager was charged with shooting and killing two people at protests over police brutality in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Rhodes called him “a Hero, a Patriot” on Twitter. And when a Trump supporter was killed later that week in Portland, Oregon, Rhodes declared [on his blog post] that there was no going back. “Civil war is here, right now,” he wrote.

Rhodes’ blog post was both a manifesto and a recruiting pitch based on the oath that soldiers take when they enlist, to “support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  Law enforcement officers swear a similar oath, and Rhodes wrote that both groups could refuse orders, including those related to gun control, that would enable tyranny. And, if necessary, they could fight.

Rhodes kept the nature of the Oath Keepers officially nonpartisan.  It was not a militia “per se.” “We don’t ask current-serving law enforcement and military to sign up on any kind of membership list,” he said in a radio interview. But eventually he did create such a list with members’ names, home and email addresses, phone numbers, and service histories, along with answers to a question about how they could help the Oath Keepers. Last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center provided the entries for nearly 25,000 people to the author of The Atlantic article.

Rhodes established the Oath Keepers as a registered nonprofit with a board of directors; members did relief work after hurricanes and spoke at local Republican events. They could walk into police stations or stand outside military bases with leaflets; they could meet with sheriffs and petition lawmakers.

When Trump warned of civil war, Rhodes voiced his assent. “This is the truth,” he wrote. “This is where we are.”  Rhodes wrote a creed listing 10 types of orders that members vow to resist. Gun-control laws are first among them. Then come libertarian concerns such as subjecting American citizens to military tribunals and warrantless search and seizure. After those come more conspiratorial fears—blockades of cities, foreign troops on U.S. soil, putting Americans in detention camps. Here Rhodes was drawing from the “New World Order” theory, a worldview that is central to the Patriot movement—and that can be traced back to what the historian Richard Hofstadter, writing in the 1960s, called the paranoid style in American politics. It linked fears of globalism, a deep distrust of elites, and the idea that a ballooning federal government could become tyrannical.

In 2016, when Trump had warned of election fraud, Rhodes put out a call for members to quietly monitor polling stations. When Trump warned of an invasion by undocumented immigrants, Rhodes traveled to the southern border with an Oath Keepers patrol. He sent members to “protect” Trump supporters from the protesters at his rallies and appeared in the VIP section at one of them, standing in the front row in a black Oath Keepers shirt. When Trump warned of the potential for civil war at the start of the impeachment inquiry last fall, Rhodes voiced his assent on Twitter. “This is the truth,” he wrote. “This is where we are.” But membership in the group was often fleeting.  The Oath Keepers did not have 25,000 soldiers at the ready. But the files showed that Rhodes had tapped into a deep current of anxiety, one that could cause a surprisingly large contingent of people with real police and military experience to consider armed political violence.  

“It’s not just about guns,” Rhodes said. But guns were at the heart of it. Liberals, Rhodes told me, want to see “a narrow majority trampling on our rights. The only way to do that is to disarm us first.” Rhodes had been using liberals’ “drumbeat of anti-cop sentiment” in his outreach to police. “That’s what we tell them: ‘Come on, guys. They hate your guts.’” 

Like Trump, Rhodes relentlessly demonizes Black Lives Matter activists as “Marxists”—a foreign enemy. And he dwells on imagined threats from undocumented immigrants and Muslims that fit his ideas about a globalist push to undermine Western values.

When protests erupted in Kenosha many of the demonstrators brought guns, and vigilante groups quickly formed on the other side. There was a confrontation near a gas station, and a teenager allegedly opened fire and killed two people. A man affiliated with antifa allegedly gunned down a Trump supporter in Portland later that week, and Rhodes declared that “the first shot has been fired.”  See

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/.


On the Second arrest of a ‘Boogaloo boy’ suspect made after violent Columbia demonstrations, see https://www.postandcourier.com/news/second-arrest-of-a-boogaloo-boy-suspect-made-after-violent-columbia-demonstrations/article_9e4fdf5c-a76f-11ea-8217-ef9830925b24.html.


On Charges: Boogaloo Bois fired on Minneapolis police precinct, see

https://www.startribune.com/charges-boogaloo-bois-fired-on-mpls-precinct-shouted-justice-for-floyd/572843802/.


Leftist antifascist groups known as Antifa are the polar opposite of the radical-right Boogaloo Bois and Proud Boys of Oath Keepers, but both Antifa and Oath Keepers are anarchists preparing for a civil war. “Trump is vowing to designate the Antifa movement as a terrorist organization. But its supporters believe that they are protecting their communities—and that confronting fascists with violence can be justified. To date, one American has been killed by someone professing an antifascist agenda; right-wing extremists, by comparison, have been responsible for more than three hundred and twenty deaths in the past quarter century. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, during the Trump Administration right-wing terrorists have carried out about a hundred and forty attacks, left-wing terrorists a dozen.The only known plot to “overthrow” the government in recent months was hatched by right-wing militia members, who, according to the F.B.I., planned to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. In June during a rally at Michigan’s capitol, a speaker yelled, “We are here demanding peace as these terrorist organizations want to burn down our cities!” In response to such right-wing events, some leftists have mobilized under the name Antifa, following a tradition with specific principles, among them a willingness to engage in violence.

The election of President Barack Obama galvanized the so-called Patriot Movement, composed of hundreds of far-right groups and armed militias hostile to Muslims, immigrants, and the L.G.B.T.Q. community. The Patriot Movement depicted the federal government as corrupted by un-American forces inimical to white Christians.  Despite this troubling ferment, antifascism remained a backwater of leftist activism throughout the Obama Administration, as progressives focussed on the rise of the Tea Party.

Then came Donald Trump, buoyed by a wave of white nationalism. In 2017, many Americans were stunned when throngs of white supremacists carried torches and Nazi flags through Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Blood and soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!” Antifascists, however, were prepared. Hundreds of them travelled to Charlottesville, in fidelity to the “We go where they go” credo. Clashes culminated in a neo-Nazi plowing his car through a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman. The former K.K.K. Grand Wizard David Duke told a reporter, “We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.” Later, Trump said that there had been “very fine people on both sides” in Charlottesville. Duke praised his “honesty” and “courage.”

Antifascist doctrine does not allow for avoiding confrontations: “They will not pass” is another precept, deriving from the Spanish Civil War. In the summer of 2018, several activists in Portland created PopMob, short for Popular Mobilization, which aimed to enlist a more diverse, and less militant, league of protesters to counter Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys.” When an Antifa demonstrator asserted that “The pandemic had revealed the alarming depth of the government’s ineptitude” and was asked what’s the alternative,he said: “Anarchism.” And one simple way to get us closer to that is defunding the police,” 

The animating conviction that America’s economic, governmental, and judicial institutions are irremediable distinguishes Portland protesters from others around the country. Many of them view inequality not as a failure of the system but as the status quo that the system was designed to preserve; accordingly, the only solution is [anarchy] to dismantle it entirely and build something new.

In Minneapolis, marchers chanted, “No justice, no peace!” In Portland, they cry, “No cops! No prisons! Total abolition!” Occasionally you hear “Death to America!” The night after Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, at the Gus J. Solomon U.S. Courthouse protesters smashed the glass doors and cut down a flag that ha

d been lowered to half-mast. The flag was brought to the police headquarters, doused with hand sanitizer, and set ablaze. On a boarded-up window, a white man in black bloc spray-painted, “THE ONLY WAR IS CLASS WAR.” Popular chants at the protests include “A.C.A.B.—All Cops Are Bastards!”  See https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/02/trump-antifa-movement-portland? utm source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily.     

Saturday, October 24, 2020

Musings of a Maverick Methodist on the Need for a Politics of Reconciliation

     By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

America is a nation polarized by irreconcilable differences in politics, race, and religion.  We need a politics of reconciliation based on shared values that enables us to find consensus on issues essential to maintaining the fabric of our democracy.  If we remain polarized, our differences will fester into anger, hostility and even violence, as they did 160 years ago.

           

God’s will is that we be reconciled and redeemed as spiritual brothers and sisters, while Satan’s will is to divide and conquer us.  God’s will is summarized in the greatest commandment to love God and to love our neighbors, including those of other races and religions, as we love ourselves.  That’s a common word of faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.


Religious beliefs provide the moral standards that determine how we relate to each other, and most Americans claim to be Christians.  If we truly believe that we should love others as we love ourselves, that altruistic moral principle should shape our politics so that providing for the common good should take precedence over divisive partisan objectives. 


In the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil, Satan divides and conquers by doing a convincing imitation of God in the church and  politics.  The church has allowed divisive partisan politics to subordinate the altruistic moral teachings of Jesus; and by failing to promote a politics of reconciliation the church has aided and abetted Satan’s will to divide and conquer. 


The church lost its moral compass in 2016 when most white Christians elected a man for president whose self-centered immorality is the antitheses of the altruistic morality taught by Jesus.  A racially segregated church has contributed to the polarization of partisan politics, with most white Christians voting Republican and most black Christians voting Democratic.


God’s will for reconciliation has been lost in America’s racially divided religions and politics. It would take a 21st century Reformation to conform church doctrines to the universal moral teachings of Jesus.  As an alternative, people of diverse races and religions must look beyond the church to promote a politics of reconciliation based on shared altruistic values.    


Religions have provided prophets to bring God’s truth to worldly leaders throughout history; but after democracy gave people the right to choose their own political destiny, religions conformed to corrupt popular values and have done more harm than good.  When Germans and Italians chose fascism over democracy in the 1930s, they sacrificed their liberty for oppression.


In 2016 white Christians sacrificed Jesus on the altar of partisan politics and planted the seeds of demagoguery in American democracy.  Since a democracy requires consensus on critical issues, a polarized democracy is a failed democracy.   Can Americans promote a politics of reconciliation and redeem their democracy and their church?  We’ll find out after November 3.



Notes:


In discussing the role of religion in presidential politics, Kenneth L. Woodward has made the dubious claim that “religion has rarely been a significant factor in our presidential politics, and isn’t likely to be in the upcoming election.”   But Woodward contradicts his own statement when he acknowledges that  “George McGovern ushered religion into the 1972 Democratic Platform with the party’s “Methodist Moment.” It was when The party platform “best reflected Methodism’s ethos of high-minded moralism. It mirrored the Methodists’ 1972 Book of Resolutions. When Woodward interviewed Hillary Clinton at the White House in 1994, she told him she still kept a copy of this book in her private quarters.” 

In 1976 Jimmy Carter made his “born again” Christian beliefs a campaign issue and won the election in a peanut blitz.  But that would be the last time a Democratic presidential candidate won with the “Christian” vote.  In the 1980s Republican operatives and Jerry Falwell organized white Christians in the religious right of the Republican Party with The Moral Majority; and while Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush didn’t make religion a major campaign issue, George W. Bush and Doanld Trump did just that, and Trump is depending on white Christians to keep him in the White House when they vote in November 2020.

Woodward noted that “Exit polls taken in November 2016 showed that four out of five white Evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump—despite his long history of philandering and his manifest lack of character.  More than one newspaper editorial asked: Does this vote not demonstrate the moral hypocrisy of white Evangelical voters?”  Woodward doesn’t define who qualifies as a Christian, and uses John Green’s estimate that “no more than 17 persent of adult Americans now qualify as ‘religiously committed,’  with roughly 20 percent of adult Americans identifying as Nones with no religious affiliation or identity. Woodward notes “the peril of assuming that religion can be politically significant in a society that isn’t all that religious in the first place.” 

As for churches, Woodward asserts that “many Evangelical pastors tend to be individualistic religious entrepreneurs, building up church membership the way salesmen build a customer base. This gives them a professional affinity with free-enterprise capitalism, and therefore with classic Republican principles. But for that very reason they are wary of preaching politics: they do not want to divide their congregations.”  Woodward could say the same for pastors in mainline white Christian churches. They have put the  popularity of the church over the moral teachings of Jesus, or discipleship.  Woodward erroneously limits Christians to the 17% who are “religiously committed;” but over 70% of Americans claim to be Christians, and their vast diversity defies any limitation based on who are “religiously committed”.  The fact that mainline Christian churches don’t make any distinction between the moral teachings of Jesus and the distorted doctrines of the prosperity gospel associated with Trump supporters is damning. Muslims have a similar problem and cannot exclude radical Islamists like those in al Quada and ISIS from Islam.  See https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/religion-presidential-politics?utm_source=Main+Reader

+List&utm_campaign=a110f9da7b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_03_16_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_407bf353a2-a110f9da7b-92511949.


As we approach our 2020 elections, it’s useful to recall the events leading up to the 1933 elections in Germany.  There was a fire in the German Reichstag, its parliament building, six days before the 1933 elections.  “The Reichstag Fire Decree was issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1933 in immediate response to the Reichstag fire. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With Nazis in powerful positions in the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians as one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany. Göring issued a directive to the Prussian police authorities on 3 March, stating that in addition to the constitutional rights stripped by the decree, "all other restraints on police action imposed by Reich and State law" were abolished "so far as this is necessary … to achieve the purpose of the decree." 

The Reichstag Fire Decree remained in force for the duration of the Nazi era, allowing Hitler to rule under what amounted to martial law. Along with the Enabling Act, it formed the legal basis for Hitler's dictatorship. The Nazis' use of the Reichstag Fire Decree to give their dictatorship the appearance of legality, combined with the broader misuse of Article 48, was fresh on the minds of framers of the postwar Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. They opted to significantly curb the powers of the president, to the point that he has little de facto executive power.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree#:~:text=The%20Reichstag%20Fire%20Decree%20remained,legal%20basis%20for%20Hitler's%20dictatorship.


In 1933 Germany was the most Christian nation in Europe; and like Trump in America today, Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party had the support of most Christians in 1933.  See HansTiefel, The German Lutheran Church and the Rise of National Socialism at htttps://www.jstor.org/stable/3164219?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents, Church History, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Sep., 1972), pp. 326-336 (11 pages), Cambridge University Press.


Saturday, October 17, 2020

Musings on Whether America is a "Rank" Democracy or a Republic

     By Rudy Barnes, Jr.

Senator Mike Lee (R/Utah) has asserted that America is a constitutional republic and not a rank democracy.  His disparagement of democracy came after President Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transition of power if he loses in November.  It’s troubling evidence that Trump and Republicans in Congress question the legitimacy of American democracy.


This is not the first time that critics have asserted that America is a republic and not a democracy; but that’s a false distinction.  The Constitution created the U.S. as a democratic republic that’s a form of democracy with a representative government.  No nation is a pure democracy, and some representative democracies have regressed into authoritarian regimes.


Germany and Italy are Christian democracies that became fascist regimes in the 1930s, and Donald Trump’s populist politics resemble those of Hitler and Mussolini.  Voters in democracies have often allowed crafty and divisive demagogues to corrupt their democracy with empty promises of liberty, peace and prosperity and the ruthless elimination of their opponents.


The U.S. Constitution provides for a separation of powers in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government that protects against a dangerous concentration of power.  But that balance of powers can be circumvented by an unprincipled president with a minority of zealous supporters, a compliant Senate and courts weighted with his judicial appointees.


Once a draft dodger, Trump is now the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military.  It’s a paradox of an authoritarian regime within a libertarian democracy; and Trump would need its support to expand his power beyond that authorized by the Constitution; but military leaders are sworn to support and defend the Constitution, and I’m confident they would honor their oath..


Those who have served in the military understand the difference between a libertarian democracy and an authoritarian regime.  When they put on a uniform they give up many of their freedoms and risk their lives to protect the freedom of civilians to protest against U.S. policies, even those who burn our flag.  That’s a principle of Constitutional law taught in Army ROTC. 

  

America’s democracy is only as “rank” as the voters make it, and the 2016 election was pretty darn rank.  Trump has suggested that If he loses the 2020 election he will claim the vote was rigged and refuse to concede based on allegations of voter fraud.  He could tie up election results in court, and then quell the violence of expected protests by declaring martial law.


Germany provides a precedent.  In 1933 there was a suspicious fire in the Reichstag just  before elections.  Hitler blamed communists and was given power to impose martial law with the Reichstag Fire Decree.  He had the support of the German Lutheran Church and the pope; and while the Nazis were not a majority they were united, and their opposition divided.  That allowed Hitler to convert Germany’s “rank” democracy into the Third Reich.  And it could happen here.



Notes:


The Guardian reported Senator Mike Lee (R/Utah) tweeting “‘We’re not a democracy. Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prosperity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that.’ Lee disparaged democracy as rank and questioned its role in US government: ‘The word ‘democracy’ appears nowhere in the Constitution, perhaps because our form of government is not a democracy. It’s a constitutional republic.’ 

Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director, tweeted: “Democracy isn’t the objective’. Our suspicions are confirmed.”  Walter Shaub, former director of the US office of government ethics, said: “People of my grandfather’s generation knew what to do about fascists. Now a member of Congress is urging us to join them.  Bloomberg columnist Jonathan Bernstein wrote: “If we’re not to have rule of the people, who exactly should rule? Throughout American history, from the Framers up to the present, the answer has always been the same: the people.” See 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/08/republican-us-senator-mike-lee-democracy.


In The New Yorker Sue Halpern has asserted that Senator Lee’s words illustrate “that many on the right view voting as an existential threat. At a gathering of evangelicals back in 1980, Paul Weyrich, a Republican strategist and a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, asked, ‘How many of our Christians have what I call the ‘goo-goo syndrome’? Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.’”  Halpern concluded that “Democracy relies on trust. When we vote, we come together to articulate our singular will with the understanding that we will submit to the collective will. ...If, ultimately, Trump, Barr, and others were to subvert the election, Mike Lee’s claim that we aren’t a democracy will turn out to have been prescient.”  See https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-republicans-keep-saying-that-the-united-states-isnt-a-democracy?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_.


The Business Insider notes that Senator Lee’s remarks are “linked to a long history of Republicans rejecting the notion that the US political system is a democracy. The GOP's objection to calling the US a democracy is tied to the fact Republicans have reason to fear a system in which a majority of Americans have more say. The Republican party's platform is increasingly at odds with the perspectives of most voters on an array of issues.  But Lee's portrayal of democracy as something that can hinder progress in the US could also be viewed in a more chilling light given the Republican senator is an ally of a president who ...has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. The president has baselessly claimed that the election is "rigged" against him as he trails former Vice President Joe Biden in the polls. Trump's behavior has mirrored that of authoritarians, and alarmed historians and scholars of democracy.

Technically, the US is a constitutional republic. But a republic is, by definition, a type of democracy. “Both democracy and republic have more than a single meaning, and one of the definitions we provide for democracy closely resembles the definition of republic," according to Merriam-Webster, which defines a republic as "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections." In other words, the US is both a republic AND a democracy. Lee painted a false dichotomy and he could not have done it at a worse moment, as many in the US feel that the GOP has already instituted minority rule and democracy watchdogs warn that America is becoming increasingly autocratic under Trump.

"Authoritarianism in a nutshell," Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a historian and expert on authoritarianism at New York University, said in response to Lee. "Same words said from Mussolini to Orbán. GOP has judged the time right to come out and say it. ...The escalation of GOP and WH rhetoric about protestors being a mob and Dems being 'too dangerous to rule' is very serious.  She warned that such talk "often precedes" authoritarian government actions.

Like many congressional Republicans, Lee went from being a fierce critic of Trump during the 2016 campaign season to an ally after the former reality TV star won the election. Back in 2016, Lee questioned whether Trump would be an authoritarian if elected.”  See https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-sen-mike-lee-says-rank-democracy-bad-for-america-2020-10.


“The Reichstag Fire Decree was issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Chancellor Adolf Hitler on 28 February 1933 in immediate response to the Reichstag fire. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With Nazis in powerful positions in the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis for the imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians as one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany. Hitler had been appointed Chancellor of Germany only four weeks previously, on 30 January 1933, when he was invited by President von Hindenburg to lead a coalition government. Hitler's government had urged von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and to call elections for 5 March.

On the evening of 27 February 1933—six days before the parliamentary election—fire broke out in the Reichstag chambers. While the exact circumstances of the fire remain unclear to this day, what is clear is that Hitler and his supporters quickly capitalized on the fire as a means by which to catalyse their consolidation of power. Hitler almost immediately blamed the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) for causing the blaze, and believed the fire would result in more Germans supporting the Nazis. According to Rudolf Diels, Hitler was heard shouting through the fire "these sub-humans do not understand how the people stand at our side. In their mouse-holes, out of which they now want to come, of course they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses."[1] 

Within hours of the fire, dozens of Communists had been thrown into jail. The next day, officials in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, which was led by Hermann Göring, discussed ways to provide legal cover for the arrests. Ludwig Grauert, the chief of the Prussian state police, proposed an emergency presidential decree under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution, which gave the president the power to take any measure necessary to protect public safety without the consent of the Reichstag. It would have suspended most civil liberties under the pretence of preventing further Communist violence. Justice Minister Franz Gürtner, a member of the Nazis' coalition partner, the German National People's Party (DNVP), had actually brought a draft decree before the cabinet on the afternoon of 27 February.[3  Göring issued a directive to the Prussian police authorities on 3 March, stating that in addition to the constitutional rights stripped by the decree, "all other restraints on police action imposed by Reich and State law" were abolished "so far as this is necessary … to achieve the purpose of the decree." 

The Reichstag Fire Decree remained in force for the duration of the Nazi era, allowing Hitler to rule under what amounted to martial law. Along with the Enabling Act, it formed the legal basis for Hitler's dictatorship. Thousands of Hitler's decrees, such as those which turned Germany into a one-party state, were explicitly based on its authority, and hence on Article 48. This was a major reason Hitler never formally abolished the Weimar Constitution, though it no longer had any substantive value after the passage of the Enabling Act.

The Nazis' use of the Reichstag Fire Decree to give their dictatorship the appearance of legality, combined with the broader misuse of Article 48, was fresh on the minds of framers of the postwar Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. They opted to significantly curb the powers of the president, to the point that he has little de facto executive power.” See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree#:~:text=The%20Reichstag%20Fire%20Decree%20remained,legal%20basis%20for%20Hitler's%20dictatorship.

In 1933 Germany was the most Christian nation in Europe.  Over 90% of Germans were Lutheran and most of the rest Catholic.  Like Trump in America today, in 1933 Hitler and his Nationalist Socialist (Nazi) Party had the support of most Christians.  See HansTiefel, The German Lutheran Church and the Rise of National Socialism at htttps://www.jstor.org/stable/3164219?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents, Church History, Vol. 41, No. 3 (Sep., 1972), pp. 326-336 (11 pages), Cambridge University Press.