Nuremberg, meet US death-defying “Sedition”

Two headlines today demand consideration, together. Let’s file them with a quote by George Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

1. “November 20, 2025, marks 80 years since the start of the Nuremberg Trials. These saw Nazi leaders prosecuted for crimes against the humanity and war crimes conducted throughout World War II and the Holocaust.” — Deutsche Welle, Germany’s public broadcaster.

2. “Trump Accuses Democrats of Sedition, ‘Punishable by Death,’ Over Message to the Military.” – New York Times, among the best of a sad lot of remaining US news outlets.

Reported the Times: “President Trump accused a group of Democratic lawmakers of sedition in an outburst on social media Thursday morning and said their behavior was “punishable by death.”

“Their crime? Recording a video that reminded members of the military that they are not supposed to obey illegal orders.“SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” Mr. Trump wrote in one post. He shared a different post, written by another person, that said: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”

“The video that enraged the president had been put out online two days ago by six Democratic lawmakers, all of whom had served in either the military or intelligence community themselves.”

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Last year Andrew Coyne summed up his Globe and Mail column, on America’s election, just so: “All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”

Fear? Yes. Coyne’s line often comes to my mind with each fresh outrage from the U.S., each worse than the one before, now too many to begin to cite.

Yet Nate Silver’s opinion summary today puts Trump’s popularity at 41.5 per cent. If that’s accurate, nearly 4 in 10 Americans polled still consider Trump their chosen ruler, despite it all.

Commentators looking to America’s next elections make much of Trump’s decline in popularity, and that his support is less than that magic democratic number of 50 per cent.

Their noise is magical thinking. It ignores – forgets? – that in another democracy, in another time and another place, a madman supported by a minority took over Germany, and then almost took over the world.

Americans who think democratic conventions will stand against a minority mob of motivated millions are ignoring the past.

Alas, Americans won’t be the only ones condemned to repeat history.