Pritzker is right about defending democracy
Several weeks ago, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker closed his annual State of the State Address with remarks comparing the hollowing out of the Federal Government by President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to actions taken by Adolf Hitler to eliminate democracy in Germany shortly after his accession to power on 30 January 1933. In response, a number of Republicans criticized his analogy to the beginning of The Third Reich as inappropriate hyperbole. Was Gov. Pritzker employing baseless, exaggerated rhetoric for expedient political purposes?
On 7 April 1933, the fledgling Nazi regime enacted the “Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service.”
The title of the directive constituted wholesale deception and propaganda. Rather than bolster the institutions of government, Hitler and his reactionary entourage smeared experienced and knowledgeable civil servants as either “unqualified” and/or “disloyal” as justification for removing hardworking government employees en masse.
While those “not of Aryan descent” faced immediate and forced retirement (Article 3.1), Article 4 of the Law proclaimed the right to dismiss any civil servant unwilling to offer “unconditional support to the National State.” Indeed, the “Law for the Restoration of Professional Civil Service” laid the foundation of Nazi dictatorship.
The glaring parallel path of the Trump Administration to consolidate all power into the Executive Branch cannot not be ignored.
Since taking office on 20 January, Trump, Musk and DOGE have fired tens of thousands of dedicated public servants under similar false pretenses (i.e. being unqualified) for the purpose of exerting greater control over the government and scapegoating non-White bureaucrats as token “DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) hires” in the same, ominous racial tones of yesteryear.
In a word, Gov. Pritzker could not have been more correct in his historical and present-day assessment, and the time to defend democracy is now.
Jeff Roquen
Palatine