Here’s some good news for those maintaining the bulwarks of our democracy and guarding them from harm. Scott Adams, the guy who draws the Dilbert cartoon, has pledged to take up arms against Donald Trump should he become president and subsequently become “Hitler-ish.” Just as the Czech resistance depended on those willing to make cutting critiques of the foibles of upper management to pull off Operation Anthropoid, so too will America’s future anti-fascist coup-plotters be able to rely on the strategic stockpile of glibness necessary to preserve our post-enlightenment endeavors.
It will make all the difference, I’m sure, so let’s enter Adams’ contract with America into the public record:
My promise: If Trump gets elected, and he does anything that looks even slightly Hitler-ish in office, I will join the resistance movement and help kill him. That’s an easy promise to make, and I hope my fellow citizens would use their Second Amendment rights to rise up and help me kill any Hitler-type person who rose to the top job in this country, no matter who it is.
As I often say, Democrats generally use guns to commit crimes. Republicans use guns for sport and for self-defense. If you are a Republican gun-owner, and you value the principles of the Constitution, I’m confident you would join me in the resistance movement and help kill any leader that exhibited genuine animosity toward people because of their genitalia, sexual preference, or skin pigmentation.
In other words, I’m willing to bet my life that the “monster” view of Trump is an illusion.
Great.
I’m not sure what more needs to be said. Some might feel that this makes tremendous light of people who actually did risk their lives to kill Hitler when he was beginning to do things that looked slightly Hitler-ish (him-ish?), but I assure you, there was room to make light of them. One of my favorite accounts from Russell Miller’s Behind The Lines: The Oral History of Special Operations in World War II involved an OSS proposal to airdrop “hardcore pornography” on Hitler’s headquarters in the hopes it might make him suicidal with horniness.
Besides, we’ve already made light of Hitler’s resistors this election cycle by speculating on whether people might be willing to go back in time and kill Baby Hitler.
I’m sure that some folks might adopt a position of “Well, what are you waiting for, Scott Adams?” Others might simply scoff and move on.
Adams, of course, has found our current election cycle to be an excellent source of grist for an elaborate game of trolling, much of which involves him ginning up the notion that he has actual personal stakes in this election and then dramatizing them for the purpose of getting a reaction. In a previous online missive, for example, he explained that he was endorsing Hillary Clinton because he felt his life would be in danger otherwise.
In reality, Adams is an affluent celebrity to whom the repercussions of political decisions ― from the Commodity Futures Modernization Act to ruinous overseas misadventures to any number of laws passed and appointments made over the past 20 years ― simply do not attach. And he’s not even particularly intellectually curious about these decisions and their repercussions, either. In the paragraph that follows his promise to kill Trump should he become Hitlery, he admits that he’s only really interested in the trolling game: “That said, I also don’t know which candidate has the best policies. I wouldn’t risk my life for any of their tax plans or ISIS-fighting strategies. I’m only interested in helping the public see past their hallucinations about the monster under the bed. You’re on your own to decide who has the best policies.”
There hasn’t been a monster under Adams’ bed for a long while. He’s just one of those lucky people that live a blithe and carefree life inside a consequence-free bubble. So, yes, this is an “easy promise” for Adams to make. Easier still in late October of 2016.
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Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below.