A Letter from an Educator

January 16, 2018

Dear Ms. Mika,

I am an educator. After the 1999 Columbine High School shootings, I spent over a decade doing research in order to find out “why.”

Of the over 400 psychology books I read, fully one quarter pertained to “why” of the Holocaust.

I discovered that the reasons 38% of German voters cast ballots for a charismatic demagogue in 1932 mirror the reasons why 38% of American voters today comprise the ardent base of our leader.

The Germans who supported their demagogue all had fathers whose every trait was exactly like him, even including his theatrical rants. One exception:

This new father never blamed them for causing all problems, as their own parents had done.

Instead, he blamed others for every societal problem.

This token of parental love, never given by their own parents, engendered absolute, hungered devotion.

The same is underway in America today. Unloved children, even decades later, gravitate toward someone who will give them permission to release pent-up, unconscious hatred toward their parents, for the mistreatment received, upon innocent scapegoats. Unloved children, unless helped by a teacher or another adult, are the origin for racism and all hate.

Robert L.