It's a little late
Althaus was one of the ablest Luther scholars ever and a fine theologian in most ways. But his tragic error was that he thought that he and those like him could control Hitler, and use him as a tool to fix what was wrong with the Weimar Republic while talking him out of his anti-Semitism and his tendency to, you know, murder people in large numbers.
Eva Leo, the seminary's artist-in-residence, together with her husband, a pastor, had spent much of the war in a concentration camp. They were strong anti-Nazis who had been active in the Confessing Church. They had also been personal friends of Althaus and vehemently defended him against his detractors. Mrs. Leo made it a point made to be there when I presented my paper. I tended to agree with her, on the basis of my reading, that Althaus had nothing in common with Hitler. But by the time Althaus realized what Hitler actually was and that he couldn't be controlled, it was too late. He had mounted the tiger and could never get off.
He kept trying, however timidly. After a certain point, one can sense in his writings that he was struggling to find a way to condemn what Hitler was doing without putting his own head in a noose. But that was simply no longer possible.
After the war, Hermann Sasse, a giant among Lutheran theologians and a consistent anti-Nazi, complained about Althaus to the victorious Allies. Althaus was forced to undergo "de-Nazification," even though, as people like the Leos knew, he had never really been a Nazi at heart at all. His reputation was ruined. Though his books on Luther's theology and on Luther's ethics are still used today, one of the most brilliant theological minds of the Twentieth Century never was able to be of much use to the Church because he didn't speak out when he could have and so discredited himself.
Today President Trump held an appalling news conference with Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. There was not a word from Mr. Trump about the indictment of fifteen Russian agents in connection with the bugging of the DNC. Putin denied that Russia had anything to do with it. Mr. Trump did not contradict him.
Afterward, several Republicans heretofore supportive of Mr. Trump, including Ari Fleischer, Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Marco Rubio, and even Rep. Trey Gowdy, chose to join Republican critics of the administration like Sen. John McCain, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Jeff Flake, and Sen. Ben Sasse in pointing out that yes, the Russians did mess with our election, and underscored a point on which Mr. Trump seems to be confused: that Russia is not our friend.
Mr. Trump is an authoritarian who holds the concept of a free press and the right of his critics to dissent in frank contempt. He is also a narcissist who has shown time and time again that he can be led along by the nose by anyone willing to flatter him.
As it was in Singapore with Kim Sun-Un, so it is in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin: Donald Trump has been played like a violin by an authoritarian foreign leader with access to good enough psychologists to tell him that if you simply flatter Donald Trump, he will be putty in your hands.
Paul Ryan knew what Trump was all along. So did Marco Rubio, whom I supported for the nomination in 2016. So did a great many Republicans. So did both of my senators, Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, for whom I had the greatest respect. But they made the same call Althaus made. They thought they could control Donald Trump, and now it's too late.
It's cost Ryan- Speaker of the House and former Republican candidate for vice-president- his political career. Although Ryan is unpopular in some conservative circles and generally despised by liberals, and although I myself strongly disagreed with some of the things he stood for, I always kind of liked the guy personally. Now that he has nothing to lose, he's finally saying what I believe he's thought all along. I have absolutely no doubt that being forced to shill for Trump is the reason why he's retiring. It was finally more than his stomach could take.
Rubio never completely bought into the man he so eloquently and presciently opposed in the 2016 primaries. But he hasn't exactly been an outspoken critic, either. He, like all but a handful of prominent Republicans, has had little to say while his party was transformed into a modern version of the Know-Nothings, a gaggle of nodding heads remaining silent when they weren't actively supporting utter nonsense from an unstable, authoritarian president who has no idea what he's doing and has a weak spot in his heart for tyrants.
I don't mean to compare Trump to Hitler. In my more overheated moments, I've come close, although I've always been more inclined to think of him as a kind of potential Mussolini. He's an authoritarian and a narcissist, but I don't think he's a mass murderer at heart. Nevertheless, just as not everybody could be a Bonhoeffer or a Niemoeller or a Hermann Sasse (or a Leo), not everybody has the makeup to be a Bush (either of them) or a Romney or a McMullin or a McCain or a Ben Sasse.
There will come a day of reckoning for those folks, just as there came one for Althaus and for Ryan. I continue to believe that the Republican party may survive for a few and perhaps even several election cycles into the future, but that nominating Donald Trump has sentenced it to inevitable death and that due to the acquiescence of so many Republicans, prominent and not, that there simply is no way to prevent history from carrying out that sentence. Only by purging the Know-Nothings and the Klansmen and the Nazis and the tinfoil-hatters who have come to dominate its public persona could the Republican party be saved, and I can't see how at this point that can possibly happen.
But its plight, like the personal plight of Speaker Ryan- a plight which I believe will be shared by many Republicans who failed to speak out when they could have- is nevertheless tragic. Like Paul Althaus, they were good men who tried to ride the tiger, only to discover too late that it was no longer possible to get off without being devoured. And history will not forgive them.
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