What Vidkun Quisling Has to Teach the GOP's Sedition Caucus
I've been watching a lot of Norwegian cinema lately. That's the beauty of streaming entertainment. Lots of choices in many niche markets. And I've discovered the Norwegians are really talented film-makers. Three of their WWII dramas have got me thinking about America's increasingly volatile political environment today. And I'm worried.
Atlantic Crossing and The King's Choice focus on the Norwegian royal family's courage, statesmanship and dramatic escape from the invading Nazis. The Bird Catcher is about a young Jewish woman who evades Nazi persecution by disguising herself as a boy while living with a collaborationist family. All three are riveting (as is the nail-biter escape thriller, The 12th Man). Incidentally, for those into diplomacy, pay close attention to the brilliant performance in The King's Choice of Austrian actor Karl Markovics as German ambassador Curt Bräuer, a fundamentally decent soul saddled with the impossible task of brokering a deal between enraged Norwegians and a ruthless Hitler. Many of us who are or were diplomats have been in similar situations and it isn't fun.
First, let me dispense with the differences in crises between America 2021 and Norway 1940. Norway was threatened from without, America mainly from within. Norway's head of state, King Haakon VII, was a strongly principled and respected monarch on the throne for 35 years. America's leadership in recent years has been disjointed and precarious. Norway's political factions clung to the center; the extreme left and right were marginal. In America today, the Republicans are flirting with neo-fascism, capitalizing on a highly polarized electorate. As with the rest of the world, Norway was still dealing with the effects of the Great Depression. America is experiencing an impressive economic surge as it gradually emerges from the COVID pandemic.
But I want to focus on the politicians that sought (in Norway) and seek (in the U.S.) to rend democracy asunder. The similarities are striking.
"Quisling" is now synonymous with "traitor." If the average American knows anything about Vidkun Quisling, it's a dim textbook memory of a Norwegian who sold his country out to the Third Reich, his puppet masters. But it's more nuanced than that. And, in some ways, Quisling was more principled than our Josh Hawley's, Ted Cruz's, Ron Johnson's, Elise Stefanik's and fellow travelers within the Sedition Caucus - the 147 members of Congress who, defying all evidence and court cases proving otherwise, voted not to certify Joe Biden as president, and who continue to parrot Donald Trump's Big Lie about a "stolen" election.
Vidkun Quisling, the son of a protestant pastor and a business heiress mother, scored highest in the entrance exam to the Norwegian Military Academy and graduated at the top of his class. He served ably as a soldier, diplomat and intelligence officer in the 1920s and 1930's both domestically and abroad. Multilingual, he was widely read, especially in philosophy, and excelled at math. He went beyond the call of duty in carrying out humanitarian missions to save Russians and Ukrainians from starvation and to protect Balkan and Armenian populations. Regarded as the top military expert on Russia, his analytical reports on developments in the Soviet Union were highly regarded. He received numerous awards for his diplomatic and humanitarian efforts, including Commander of the Order of the British Empire. And he served as defense minister for two years.
As a politician, he fared less well. Having briefly flirted with communism, Quisling became increasingly involved with the far-right. But, again in contrast with today's America, the Norwegian people had little regard for either the far-right or extreme left. The former couldn't even gain enough votes to win a single seat in parliament. Quisling, once on the fast track to political success, came to be viewed as a marginal has-been.
Blind ambition drove him to unilaterally declare himself prime minister as soon as the Germans invaded in 1940. Berlin eventually reluctantly installed him in power along with his motley band of fringy fascists. But Quisling actually displayed what some might describe as moral courage in standing up to the Nazis. He had earlier condemned Kristallnacht, repeatedly clashed with his Nazi overseer, refused to approve executions of thousands of Nazi resistors, pressed Hitler for full Norwegian independence and sought to save lives as German control waned and the Allies advanced. That said, he assisted in the Final Solution, raised troops for the SS and jailed opponents. He was despised by the vast majority of his countrymen.
Josh Hawley, so dashing pumping the air with his raised-fist fascist salute, graduated from Stanford with highest honors. A professor described him as "arguably the most gifted student I taught in 50 years." He went on to earn a law degree from Yale. He's the son of a banker and an educator.
The Washington Post nailed Hawley as an amoral power-monger:
Ambition can lead men and women to say things they don’t believe, to the detriment of their character. The worse problem comes when it leads politicians outside the boundaries of democracy, which is where Hawley now finds himself. In the cause of his own advancement, the senator from Missouri is willing to endorse the disenfranchisement of millions of Americans — particularly voters of color — and justify the attempted theft of an election. He is willing to credit malicious lies that will poison our democracy for generations. The fulfillment of Hawley’s intention — the ultimate overturning of the election — would be the collapse of U.S. self-government. The attempt should be a source of shame.
Ted Cruz, son of mathematicians and IT experts, graduated cum laude from Princeton and magna cum laude from Harvard Law. Professor Alan Dershowitz described him as "off-the-charts brilliant."
Ex-House speaker John Boehner holds a different view, describing Cruz in his book as "Lucifer in the flesh," adding, "I have Democrat friends and Republican friends. I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."
Elise Stefanik, scion of a successful business family, is also a Harvard grad and in 2014 became the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress, at 30. Starting out as a center-right moderate Republican, Stefanik hitched her wagon to Trump and has slavishly supported him. She is now unabashedly maneuvering to oust and replace Liz Cheney as third-ranking Republican in the House.
Democratic House member Ruben Gallego described Stefanik as "soulless," adding, "When you become seditionist, and you are smart enough to know the difference—She’s bright. She’s sold herself out."
There are plenty other well educated Sedition Caucus Republicans with high intellect and zero ethics. So, their action begs the question: Do they truly believe the 2020 election was stolen, that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president?
Of course not.
Then why do they persist?
P. J. O'Rourke captured the essence of such people in his book, Parliament of Whores:
Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power.
Vidkun Quisling and the smartest Sedition Caucus members share three things in common: brains, blind ambition and treason. And unlike that other cabal of overeducated elite, the Cambridge 5, they committed their treason out in the open.
The key difference is that Vidkun retained vestigial elements of a conscience, which he applied now and then. The Republicans who voted to overturn the election and make themselves useful idiots in spreading Trump's Big Lie, on the other hand, know better. It's not like their mammas didn't teach them right from wrong. They are devoid of any moral conscience. They're chameleon-like cowards out for power at any cost, even America's democracy. Pathetic aspiring fascists, they wouldn't even make the cut as members of Vidkun Quisling's cabinet.
Oh, and his end wasn't pretty.
See also:
Bring On the Firing Squads! Republicans Make the Case for a Coup d'Etat