“He who can persuade you to believe absurdities can persuade you to commit atrocities.”
Nha Trang, Vietnam, December 5th, 2024.
Salaroche

That quotation is attributed to François-Marie Arouet (1694 - 1778), the famous French Enlightenment philosopher and writer better known by his nom de plume M. de Voltaire.

The well-known aphorism is a slightly mistranslated version of Voltaire’s original warning that said “Certainement, qui est en droit de vous rendre absurde est en droit de vous rendre injuste” (see here)

Translated into English as literally as possible, that French sentence would mean something like “certainly, whoever has the right to make you absurd, has the right to make you unjust”.

Voltaire’s original version has a certain touch of poetry to it, while the English version is much more direct and captures with much more clarity the essence of Voltaire’s intended meaning.

In both versions, however, the warning shows Voltaire’s sharp insight into the potential evil lurking behind populist demagoguery and how the unsuspecting masses can be gradually deceived to believe even irrational propositions and can ultimately be misguided to blindly perpetrate even unthinkable, hideous acts that on their own and of their own accord, normal people probably would never perpetrate.

A clear example of the veracity and real-life applicability of Voltaire’s warning would be Nazi Germany, where a masterful deceiver succeeded in persuading millions of Germans to believe the absurd idea that they were the "Herrenrasse", the Master Race with unlimited rights and powers over the rest of humanity, so that once the masses had absorbed and internalized such absurdity, he easily persuaded them to commit totally unspeakable atrocities such as the Holocaust.

On this count, therefore Voltaire was extremely wise and right in his warning/prediction, although Stalin’s reign of “communist” terror, Mao’s great Leap Forward, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution could also fit well as examples of the veracity of his warning. But that wouldn’t be all.

As we speak, we may be in the process of witnessing the first crystallization of Voltaire’s warning in the 21st century, meaning, Donald Trump, his Maga followers, and the hypnotic power he exerts over them.

The first step in Voltaire’s equation has already been accomplished in the United States, even if only in a partial manner, as over half the population has already embraced the absurd idea that an amoral, criminal, sexual-abuser, sociopath individual such as Trump can be trusted to impart fairness and justice across the land.

The possibility that the second part of the warning may come true in America will be first tested when the widely announced raids, mass arrests, forced encampments, and massive deportations start taking place across the country.

Will those arrests and deportations be conducted in a humane manner or will they be as abusive and contemptuous of human rights as they were back in 2017-18 under Trump’s first administration when children were cruelly separated from their parents? Nobody knows for sure.

So, the crucial remaining question is whether the Maga masses will be persuaded to commit atrocities now that they have been persuaded to believe the absurd idea that a depraved madman is the most qualified individual to lead the country.

Will they? Only time will tell but, for the moment, the writings on the wall don’t look auspicious at all.

Salaroche