When Nazis come to town

I recently watched Welcome to Leith, a 2015 documentary about white supremacist Craig Cobb’s attempt to take over a tiny village by persuading others of his ilk to move there. The native villagers resist him. The film’s an interesting time capsule from just seven years ago, before “Nazi” became a brush to paint all Trump supporters.

Leith, North Dakota had one African-American among the two dozen residents, and was otherwise white. Little is said of the reasons behind local resistance to the Nazis, but no explanation is necessary. They were likely raised to believe, “As Americans, we ended slavery, we defeated Hitler, we passed civil rights laws. White supremacists have no place here.” The reaction of these good Americans to Nazis was naturally revulsion and fear.

The filmmakers were able to follow characters on both sides of the conflict, so we get a glimpse of some of the motivations of Cobb and his friends. One thing is clear: it’s pointless to try to change the minds of Nazis.

I thought about the famous line: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” It doesn’t matter who said it first, what’s important is that many people believe it, and it inspires them to fight the evils of the world. What we forget is that bad people think they’re good, and they think they ought to do something.