To the editor:

Adolf Hitler’s name sold newsprint. Dorothy Thompson, high-up the American journalism ladder, got an exclusive interview, printed in Cosmopolitan in March 1932.

“When you come to power,” she asked, “will you abolish the constitution of the German Republic?”

“I will get into power legally,” he responded. “I will abolish this parliament and the Weimar constitution afterward. I will found an authority-state, from the lowest cell to the highest instance; everywhere there will be responsibility and authority above, discipline and obedience below.”

Ms. Thompson had two reasons to doubt he could succeed.

“Imagine a would-be dictator setting out to persuade a sovereign people to vote away their rights.”

And, to achieve power Hitler would be forced to compromise, sharing power with centrist parties.

“[I]t is highly improbable that in this case he will succeed in putting through any of his more radical plans.”

She wrote: “Oh, Adolf! Adolf! You will be out of luck!”

In Tuesday’s Journal-World, Kathleen Parker uses George Orwell’s “1984” to look at the problem of truth in democracy.

“In his novel ‘1984,’ George Orwell wrote: ‘And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed – if all records told the same tale – then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'”

Monday, Iowa Republicans overwhelmingly nominated Donald Trump for president, with 67% avowing the 2020 election was stolen.

Should we fear a history that venerates the Jan. 6 “Patriots”?

William Skepnek,

Lawrence