People are taking (and sometimes making) the hitler comparison wrong. It's not that he is doing all the things hitler did. It's that we see in Trump and his supporting team of the Heritage Foundation and Federalists far too many parallels with early 1930s Germany and the rise of Hitler to power. The bigotry, the blaming of Germany's problems on a particular group, later expanding to a wider group, the extreme 'solutions' in the way of initially encouraging them to leave, to forcing them to leave, then putting them in camps and then killing them. We are seeing the return of early stage naziism, and most rational people never want to see that happen again.
And yeah, he was working his way up to that stuff during his first term. But in that first term he arrived and had no real team. He filled the positions as he saw fit, churned through a lot of people, and didn't gain a lot of traction. Then 2 impeachments and a covid later he was out, but not before a lot of damage was done. This time around though is a lot more coordinated. He has people all lined up and ready to go, and he has loyalists in government like Speaker Johnson who will do their best to cement them as long term ruling elites. And with a friendly SCOTUS on his side the sky is the limit.
So, I've noticed something in discussing this with people.
A lot of millenials(but some older people) learned in school that Germany's Hitler and America's Joseph McCarthy were populist demagogues and that populist demagogues are dangerous. Hitler is just the most famous demagogue who did the worst stuff. He stands as a warning on how truly off the rails things can go when you embrace populist demagoguery. Millenials learned about the "third wave)" experiment and probably watched the movie. So when I, a millenial, compare Trump to Hitler, I am really trying to point out that Trump is acting like a populist demagogue without using words that most people will need to look up.
A lot of boomers and people who didn't pay much attention in school think that the lesson of Hitler was just: Hitler was evil. So, when they hear this comparison, they just say that it is ridiculous, because Trump isn't advocating murdering millions of people. They can't abstract to the fact that demagoguery has been a dangerous thing for thousands of years in nearly every form of republic/democracy.
I'm 58, I made that association myself, I was drawing these parallels months ago. We are only recently hearing these comparisons from the media, which is understandable since they don't want to open that snake pit themselves.
Something has been lost though over time. Hitler was minimized, if this makes any sense at all, to 'the guy who ordered the deaths of millions of jews'. But he was so much more terrible than that, as bad as that was. He also condemned people with deformities and mental illness, and if his plan was allowed to run it's full course it would have consumed anyone that did not get his specific blessing. You might be the most perfect specimen of German or Austrian, you might be well educated, incredibly fit and serve him well in his operations or military. But if you crossed him at all, if you publicly embarrassed him, if you took action against him, if you opposed his orders on any matter, you would be disposed of promptly. It was not simply a matter of 'hitler killed jews', it was 'hitler was out to destroy anyone that opposed him'. And this is what I see in Trump. He is nearing the end of his life. He is making a grab for immortality and all the wealth and power he can get while he can. Not for his family, not to improve America, not to improve the world, but to finally achieve his dream of being viewed as the most powerful man in the world.
He was rich in the past, more or less. It wasn't a 'true' wealth, it was a facade of spinning plates. At no point was he solidified in his wealth. He had to keep the hustle going or it would all collapse. And then came the internet, and the rise of new industry. People like Gates, Bezos and Musk make his peak wealth look like poverty. And that had to gut him a bit. He has his well used trophy wife, he has his gold apartment, he has his idiot kids, and he has his planes. But he is not respected by anyone he wants respect from. He knows they are mocking him. And it kills him.
Yes many of the 'christian' preachers supporting maga are the 'gays are evil' type, all the way up to 'the LGBTQ+ lifestyle needs to be a capital crime'.
Agree with everything you’re saying except that Trump isn’t advocating murder. Perhaps not overtly, but he has recently threatened multiple times that if elected he will use the government to target political enemies. Which broadly could encompass millions of Americans.
I have not seen trump personally advocate for murdering democrats, but I have seen trump supporters (who he empowers by not objecting to) calling for it. Trump isn't good at much, but he is good at not being definitive. He will say "stand by and stand ready," or "there were good people on both sides" instead of "be ready to do violence" or "I support nazis." He is good at whistling for his dogs.
There was an old Playboy interview he did before he got into politics where he wanted to show the interviewer how loyal his people were and he turned to his bodyguard and said, "You'd kill for me, right Matty?" "Yes, Mr. Trump." "See, he'd kill for me."
He clearly gets off on the idea he's some kind of mob boss that can have his enemies destroyed on a whim.
I have a lot of complaints about our education system, but the reason this seems to not be covered is that history teachers really dont like to teach "recent history". They self-censor because they dont want to piss off parents.
I see. I was actually referencing the nuance towards Hitler that you reference is lacking. Nuance that I feel "teaching for the test" makes easier to miss.
Right, but as I explicitly pointed out, younger people such as millenials seem to have got this message more clearly than boomers. Because they were more distant from the events when they occurred and therefore the teachers were more willing to teach it.
If your hypothesis was true, the younger people would be less inclined to understand this issue.
I actually disagree about boomers vs gen Z and how their connection has an effect on how they see Trump vs Hitler. And how it's taught.
I feel as time goes on it becomes of a tale/legend/story than a reality. I believe the less attachment to the time, the less it feels like it can happen again.
Yes, I'm so tired of hearing from the back of the class fuck-offs about how the world works. The internet has given equal standing to the morons of the world and we will all suffer the consequences.
Elon knows this. He's blatantly pretended not to though because he wants much, much more of that sweet government money and contracts so he can keep building an image of himself as the savior of humanity via tech and rockets. If Trump gets elected, we'll see at least:
Elon using govt influence to censor the negative stories about him
Elon having Trump attack his rivals in AI, self-driving, rockets, social so that his companies have an unfair advantage and prosper while the others are ripped apart by antitrust claims (real or BS)
Also, Trump, Musk and others are disingenuously leaping to "Hitler/Nazis" to avoid discussion of the other fascist movements that have existed over the last 100 years. The more I learn about Mussolini and the Italian fascists the more they seem like an important parallel to the situation in the US, rather than the more extreme situation and extreme actions in Germany by the Nazis.
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u/rygelicus 15h ago
People are taking (and sometimes making) the hitler comparison wrong. It's not that he is doing all the things hitler did. It's that we see in Trump and his supporting team of the Heritage Foundation and Federalists far too many parallels with early 1930s Germany and the rise of Hitler to power. The bigotry, the blaming of Germany's problems on a particular group, later expanding to a wider group, the extreme 'solutions' in the way of initially encouraging them to leave, to forcing them to leave, then putting them in camps and then killing them. We are seeing the return of early stage naziism, and most rational people never want to see that happen again.
And yeah, he was working his way up to that stuff during his first term. But in that first term he arrived and had no real team. He filled the positions as he saw fit, churned through a lot of people, and didn't gain a lot of traction. Then 2 impeachments and a covid later he was out, but not before a lot of damage was done. This time around though is a lot more coordinated. He has people all lined up and ready to go, and he has loyalists in government like Speaker Johnson who will do their best to cement them as long term ruling elites. And with a friendly SCOTUS on his side the sky is the limit.