Friday, February 3, 2017

Frenzy

There have been numerous calls to action in the past few days, of which perhaps the most temperate was by Eliot Cohen in The Atlantic.

I suppose that RtO's labeling of Trump as a Nazi was another such. It was a deliberate thought though likely to be misinterpreted. Not Many Americans have studied the politics of  the last years of Weimar, or the last years of the Italian republic in depth.

So, does Trump govern like the Nazis? The short answer is ja. The medium answer is heil ja. A detailed look provides  a robust answer

All during the rise of Trump I was struck by how closely his actions mirrored Hitler and, to a lesser extent, Mussolini. Once or twice I suggested that fascist tendencies were operating but I held back from labeling him a Nazi because in 2017 for most people that is just a contentless insult.

However, now he has taken power we can cite specific events.

The most important thing, for now, is the way in which Trump is not like Hitler or Mussolini. He does not have a private army of 3 million semi-disciplined brawlers to take his program to the streets. He may not need it, but whether he does or not,  he does not have it. He also does not have the kind of corporate cash that Hitler had to pay for subversion.

It may be that some of the similarities between Trump and Hitler are just the general outlines of would-be despots. And I do not intend to suggest that Trump has an ideology, specifically Nazi or otherwise, although Bannon has.

Following are some of the organizational schemes or maneuvers that were characteristic of Hitler that are also common with Trump:

First and foremost: fuhrerprinzip. The leader cannot err and demands unquestioning allegiance.

Second, gleichschaltung, the first step of both the Nazi and the Trump regimes.  Gleichschaltung can be translated as my-way-or-the-highway, and it has operated everywhere in Trumpland. Spicer, now known to be the Charlie McCarthy to Trump's Edgar Bergan, has been explicit, as has Conway.

Dolchstosslegende,  belief that the nation has failed because of a stab-in-the-back by unpatriotic internal enemies. This was the heart of Trump's appeal during his campaign and was not his alone. The Tea Party anticipated him..

Attack on the legitimacy of the polity; intention to dismantle the government. This is explicitly Bannon's idea, but also Trump's. His repeated claims that the vote was rigged was intended to make the process of electing leaders illegitimate.

Attack on the political parties, press, selected business enemies of the people. Here we find a notable divergence; in Germany in the '20s business was almost entirely devoted to rightwing (not always Hitlerian) policies; in America today, businesses are more various and the preponderance would probably be happy to be apolitical. (This is where Cohen's warning about co-optation should have its impact; but for the Republican Party the process has already run its course. For the party, the model they should have looked at was the Democrats of the 1850s who decided they could compromise with slavery and were destroyed.)

Contempt for facts, belief that the leader can create them. However, Hitler and Mussolini were voracious readers and consumers of history; it is doubtful Trump has read a book.

Admiration for a foreign despot. For Hitler, it was Mussolini, for Trump, Putin.

Rearmament.

Irredentism. The United States does not have any strictly irredentist claims but Trump has come close to inventing one with his claim in Iraq's oil.

 Is there any aspect of Trump's government that is much different from Hitler's? Only one. Hitler's relationship with the churches was testy, although he mollified them by concessions on schools and gleichschaltung did the rest. Trump has cozied up to the churches.

The anti-Hitler far right thought they could manage Hitler by partnering with him. He crushed them. The anti-Trump right, or much of it, thought the same. He has crushed them.










29 comments:

  1. So I agree that there have been some parallels between Trump and Hitler ... so far.

    If Hitler at this parallel point had simply governed as the leader of a coalition for a period of time, even as a loathsome leader, then exited the stage, he'd be a minor historical figure.

    If Trump truly wishes to be the next Hitler, then wouldn't you say the violent protests such as the one earlier this week at Berkeley play directly into his hands?

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  2. Hitler never governed as a member of a coalition; he used Article 148 (which bruning had done before) to govern by decree.

    I do not think Trump thinks of himself as the next Hitler. He is too self-centered for that. But I do think he intends to govern despotically.

    The Berkeley riot was pointless -- and the rioters, who presumably included the same political movement as the rioters against the international financial system -- will have the same nil effect.

    Alarmists on the left have been saying Trump intends to impose martial law, and following his remarks on Chicago, there's little doubt he would if given a chance.

    However, thanks to state rights, it's not so easy for a president to impose martial law. The governors are responsible for order and usually dislike federal interference, unless there are big riots, like in '68.

    There are a few governors (LePage, for one) who no doubt could easily be cajoled into inviting a Trumpian overthrow of the police, but a) I don't see a small campus riot (much smaller than a typical riot over a game) as a trigger; and b) Hitler got his control early by making Goring police president of Prussia, which gave him control over half the police in the country; no state is as dominant.

    I oppose mot political violence. If you resort to it, you must be ready to confront the power of the state, bigly.


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  3. And I do not intend to suggest that Trump has an ideology, specifically Nazi or otherwise, although Bannon has.

    Which is what, exactly? Using his words, not your creative fulminations.

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  4. Yawn.

    Decoded, that means Ranting the Odious has once again been caught trafficking in bovine extrusions.

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  5. Harry, RtO contains a great deal of vile, defamatory, badly reasoned, unsourced, foolish, baseless, silly, undefendable, shallow, thoughtless, lying merde.

    I can provide links.

    But this post takes the cake. It is vile practically beyond measure and, because it is so typical of fever swamp progressive fainting and ranting, it is part and parcel of the kind of self-reinforcing violence that made itself so apparent in Berkeley a few days ago, and so many other places before that.

    When you throw down the nazi card, as you have here, and previously, then you are espousing the complete removal of any civilized restraints with regard to everyone who doesn't agree. As made itself so apparent in Berkeley a few days ago.

    That would be understandable if there was any factual basis to your vaporous nonsense. But, as you so reliably demonstrate, there isn't. Which means you, and your loathsome ilk, are nothing more than witless, fact-challenged reactionaries.

    To wit:

    So, does Trump govern like the Nazis? The short answer is ja.

    No, you fool, the short answer is nein.

    Judge Robart issued a restraining order on Trumps immigration EO. A restraining order utterly devoid of any legal reasoning whatsoever. Which is a good thing, because it even a syllable of reason would cause it to collapse.

    If Trump was governing like the Nazis, he would have ignored the RO.

    He didn't. Instead, he is governing like an American president: he is appealing it.

    How does it feel to be made the fool so quickly?

    But that isn't as bad as the cheap, and foul, rhetorical trick of attaching German words to create — emphasis on create — parallels between Trump and Hitler. All of them are so vague that they could have been equally applied to Obama, who encouraged a cult of personality, rubbished opposition, weaponized the IRS, prolifically lied about the ACA, etc.

    But that is par for the course here, and with progs in general. Lying is perfectly fine, so long as it is for the greater good.

    His repeated claims that the vote was rigged was intended to make the process of electing leaders illegitimate.

    You don't read papers, apparently.

    Jill Stein, without a shred of evidence, first made the claim that the vote was rigged, so as to delegitimize Trump's election.

    Who conducted recounts? Trump, or Stein?

    You have gone right around the bend, along with the rest of your progressive crybullies.

    What you should have gotten by now, but apparently never will, is that lurid claims like this had better match reality. Because if they don't, if Trump doesn't match your fevered nonsense, then come 2018 the 80% of Americans who aren't progressives will hate progressives more than they already do.

    And the kind of crap that is happening in Berkeley will be icing on that cake.

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  6. You won't read this.

    But you need to. Badly.

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  7. Yet another Nazi:Trump cognate:

    Fake atrocity: Horst Wessel murder:Bowling Green Massacre

    It would not surprise me to find out you have never spent any effort in studying how the Nazis managed the demolition of the republic.

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  8. Fake atrocity: Horst Wessel murder:Bowling Green Massacre

    Wow, that is stupid on steroids.

    Gee, what do you think the odds are that Conway simply misspoke? (Heck, you mistype all the time and never apologize. From that can we conclude you have gone full Nazi?)

    After all, there is no getting away with something like that, nor did she try.

    Perhaps she meant Ft. Hood. If she meant Ft Hood, does it change your craptastic cognate any?

    It would not surprise me to find out you have never spent any effort in studying how the Nazis managed the demolition of the republic.

    Harry, you really should stop typing such profound ignorance. That you do so marks you as a thoughtless zealot who has long since departed reason's precincts.

    And while your trash doesn't deserve a response, I will give it one: I read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for the first time in High School. I have read it twice since, and discussed it with my daughter, who read it herself a few years ago.

    And I have read dozens of books on the subject since.

    So, please, by all means GFY.

    So, does Trump govern like the Nazis? The short answer is ja.


    But wait, there's more.

    Nominating Gorsuch, an originalist judge, is scarcely the thing a budding Hitler would do. Quite the opposite.

    You really should read the news more often, with the goal of trying to understand it.

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  9. Something else you should read, but won't.

    Nut sentence:

    I submit there are easy answers [why Republicans have most of the Governorships, a majority in Congress, the White House, and soon the Supreme Court]. But for many Americans [like you, Harry] cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias hide those easy answers behind Hitler hallucinations.

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  10. She didn't misspeak; turns out she has been shopping that fantasy for years.

    So, yeah, I'm stocking with fake Nazi atrocity:fake Trump atrocity.

    And, of course, since you are all about terror attacks, I expect you to defend Trump's list of 'unreported' terror attacks.

    You won't, of course.

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  11. She didn't misspeak; turns out she has been shopping that fantasy for years.

    Prove it.

    And, of course, since you are all about terror attacks ...

    Prove it.

    Since proof will not be forthcoming, then I will conclude the obvious: once again, you are lying.

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  12. I suppose I should apologize for the source, but it's not the only one, just the easiest to find:

    http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a8674035/kellyanne-conway-bowling-green-massacre-repeat/

    And she didn't misspeak; the actual quote runs thus: "Two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized, and they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green...." She claimed she meant to say "terrorists," but even for word-salad aficionados like those staffing the Trump administration, that just doesn't fit.

    I agree that the direct comparisons to Nazism are a bit heavy-breathed; my own go-to would be Mussolini. Trump desperately wants to be the unquestioned dictator who is nevertheless loved because he makes the trains run on time. His more proximal model would seem to be the oligarchy headed by Putin. Either way, he's an autocrat, and when he submits to democratic norms, it's only because he absolutely has to.

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  13. Remember, it took Hitler almost 5 years to get complete control. Mussolini never did get that far.

    I'll have something to say about Gorsuch later, but Trump continues to attack the judiciary, so I'll stick with the Nazi correlation.

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  14. ... but Trump continues to attack the judiciary, so I'll stick with the Nazi correlation.

    I remember when Obama stupidly and ignorantly attacked the SCOTUS during a State of the Union address, and how you stuck him with the nazi correlation.

    Oh. Wait. You didn't, did you?

    Most of the time I wish Trump would zip it. However, while his attack on Robart was ill-judged, that doesn't mean it was wrong.

    Robart's injunction was a joke. It contained not a shred of legal reasoning; no surprise there, for if it had it would have fallen on its face.

    Whether the EO is smart, or not, or ineptly rolled out, or not, is utterly beside the point. The EO does not run afoul of the Constitution, and is completely consistent with existing Federal law.

    Pretty much what you'd expect from a nazi.

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  15. [M:] And she didn't misspeak; the actual quote runs thus: ...

    How does that not qualify as misspeaking? I am sure you have said things in the past where you mixed up a name, place, or date, or maybe all three. Heck, it isn't as if she was talking about first hand experience.

    Like when Hilary! said she came under sniper fire in Sarajevo.

    Harry fervently accused her of taking the nazi road at the time. Oh, wait. No, he didn't. (Harry, you really should read newspapers more often, to avoid clowning yourself.)

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  16. What part of "She's said this 3 times now" do you refuse to understand? This is a calculated falsehood, mouthed by a lying hack who, astonishingly, has had 100% of her statements for the past few weeks graded as "False" or "Mostly False" by every fact-checking organization worth the name. Wake up, already.

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  17. What part of "She's said this 3 times now" do you refuse to understand?

    You never said something wrong several times, because you didn't know it was wrong?

    Where your interpretation falls flat in its face is that a) she said something easily checked; b) if she had used another example, Ft Hood, say, it would have been completely on point; and, c) when it was brought to her attention, she apologized.

    Every fact "checking" organization out there has barely more credibility than Harry does.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, as we are all well aware, the facts have a distinctly anti-Trump bias, which is why his lackeys so often wallow in fantasy. Your apologetics for Conway are utterly ridiculous; are you some sort of comment-thread Colbert or something?

      Delete
    2. I have an idea: instead of getting snotty, how about responding on point. I gave you three reasons to believe "lie" is a sign the person using it is unhinged.

      Your response is troll worthy. Level Zero troll worthy.

      Where was your indignation when Warren was masquerading as Pocahantas? When Hilary! came under sniper fire in Sarajevo, lied about Benghazi, and prolifically lied about her email server?

      What about every time she spewed about wage gap nonsense?

      You can keep your plan, you can keep your doctor.

      Your memory is short, and very, very selective.

      Delete
  18. Here is something else Harry needs to read.

    But he won't because Harry shrinks from logic and evidence like a vampire shrinks from daylight and the cross.

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  19. If progressives care at all for the Constitution and the rule of law, then they will take this on board.

    They don't. They won't.

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  20. Spicer made up, and keeps repeating, an imaginary attack in Atlanta. And Conway neither admitted her lie nor apologized.

    I'd say my Nazi:Trump correlation list gets longer by one or two items per day.


    I notice you did not attempt to rebut the items on my list. Feel free to try

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  21. And Conway neither admitted her lie nor apologized.

    Is that a lie, or a mistake?

    Doesn't matter. According to you, that makes you a nazi.

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  22. Add to the list what's going on in Frankfort, Ky

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  23. Add to the list what's going on in Frankfort, Ky

    First, I shall add it to your list of linking ineptitude.

    Then wonder just what the heck you are on about now.

    BTW, Conway admitted her mistake and apologized. More fool you.

    Oh, and there are two charges you made above begging for proof, none of which is forthcoming. Meaning, as it always has, that you are lying. Again. Some more.

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  24. 'if she had used another example, Ft Hood, say, it would have been completely on point'

    No,it would have been nonsense. Revie wwhat point she was trying to make.

    As for her apology, it was what Charles Johnson has called a nonpology. She apologized (sort of) for something, but it was not for what she did.

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  25. No,it would have been nonsense. Review what point she was trying to make.

    You are correct, it would have been nonsense. I far too quickly skipped over why she said what she said to focus on her reaction.

    I'm puzzled why people think an own goal is a sign of something sinister, just as I am puzzled as to why she didn't refer to recent events in Europe -- which, in contrast would have made her point, and even more strongly.

    No matter though, I took too much for granted, and got it wrong.

    As for her apology, it was what Charles Johnson has called a nonpology. She apologized (sort of) for something, but it was not for what she did.


    This coming from someone who has never acknowledged, never mind apologized for, hundreds of invented citations, bogus facts, and outright lies.

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