Why Trump/Hitler Comparisons are Unfair

[dudalb]

That might but true, but where is the denialism? I'm not seeing it.

I don't see denialis,, but I do see The Athiest whole routine of taking subjects people really care and are sensitive about..like the Holocuast... and then treating in a snarky way just to get a rise out of people. That has been his M.O. for some time.

 

[dudalb]

Separating infants and toddlers, who have trouble saying their own names let alone anyone from their families, from their parents, might be pretty damn irretrievable.

But it is the first time that the Trump administration has been forced to back track.
And I am going to start asking this:How far are willint to go in defense of liberty and plain decency?
FOr me: I took an oath to preserve.protect and defend the Consituion of the United States a long time ago. For me, the oath still holds.

 

[dudalb]

But what we can't do is give up in despair, or indulge in this kind of extenstential angst that ,sadly, seems to be popular with a certain segment of the intellegensia. That is playing into Trump's hands.

 

[Upchurch]

And I am going to start asking this:How far are willint to go in defense of liberty and plain decency?

I'd say that's only half of the relevant question. The other side of that coin is: How far are we willing to go in the name of safety and security?

This is the foundation for which Trump is basing his anti-immigrant insanity.

 

[The Atheist]

You know, you whole snide attitude about a very serious time in American ..and the World's history...stop being amusing a long time ago.

Oh, boo-bloody-hoo.

You're overselling Mr Trump by many degrees if you think this is somehow more important than Dubbya hatching up fake reasons to invade Iraq.

You suffer from Kiwi Disease..that New Zealand is somehow apart and immune from what happens to the rest of the world, and you can sit back and be snarky about it.

More sit back and laugh about it. I was talking to an Aussie mate this morning and we agreed that politicians down this end of the world are starting to look angelic by comparison to Americans.

Malcolm Turnbull's as far right as anyone in politics can be down this end of the planet and he's waaaay left of Bernie.

The whole situation is hilarious, although I do have a lot of sympathy for my Yank pals.

I think we are being trolled, folks.
The troll in question is trying to piss off everybody on both sides of the debate with his snide attitude. Sorry I took the bait.

What crap.

If you could read better than you type, you'd have identified my messages very clearly.

Since you have that trouble, I'll spell them out for you:

1 Comparing Trump to Hitler is stupid and counter-productive.
2 The Dems are as useless as a fart in a jam jar.
3 The total lack of co-ordination of action against the Orange President is allowing him to build a Supreme Court further right than if Genghis Khan impregnated Marine le Pen.

In short, as I've said, Trump has singled out a powerless minorities in society, vilified them far out of proportion to anything they could actually have done, made their “crimes” as a people the source of all the nation’s woes, and made them, as a people, illegal.

Like I said, you come up with one similar policy. That doesn't make them the same in any way.

Right now, there are a swathe of governments across Europe turning hard right and becoming much the same as Trump. They aren't Hitler either.

I don't see denialis,, but I do see The Athiest whole routine of taking subjects people really care and are sensitive about..like the Holocuast... and then treating in a snarky way just to get a rise out of people.

No, that's crap as well - I haven't made a single snarky comment about the Holocaust. I made a couple of flippant ones, sure. I do that about all sorts of terrible subjects. I tell Princess Diana jokes, too.

You Americans really need to lighten up - the Holocaust was over 70 years ago, and we can stop wearing black armbands about it.

As it happens, I know a lot more about the Holocaust than most people thanks to having been very close to three people who were directly involved as participants on the wrong side.

Hogan's Heroes was only made a couple of decades after WWII, and nobody seemed to have much of a problem with showing prison camps that people died and were tortured in as a holiday camp.

Thank christ 'Allo 'Allo wasn't shown on US TV - the viewers might have all got PTSD.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Dubya tried to maintain the appearance of due process.
Trump is pushing the Overton window to disregard due process entirely.

 

[beachnut]

Trump is not like Hitler. If Goebel was asked to leave a restaurant, the place would be burned down, and the owner murdered. Trump supporters will write fake reviews, and disrupt the restaurant that the propaganda minister was asked to leave. Trump supporters will also make hypocritical statements, and project much. ( but don't throw out the minister of propaganda, next time serve an empty plate. MoP says, "there is no food". Waiter, "cook says the food is there", Mop, "I don't see it", or something that matches the MoP modus operandi, or short sentences the MoP can understand? )

Trump is not like Hitler, the Germans kept better records and created an industry, they knew exactly where they sent kids, parents, and others they were cleansing. Trump has no clue. (Trump has no clue what or how a law is a law, Hitler needed no laws)

Trump is 'snot' like Hitler, Trump says there are good people on both sides - Hitler would kill the people on the other side.

 

[McHrozni]

That comparison is a bit apples and oranges. Orban and Erdogan and Chavez/Maduro still care about running a facade of democracy, so there are official opposition parties that criticize them and elections every four or five years. Hitler calculated once how many socialist MPs he had to lock up in addition to all the communist ones, gave a vague promise to the Center party, put the SA on the balconies of the Reichstag so they'd all vote for the Enabling Act, a few months later disbanded all political parties, and that was the end of democracy.

Orban, Erdogan and Chavez/Maduro are also running societies in a much different climate, with neighbors who scorn dictatorship in principle. Hungary and Venezuela are both members of supernational organizations (though Venezuela is trying to quit theirs) who explicitly require members to be democratic and can penalize them for violating the rule. Erdogan needs to show a semblance of trying to join one or else his poll numbers will drop.

Furthermore, all of the above are societies where at least a significant portion of the electorate wants democracy for the sake of democracy. The desire may not be as strong or as prevailing as one might want, but in all of the above a dictator is an insult, not a badge of honor.

Hitler had none of these constraints. He could call himself the sole leader of Germans with pride and they cheered him for it.

Yeah, the comparison between what was possible in Germany in 1930s and in any of the above including the US eighty years later is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. That's my point. Trump is more similar to his contemporaries than the Lucifer reborn, which really should surprise no one.

An apt choice of fruits, I might add.

McHrozni

 

[The Atheist]

Trump is not like Hitler. If Goebel was asked to leave a restaurant, the place would be burned down, and the owner murdered. Trump supporters will write fake reviews, and disrupt the restaurant that the propaganda minister was asked to leave. Trump supporters will also make hypocritical statements, and project much. ( but don't throw out the minister of propaganda, next time serve an empty plate. MoP says, "there is no food". Waiter, "cook says the food is there", Mop, "I don't see it", or something that matches the MoP modus operandi, or short sentences the MoP can understand? )

Trump is not like Hitler, the Germans kept better records and created an industry, they knew exactly where they sent kids, parents, and others they were cleansing. Trump has no clue. (Trump has no clue what or how a law is a law, Hitler needed no laws)

Trump is 'snot' like Hitler, Trump says there are good people on both sides - Hitler would kill the people on the other side.

That's pretty well summed up.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

But what we can't do is give up in despair, or indulge in this kind of extenstential angst that ,sadly, seems to be popular with a certain segment of the intellegensia. That is playing into Trump's hands.

I would say that reinforcing the common ground, the framework upon which democracy rests, highlighting the boundaries to show what is in-bounds and what lies outside and contradicts democratic principles would be the place to start.... only Trump's supporters and others of similar mind are not at all interested in reason, only rationalization of unconstrained appetite... just like their settler forebears.

Owning up to the country's real past and history would do wonders to head off this "greatness" idiocy, but that is even more of a stretch. I mean, who really wants a connect between failed states in Central America, past US interventions, and asylum seekers? Besides, Abu Ghraib and the non-reaction of US voters -- who should have been recoiling from Republicans as much as they are now over this issue -- showed that a genuine, fair conscience is not something to try to awaken in America.

The single wake-up call I wish for all the whine boys on both sides of the Atlantic is some form of Chinese Sputnik, some major advance that suddenly reveals to the common (ie twisted) mind that the West is not the leader. This time, as the opponent is not a white European, perhaps, maybe, golly gosh I hope, the fact will sink in that whiteness does nothing for you, only knowledge, the only reliable source of long-term "greatness." When whine boys are scurrying to play catch up to accelerating scientific and military innovation in a more fit, non-white competitor, perhaps they will finally learn that all that chest beating was marking the beat of their own, self-imposed decline.

 

[Craig4]

That's pretty well summed up.

But if you can pull it off, what's wrong with making the association?

 

[The Don]

The Franco dictatorship ended with a peaceful change to democracy.
The Collapse of the Soviet Empire was not nearly as violent as anyone would have predicted.
So far The US has not taken any irretrievable steps,but I am afraid we might.

In both cases there was however a long history of monarchy in the country. In the case of Spain, the head of state became the much loved king and in the case of Russia, after a transition period, a new Czar appeared.

 

[Delvo]

If Goebel was asked to leave a restaurant, the place would be burned down, and the owner murdered... Hitler would kill the people on the other side.

Can there be any serious doubt that Trump would too, if he could? He's already told his followers at a rally that they should attack a protester, said someone should assassinate Clinton if she won, defended a murderer who was on his political side for murdering their opponents, obsessively sought ways to kick millions of people who mostly didn't and wouldn't vote for him off of any & all health care knowing that that would kill dozens of thousands of them per year, tried to ruin the lives of opponents and immigrants as much as he can without killing them, tried to discredit/destroy basic democratic institutions like free press and actual law enforcement so they'd be less restrictive and he could more easily do even more and worse... you're not talking about a difference between him and Hitler; it's just a difference between the times & places in which they find themselves.

 

[Drewbot]

But his conviction for refusing black tenants in his apartment buildings does give us a clue.

Did you literally hallucinate that Donald Trump was convicted for refusing black tenants in his apartment building? Or did you just make it up?

 

[Upchurch]

Like I said, you come up with one similar policy. That doesn't make them the same in any way.

It's a pretty flippin' big one. It was the foundation of dehumanization that Hitler eventually used to justify worse atrocities later on.

Just because I only gave one doesn't mean that there is only one. Trump is also a racist authoritarian nationalist with hostility toward free media and Goebbels-like big lie propaganda.

Right now, there are a swathe of governments across Europe turning hard right and becoming much the same as Trump. They aren't Hitler either.

That doesn't mean that there aren't similarities.

Also, I'm not saying Trump is, as bad as, or worse than Hitler. Let's just drop that straw man right now.

 

[varwoche]

1 Comparing Trump to Hitler is stupid and counter-productive.

If I was a spokesman for the DNC, I agree it would be counter-productive because it hands the Trump cult rhetorical ammo. For better and/or for worse however, we're on a backwater internet forum, so I'm not worried about that.

Is it stupid? I dunno. I've never witnessed this sort of assault on democratic institutions before, and I've never worried about the US devolving into a banana republic before. As truly horrific as was Bush/Iraq, that was a very different situation. At no time did I worry about US democracy during the Bush presidency.

Further, even Hitler wasn't Hitler at the start. Just because the US devolution might be compared to the German devolution doesn't mean that anyone is suggesting that Trump is going to exterminate millions of people. Understanding how democracies devolve impresses me as useful knowledge.

I agree (with other posters) that Mussolini is a better comparison, but so what? Echoing Upchurch here, Trump doesn't have to be on the same level as Hitler or Mussolini in order for comparisons to be informative.

The Godwin rule is by and large a load of BS, mostly referenced by shallow minds.

 

[dudalb]

Did you literally hallucinate that Donald Trump was convicted for refusing black tenants in his apartment building? Or did you just make it up?

Have you EVER criticsed Trump for anything?
Throw the refusing to rent to blacks charge out, and you still have along history of Trump making bigoted statements.

 

[Lurch]

Trump is not like Hitler. If Goebel was asked to leave a restaurant, the place would be burned down, and the owner murdered. Trump supporters will write fake reviews, and disrupt the restaurant that the propaganda minister was asked to leave. Trump supporters will also make hypocritical statements, and project much. ( but don't throw out the minister of propaganda, next time serve an empty plate. MoP says, "there is no food". Waiter, "cook says the food is there", Mop, "I don't see it", or something that matches the MoP modus operandi, or short sentences the MoP can understand? )

Trump is not like Hitler, the Germans kept better records and created an industry, they knew exactly where they sent kids, parents, and others they were cleansing. Trump has no clue. (Trump has no clue what or how a law is a law, Hitler needed no laws)

Trump is 'snot' like Hitler, Trump says there are good people on both sides - Hitler would kill the people on the other side.

Sure, Trump 1.5 years into his rule after a long, settled political period prior to his appearance is not like Hitler at the height of his power several years in and after an already fractious political scene.

We have the benefit of seeing the whole arc of Hitler, which lasted a dozen years while he was in power.

Trump, if he has any power to arrange it, is still in his early days.

The comparisons, at least at this stage, should focus on the character and expressed ideas, with an eye to potentialities.

But really, a more general survey of the autocrat's playbook would be more relevant and instructive.

 

[theprestige]

Have you EVER criticsed Trump for anything?
Throw the refusing to rent to blacks charge out, and you still have along history of Trump making bigoted statements.

There's a lot of evidence against Trump, but I'm going to cite not-evidence instead.​

 

[CapelDodger]

Yeah, the comparison between what was possible in Germany in 1930s and in any of the above including the US eighty years later is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.

Quite. German democracy was founded on a catastrophic national defeat in 1918 (only 15 years before the Reichstag Fire and the Enabling Act which gave Hitler dictatorial powers). Germany was itself a new country, founded in 1871 on a stupendous national victory, to Bismarck's authoritarian design, so there was no national democratic experience to call on.


Italy was much the same. The US, obviously, isn't. Hitler had opportunities that Trump doesn't, simply due to circumstances. So unfair. Sad.