The Rise of Hitler and The Age of Trump: A Comparison

[Stacyhs]

Bob001 linked this article in another thread and I found it so interesting and relevant that I thought it deserved a thread of its own.

We are so reluctant to mention Hitler and the rise of Naziism when it comes to discussing Trump and the current direction of the GOP because of the inevitable protests and accusations of "drama" and "hyperbole" from the conservatives that we generally avoid doing so. However, the events of the past year, and especially the last 6-7 months, have shown a clear correlation between what happened in Germany starting in the early 1920's and what is happening here now. In the linked article, historian Benjamin Carter Hett, who has authored several books on the rise of Nazi Germany, discusses how the Nazis took over the German government, not by force, but from within and how our own democracy is in danger of the same authoritarian takeover from within.

The past is not always a perfect prologue. But when the past echoes so loudly in the present one would be wise not to ignore it. History's bell is ringing loudly in the Age of Trump in America.

In a recent essay for the Los Angeles Times, historian Benjamin Carter Hett explored the frightening resonances between Adolf Hitler's attempted coup in Germany in 1923 (what has come to be known as the "Beer Hall Putsch") and Trump and his followers' coup attempt this past January:

Hitler learned his lesson: A sophisticated modern state could not be overturned by a violent coup led by outsiders, against the police and the army. He realized he would have to work within the system.

Over the following decade, this is exactly what he did. The Nazis ran in elections until they were the largest party in Germany's parliament, gridlocking legislative business. Even more insidiously, the Nazis worked to infiltrate crucial institutions like the police and the army. In 1931, Berlin police responded incredibly sluggishly to a massive Nazi riot in the center of the city. It turned out senior police officials silently sympathized with the Nazis and had colluded in hobbling the police response.

Hitler grew steadily more attractive to business and military leaders who saw him and his movement as their only salvation from the growing Communist Party. Early in 1933 they opened the doors of power to him. ...

After the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol, 139 Republican members of the House and eight members of the Senate, led by Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, came out of hiding to vote to object to the electoral college vote count. While a police officer lay dying, they supported Trump's lie of a stolen election and embraced the insurrectionists' cause.

Hett then engages in a particularly disturbing what-if scenario, one that has troubled many people familiar with the patterns of history:

Imagine the events of the past weeks and months if someone like Hawley had been the secretary of state in Georgia, or someone like retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn held a significant military command. Imagine what would have happened if the Republicans held majorities in both houses of Congress and could have overturned the electoral college results. Imagine if the courts had been more generously stocked with judges willing to entertain the Trump campaign's ludicrous arguments.

Above all, imagine if the president had been a bit more competent, a bit more strategic, a bit more daring. Hitler, after all, was at least willing to be present at the violence his words inspired. He was also more persuasive in his dealings with important officials.

Hett answers several questions and makes equally disturbing observations in the rest of the article. Among those questions:

1) As a historian of modern Germany, what did you see when you watched the events of Jan. 6?

2) What parallels do you see between Trump and the larger right-wing movement's use of the Big Lie, as compared to the way Hitler and the Nazis used it?

Liz Cheney tried to warn her GOP colleagues that they are endangering the very democracy they say they are defending and she was punished for speaking truth to power. How can McConnell, McCarthy and so many other GOP Congress members NOT see just how dangerous their support of Trump's Big Lie is to our very democracy? How can they care so little for our country?

 

[Garrison]

Liz Cheney tried to warn her GOP colleagues that they are endangering the very democracy they say they are defending and she was punished for speaking truth to power. How can McConnell, McCarthy and so many other GOP Congress members NOT see just how dangerous their support of Trump's Big Lie is to our very democracy? How can they care so little for our country?

Because they have convinced themselves that power is theirs by right and if the voters think otherwise, well then clearly the voters can't be trusted. Also consider those who genuinely believe god is on their side, what does that make the opposition?

 

[Monica 56]

Both are Jewish in their bloodlines on both sides .

Before a brain collapse over that assertion about Adolf , read Miles Mathis' reports on the matter .Trump's genealogy is well known and public .
The details and back- up scholarship are immense and it is pointless disagreeing until you have read the 'dossier '
You will need to read it a few times to absorb, and disagreeing with it would require a few month's work at minimum and the scope of one or more books to cover it completely .

Of course Compliance Gullibles will reject it before they get to paragraph two but information like this is not suitable for them in the first place .Something about thirsty horses and water -----

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Are Trump and the GOP Leadership following the Dictators' Handbook?

No doubt.

They are Authoritarians at heart and see no point in the Rule of Law or Participatory Democracy unless it directly benefits them.


But even though a huge number of Politicians and voters have not learned the lessons of the 20th Century, I have hope that the political class that actually matters has:

Corporate America.

Hitlers rise to power would have been impossible without the massive support by industrialists and bankers who saw great profit in a dominant Germany.
Corporate America on the other hand is looking for China and, soon, India to make the Great Bucks, not the US. They don'T want to antagonize and alienate the rest of the world, and they have no time for far-right US Politicians who have proven to be, time and time again, to be simply incompetent.

 

[Belz...]

Of course Compliance Gullibles will reject it before they get to paragraph two but information like this is not suitable for them in the first place .Something about thirsty horses and water -----

Asserting things does not make it true. Your problem is accepting these statements without any verification.

 

[Monica 56]

Are Trump and the GOP Leadership following the Dictators' Handbook?

No doubt.

They are Authoritarians at heart and see no point in the Rule of Law or Participatory Democracy unless it directly benefits them.


But even though a huge number of Politicians and voters have not learned the lessons of the 20th Century, I have hope that the political class that actually matters has:

Corporate America.

Hitlers rise to power would have been impossible without the massive support by industrialists and bankers who saw great profit in a dominant Germany.
Corporate America on the other hand is looking for China and, soon, India to make the Great Bucks, not the US. They don'T want to antagonize and alienate the rest of the world, and they have no time for far-right US Politicians who have proven to be, time and time again, to be simply incompetent.

I love surreal comedy .

Sleepy the Puppet Pres is already looking more and more like a budding Dictator than Trump ever did .
OK . I accept he is only a stand - in for Susan Rice passing on Obama's rulings , but like any left wing nut jobs , the route to power is always paved with Authoritarianism .
And with his push to wipe out youngsters with the poison vaccines he is giving a good imitation of Genocide in full view .
A great lover of the endless wars approach , Sleepy has wrecked Trump's foreign policy of not starting wars but finding solutions wherever possible .

And so it goes on . The ones to compare with the likes of a Dictator are those from the barmy left . Not the Trumps of this world .

 

[newyorkguy]

One crucial difference I see with the Germany of the 1920s-1930s and the USA of the 2020s is this (from the OP):

Hitler grew steadily more attractive to business and military leaders who saw him and his movement as their only salvation from the growing Communist Party. Early in 1933 they opened the doors of power to him.

There is no such internal threat in the U.S. although trump and his supporters try and create one by endlessly bleating about "socialism." [See post above.] But in Germany it took the specter of a powerful Soviet Union and a worldwide Depression to bring Hitler to full power. We seemed to have dodged that bullet. The socialism meme works with certain people but I don't think most business and military leaders buy into it. Hopefully it stays that way but I agree, the threat is real.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

One crucial difference I see with the Germany of the 1920s-1930s and the USA of the 2020s is this (from the OP):


There is no such internal threat in the U.S. although trump and his supporters try and create one by endlessly bleating about "socialism." [See post above.] But in Germany it took the specter of a powerful Soviet Union and a worldwide Depression to bring Hitler to full power. We seemed to have dodged that bullet. The socialism meme works with certain people but I don't think most business and military leaders buy into it. Hopefully it stays that way but I agree, the threat is real.

Agreed, and to add. There's also not a similar level of outright revolutionary activity. You don't see Freikorps and communists fighting for literal control of cities and regions of the country. Hitler's grabs for power were among many other similar attempts, often with individual cities or regions briefly being declared independent sovereignty under this or that communist or extreme right authority. Lots of street fighting over turf was happening.

The right wing also enjoyed extreme leniency from the judicial system. Failed right wing coups were not a disaster for these people because they often ended with lenient wrist-slap sentences. Hilter personally failed to seize government and rather than serving a long sentence and/or being deported back to Austria, he got a brief visit to a luxury prison giving him time to collect his thoughts, publish Mein Kampf, and be back in the action in a timely way. US cops are definitely showing a clear preference for extreme right politics, but above the street level I'm not seeing quite as much open enabling by our judicial system. J6 rioters are getting the book thrown at them.

Trump has his brownshirts in the form of fascist groups like the Proud Boys or III%er types, but while similar in type, there is no similarity in scale.

None of this is to diminish the threat that the extreme right poses to this country. Drawing parallels to history is a useful thought experiment, but there is no requirement for things to be an exact duplicate of the past to still happen. History rhymes but doesn't repeat.

More broadly, the attempts of MAGA fash to seize power can be compared to other fascist takeovers, not just to Hitler. I always found that Trump personally seems more like a bumbling, opportunistic Mussolini type rather than a dyed in the wool ideologue like Hilter.

 

[Belz...]

I love surreal comedy .

Sleepy the Puppet Pres is already looking more and more like a budding Dictator than Trump ever did .

Do you have any examples of him becoming a dictator? Other than him being on the other team, that is.

I accept he is only a stand - in for Susan Rice passing on Obama's rulings

Why do you accept it?

And with his push to wipe out youngsters with the poison vaccines he is giving a good imitation of Genocide in full view .

When the vaccine doesn't end up killing people are you going to come back here to apologise for promoting such dangerous ideas?

A great lover of the endless wars approach , Sleepy has wrecked Trump's foreign policy of not starting wars but finding solutions wherever possible .

No wars have been started. What are you talking about?

 

[Belz...]

One crucial difference I see with the Germany of the 1920s-1930s and the USA of the 2020s is this (from the OP):


There is no such internal threat in the U.S. although trump and his supporters try and create one by endlessly bleating about "socialism." [See post above.] But in Germany it took the specter of a powerful Soviet Union and a worldwide Depression to bring Hitler to full power. We seemed to have dodged that bullet. The socialism meme works with certain people but I don't think most business and military leaders buy into it. Hopefully it stays that way but I agree, the threat is real.

I don't think it matters that the threat of socialism (or satanic baby-killing rituals) is real or not, so long as many people believe it.

 

[PhantomWolf]

And with his push to wipe out youngsters with the poison vaccines he is giving a good imitation of Genocide in full view .

Are you saying that the vaccines that Trump keeps on wanting credit for are poison? So you think that Trump created this poison and Biden is handing out the poison Trump had made? Are Trump and Biden in league?

 

[TheSupermeerkat]

And with his push to wipe out youngsters with the poison vaccines he is giving a good imitation of Genocide in full view .

50 percent of the American public is vaccinated. When will people start dying?

I had both my teenage sons vaccinated in February - when will they die?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

to adopt a quote by Lenin *

In America you cannot have a Revolution because you might miss your favorite shows .

*

in Germany ‘you cannot have a revolution because you have to step on the lawn'

 

[Belz...]

50 percent of the American public is vaccinated. When will people start dying?

I had both my teenage sons vaccinated in February - when will they die?

In the next two weeks.

 

[Foster Zygote]

In the next two weeks.

So... like The Money Pit.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The only problem with Godwin's law is that it can lead people to the false assumption that nothing is ever like Hitler.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Both are Jewish in their bloodlines on both sides .

Even if true, so what? How would having Jewish ancestry be any more relevant than both of them disliking the smell of cat pee? It's hard not to see such a statement as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.

 

[catsmate]

Both are Jewish in their bloodlines on both sides .

Bollocks. Even if I, or indeed anyone with a working brain, was to take the spewings of a cretin like 'pi equals four' Mathis seriously, why does "Jewish in their bloodlines" matter?
Except, of course, to the childishly stupid anti-semites out there.

 

[kookbreaker]

Even if true, so what? How would having Jewish ancestry be any more relevant than both of them disliking the smell of cat pee? It's hard not to see such a statement as an anti-Semitic dog whistle.

That's not a dog whistle, that's a fog horn.

 

[Foster Zygote]

That's not a dog whistle, that's a fog horn.

Sorry, I can't hear you. I have a Jewish banana in my ear.