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

Foster Zygote said:
The only problem with Godwin's law is that it can lead people to the false assumption that nothing is ever like Hitler.
Click to expand...

Thing is, Godwin's law is only about (the odds of) the Nazis being brought up in a conversation. It doesn't say whether the comparison or analogy is bad or unjustified.
 
Last edited:
I don't know. Does this really fit?

Inside The Wild GOP Civil War by Kelly Weill

When Stephen Lloyd showed up at the Multnomah County, Oregon,
Republican Party’s most recent meeting on May 17, he was not treated
like a man who, until earlier this month, had been the group’s chairman.
“I was met by a group of Proud Boys who had their arms crossed in front
of their chest, kind of all puffed up in front of the doorways,” Lloyd told
The Daily Beast. Lloyd was allowed into the meeting, where he began
passing out documents detailing his concerns with the party’s recent
lurch to the far right. Others in his wing of the Portland, Oregon-based
GOP local were not so fortunate.

“I get a text message on my phone from one of our party members saying,
‘Stephen, they’re not letting me in the building,’” Lloyd said. “So I go downstairs.
I say, ‘Hey, why aren’t you letting a Republican Party member in the building?’
They said that she’s not a Republican Party member. And I said, ‘Yes, she is.
She’s registered as a Republican.’ And then they said, ‘Well, she’s not a precinct
chairperson. So she’s not allowed in the building.’” (The party’s acting secretary
and chair did not return requests for comment.)
Click to expand...
 
newyorkguy said:
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.
Click to expand...
Yes to all of that.

The Great Zaganza said:
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. ...


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.
Click to expand...
If Dump had been re-elected we'd be in big trouble because with McConnell leading the moneyed masses along, there would be "industrialists and bankers who saw great profit" in Dump gutting all the environmental regulations and creating tax wonderlands just for them.


One big difference is Dump is incompetent. Another is Dump isn't about MAGA or anything remotely like it. Dump is about Dump. His mental illness is so severe he can't put his personal promotion aside even for a brief interval in order to strengthen his position in the country.

Thankfully for us he's too old to be much of a cult leader. Instead of his followers growing in numbers, after Jan 6 those followers are dispersing.
 
Last edited:
SuburbanTurkey said:
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.
Click to expand...

You make some very interesting points. I agree that, as of now at least, the scale of similarity is small. However, we have seen a distinct rise in the growth of the far right and in their boldness to act not only among the public but among the political leaders.

I especially like your statement that "there is no requirement for things to be an exact duplicate of the past to still happen. History rhymes but doesn't repeat." I also agree that "Trump... seems more like a bumbling, opportunistic Mussolini type rather than a dyed in the wool ideologue like Hilter,", but we must remember that Mussolini also managed to gain power through elections, not by force.

"J6 rioters are getting the book thrown at them."

But how harsh their actual sentences be? Many of them are negotiating plea deals. So far, none has actually been sentenced. This article gives an excellent rundown of who those arrested are by background, job, military history, etc. and was published only yesterday:

"What we know about the "unprecedented" U.S. Capitol riot arrests"
 
Belz... said:
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.
Click to expand...

Exactly. The Big Lie isn't real but as long as Trump gets his supporters to believe him, it's real to them and it affects how they vote. The vaccine is safe and effective but Monica 56 believes it's "poison" and many, mostly Republicans, believe it's being forced on them or is dangerous, etc. so they refuse to get vaccinated. It's all untrue, of course, but as long as they believe it, it has the effect the anti-vaxxers and conspiracists want.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Yes to all of that.


If Dump had been re-elected we'd be in big trouble because with McConnell leading the moneyed masses along, there would be "industrialists and bankers who saw great profit" in Dump gutting all the environmental regulations and creating tax wonderlands just for them.


One big difference is Dump is incompetent. Another is Dump isn't about MAGA or anything remotely like it. Dump is about Dump. His mental illness is so severe he can't put his personal promotion aside even for a brief interval in order to strengthen his position in the country. Thankfully for us he's too old to be much of a cult leader. Instead of his followers growing in numbers, after Jan 6 those followers are dispersing.
Click to expand...

But Trump isn't the problem: he's the result. Look at the kinds of Republicans who are being elected in the red states. Republicans aren't voting for more moderate legislators, they're voting in more radical ones who are more competent like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz or even crazier like MTG and Boebert. They aren't 'dispersing' at all. Trump supporters will get behind whatever far right candidate echos Trump which is why they are all kneeling before him at Mar a Lago.
 
Stacyhs said:
.....
But how harsh their actual sentences be? Many of them are negotiating plea deals. So far, none has actually been sentenced. This article gives an excellent rundown of who those arrested are by background, job, military history, etc. and was published only yesterday:
....
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Criminal trials are expensive and complex, and juries are unpredictable. If the people who just followed others into the building without hurting anybody or wrecking anything make a deal, that still serves justice. They will have a federal criminal conviction that will affect them the rest of their lives.

The ringleaders, the vandals, the people who attacked cops are the ones the prosecutors should focus on, with the intention of locking them up pretty much forever.
 
Bob001 said:
I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Criminal trials are expensive and complex, and juries are unpredictable. If the people who just followed others into the building without hurting anybody or wrecking anything make a deal, that still serves justice. They will have a federal criminal conviction that will affect them the rest of their lives.

The ringleaders, the vandals, the people who attacked cops are the ones the prosecutors should focus on, with the intention of locking them up pretty much forever.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
Stacyhs said:
Exactly. The Big Lie isn't real but as long as Trump gets his supporters to believe him, it's real to them and it affects how they vote.
....
Click to expand...

That goes back to the atomization of the media. It wasn't all that long ago that most of us got most of our information about the world from the network news broadcasts and the local daily paper. You didn't have to like it, but everybody shared the same fact base. Today it's possible for people to get all of their "information" from sources that only tell them what they already believe. The Trumpers, anti-vaxxers, stop the steal crowd etc. genuinely believe this stuff, and they can cite "sources" that support them.
 
Last edited:
Monica 56 said:
....
And with his push to wipe out youngsters with the poison vaccines he is giving a good imitation of Genocide in full view .
....
Click to expand...

Why do you believe this demented garbage? Seriously. What is are the sources of "information" that you rely on?
 
In the article, Hett mentioned that after the war there remained Germans still loyal to Hitler just as there are those who will remain loyal to Trump no matter what.

There were still hardcore Nazis in the 1950s in West Germany. They did not like the government. However, they got jobs and a new car and a new TV and they were doing OK economically.
Click to expand...

I can attest to that. In 1957, my great-aunt and her husband returned to Germany so he could visit his brother whom he had not seen since a trip back to his native Germany in 1931. He had emigrated from there in 1912 and become a US citizen. He was shocked to find that his brother was still a loyal Nazi and had no feelings of guilt over the war at all. As Hett said, they were also doing quite well financially as they had their own shop, car and house but even so, the brother was still a Nazi at heart.
 
Bob001 said:
That goes back to the atomization of the media. It wasn't all that long ago that most of us got most of our information about the world from the network news broadcasts and the local daily paper. You didn't have to like it, but everybody shared the same fact base. Today it's possible for people to get all of their "information" from sources that only tell them what they already believe. The Trumpers, anti-vaxxers, stop the steal crowd etc. genuinely believe this stuff, and they can cite "sources" that support them.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. The trouble is, the sources they cite are just not credible but they won't accept that because they don't want to. As long as the source confirms their bias, they will accept it as true no matter what the actual facts or evidence say. One only has to look at the nonsense being spouted here by a certain poster to see that.
 
I'm no great student of history, but it has always fascinated me that the Nazi era only lasted 12 years, 1933 to 1945, and the worst crimes and atrocities happened during the last six or seven years. Once the collapse of civilization starts, it accelerates.
 
Here's the problem.

Go back tens years, give/take. Present the argument you would give to any random person ten years ago as to why getting all of our information from a handful of central sources is preferable.

"I'm from the future and while I understand why you want more varied news sources trust me ALL THE ONES YOU'RE GOING TO GET ARE COMPLETELY ******* BONKERS!" is the best I can do and that's not very convincing.
 
While it is true that there are some similarities between Trump and Hitler, but there are also a number of considerable differences between Trump and Hitler. As a result, I do not find that comparing Trump and Hitler does much good.

A biggest difference that I know of between Trump and Hitler is that came to power because he actually wanted to come to power, and that is why Hitler was middle-aged by the time he got into power.

Whereas Trump was much older when he came to power, and Trump got into power as the result of a weird quirk in the US electoral system that can enable a person who actually loses the popular vote but can still somehow manage to win the all important electoral college vote.

I still believe that Trump was probably about the most surprised person in the world when he found out that he would be the next President.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
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.
Click to expand...
I think we have reason for hope there. Remember Trump's business advisory councils that disbanded when they didn't like his reaction to Charlottesville? Corporations walked away from our version of Mussolini's National Council of Corporations.
 
The biggest problem with the "Lookit history repeating itself" thing is how many people see it and WANT THINGS TO GO BADLY AGAIN just so they can be the "I toldyaso" guys.

The problem with history repeating itself is how often it is a self fulfilling prophecy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom