More times than I can count, I have heard and read arguments comparing people and stances that someone finds objectionable or offensive to Hitler and Nazism. Most recently, I have seen this comparison made between Donald Trump and Hitler.
Now, I do agree that Trump is a horrible person, as are a lot of other people, and I agree that certain ideologies are horrible as well. However, I wouldn't compare most of them to Hitler or Nazism, respectively. I think the comparisons to Hitler and Nazism get thrown around way too casually, carelessly, and irresponsibly by some people. Few figures in human history have caused as much suffering to as many people as Hitler and the Nazis did. The Nazis killed disabled people, burned Jews alive, and built concentration camps where horrifying, indescribable pain was inflicted upon the captives.
I just find it tasteless and downright irresponsible when someone casually uses the gruesome crimes of Nazis and the reprehensible character of Hitler as trump cards in political or religious debates. Please, just remember that whoever you are comparing to Hitler has probably never killed as many people as Hitler did, and probably never will.
I would compare Trump to Hitler. It is a mistake to think that the evils of National Socialism were simply the product of one man, and we fall for the Nazi rheotric of Furhership and the Cult of the "strong leader" when we think that. Hitler was a crank who would have died relatively unknown, a minor viennese artist, that was the leader of a tiny cult and prone to anti-semitic rages. What made Hitler was not his charisma, nor his ideology, but the willingness of a people to believe and follow him. Germany had been swinging from one crisis to another in the weirmar period in the 1920's. Previous Chancellors had exercised emergency powers and people had come to accept dictatorial authority and many craved it after in the absence of the Kiaser.And people got that desperate that they wanted someone to save them from the difficult decisions.
After 9/11, George W. Bush has set a precendet for American dictatorship. The War in Iraq was an act of military aggression that violated international law. Guantanamo Bay and a string of secret US camps accross Europe meant that human rights violations went unchecked. Torture was used against terrorist
suspects many of whom were innocent and members of the intelligent establishment protested both the ineffectivness and cruelty of "enhanced interrogration techniques" behind closed doors but congress didn't care because they saw it work on 24. Civil Liberties have been rolled back and suspended and the Mass Media lined up to promote the Presidents's message. Then Obama came in, with a message of "hope" and "change" that was not delivered. The war in iraq ended, and the solders came back to the US and swapped army uniforms for police uniforms, using the same military hardware in bagdad now as military surplus was put onto the streets. the US prison population has expanded massively from the 1980's and provides a cheap source of labour. The NSA is still reading our e-mails. It is extremely polarised and total fabrications gets circulated in the news, leaving the public deeply mis-informed, easily manipulated, on top of the problems of religious literalism, fundamentalism and maybe even homeschooling because people are afriad of children being indoctorinated in a classroom. Many believe and want simple minded nonesnese of the great battle of "good versus evil" as pictures of violence are broadcast continously into their homes being told how it is everywhere lurking in just out the field of vision. the economic situation is dire, the middle class is in decline. kids can't get decent jobs and haven't for a long time. the flag waving conservatives and libertarians have become a mass movement with corporate backing, a coheret, if anti-intellectual ideology which is able to reproduce itself in social media; an apocolyptic ideology of clash of civilsations with Islamo-fascism, the conspiratorial march of "cultural marxism" and the climate change hoax , FEMA camps and 9/11 truthers and the decay into a Socialist dictatorship under the Kenyan Anti-Christ sitting the White House and the threat of government default and economic collapse or even a race war being waged on the streets against white cops in the name of political correctness. Americans are frightened of the world whilst having the largest defence budget of the next 16 countries combined (15 of whom are allies) and still cling desperately to the second amendment rights in the dellusion that firearms will stop the most technologically advanced military force in the world if it chose to declare martial law assuming they are even serious enough and not thinking that life is like the movies. The amount of fictional crisies and the denial of real ones is
exactly like the psyche of Weimar Germany. that mixture of political uncertianity and moral simplicity are fertile grounds for creating a cult.
it is a mistake to think that Nazism would repeat the same way it did in the 1930's. The World has changed since then, but it deeply nieve to think that the past 30 years of propaganda and fear has not so rotted the american society that they would vote Trump in. given that he has already said he'd introduce a muslim database, ban muslims from entering the US- he's got the demographic to demonise, to blame and bomb.
all ISL have to is stage a major attack on US soil, that grabs the headlines and let the 24 hour news cycle do the rest. then it's all eyes on Trump. the money rolls in, the polls go up and the demagogue is heard and people will liste
because they want to believe. They need it. conservatives will cheer, liberals sit silently appaulled- he'll be a hero to many, a villan to others, and the experts will be baffled as they always are but in disbelief never dreaming it could happen they'll stayed tune in because theres only one message they will want to hear. What we forget is, is that Nazism made people feel good; a sense of purpose in uncertain times, strength in face of adveristy, faith in all the things we're told not to believe in. those hidden dark parts of ourselves we try to keep secret get a chance to come out. When you feel small, make someone else feel smaller. you hurt us, so we'll hurt you even more. America is pretty close to fascism. all Trump needs to do is not let a good crisis go to waste and he's in. Clinton lost once, so can it happen again? would you really want to vote for the establishment? there's more than enough oppurtunity for things to go in that direction. the mood can shift and people will stop being respectable and let civility stop them from being the fanatics they feel they need to be.
And then people walk into the polling booths, wondering: "Do I love my country? Am I a "real" American or just a Democrat? One vote can't hurt....can it? I mean it's only for four years, I'm just doing my job and following orders, why should I care about "them" anyway. there not even human: Let's Make America Great Again."
Fascism: tell me its not that easy?
