Authoritarianism: The political science that explains Trump
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo27509064.html
EXCERPT:
http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
13:37 2/1/2018
Tynisa Walker @Kalarigamerchic
Despite it being our country's patronizing month towards my peoples historical contributions. And since we are as a nation in the grips of Fascism. I want to drop a few things here. Some of this has been said but I really want to repeat this. The average Nazi of 1930-45...
UNROLLED:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/959106537171181568.html
20:06 1/7/2018
A Warning From History
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210071176
There are more ways of destroying a democracy than sending troops into the streets, storming the radio stations, and arresting the politicians, as Adolf Hitler discovered after the failure of his beer-hall putsch in 1923. Ten years later, on January 30, 1933, when he was appointed head of the German government, Hitler was the leader of the country’s largest political party, the National Socialists. Even five years earlier, in May of 1928, he’d been a political nobody, with the Nazis gaining less than 3 percent of the vote in national elections. But in the elections held in July 1932, they won 37 percent of the vote—and six months later, Hitler was in power. He seemed to have come from nowhere.
As the German historian and journalist Volker Ullrich shows in the first part of his highly readable and well- researched new biography, Hitler: Ascent, even if Hitler wasn’t directly elected to power, his appointment as Reich chancellor was legal and constitutional, the result of political intrigue surrounding Germany’s aging conservative president, Paul von Hindenburg. Many people in Germany thought that Hitler would be a normal head of government. Some, like the conservative politician Franz von Papen and the leaders of the German National People’s Party, thought that they’d be able to control him, because they were more experienced and formed the majority in the coalition government that Hitler headed. Others thought that the responsibilities of office would tame and steer him in a more conventional direction. They were all wrong.
Hitler won mass support between 1928 and 1930 because a major economic crisis had driven Germany into a deep depression: Banks crashed, businesses folded, and millions lost their jobs. Hitler offered voters a vision of a better future, one he contrasted with the policies of the parties that had plunged the country into crisis in the first place. The poorest people in Germany voted for his opponents, notably the Communist Party and the moderate left-wing Social Democrats, but the lower-middle classes, the bourgeoisie, the unorganized workers, the rural masses, and the older traditionalists—Protestants and evangelicals who wanted a moral restoration of the nation—switched their votes from the mainstream centrist and right-wing parties (save for the Catholic Center Party) and gave them to Hitler instead.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ways-to-destroy-democracy/
19:36 12/22/2017
********* Fascism is about the most powerful epithet one can use but it fits with Donald Trump.
A historian explains why
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210019416
FEDJA BURIC
03.11.2016•5:59 PM
Trump’s not Hitler, he’s Mussolini: How GOP anti-intellectualism created a modern fascist movement in America
In an interview with Slate, the historian of fascism Robert Paxton warns against describing Donald Trump as fascist because “it’s almost the most powerful epithet you can use.” But in this case, the shoe fits. And here is why.
Like Mussolini, Trump rails against intruders (Mexicans) and enemies (Muslims), mocks those perceived as weak, encourages a violent reckoning with those his followers perceive as the enemy within (the roughing up of protesters at his rallies), flouts the rules of civil political discourse (the Megyn Kelly menstruation spat), and promises to restore the nation to its greatness not by a series of policies, but by the force of his own personality (“I will be great for” fill in the blank).
To quote Paxton again, this time from his seminal "The Anatomy of Fascism": “Fascist leaders made no secret of having no program.” This explains why Trump supporters are not bothered by his ideological malleability and policy contradictions: He was pro-choice before he was pro-life; donated to politicians while now he rails against that practice; married three times and now embraces evangelical Christianity; is the embodiment of capitalism and yet promises to crack down on free trade. In the words of the Italian writer Umberto Eco, fascism was “a beehive of contradictions.” It bears noting that Mussolini was a socialist unionizer before becoming a fascist union buster, a journalist before cracking down on free press, a republican before becoming a monarchist.
Like Mussolini, Trump is dismissive of democratic institutions. He selfishly guards his image of a self-made outsider who will “dismantle the establishment” in the words of one of his supporters. That this includes cracking down on a free press by toughening libel laws, engaging in the ethnic cleansing of 11 million people (“illegals”), stripping away citizenship of those seen as illegitimate members of the nation (children of the “illegals”), and committing war crimes in the protection of the nation (killing the families of suspected terrorists) only enhances his stature among his supporters. The discrepancy between their love of America and these brutal and undemocratic methods does not bother them one iota. To borrow from Paxton again: “Fascism was an affair of the gut more than of the brain.” For Trump and his supporters, the struggle against “political correctness” in all its forms is more important than the fine print of the Constitution.
To be fair, there are many differences between Italian Fascism of interwar Europe and Trumpism of (soon to be) post-Obama America. For one, Mussolini was better read and more articulate than Trump. Starting out as a schoolteacher, the Italian Fascist read voraciously and was heavily influenced by the German and French philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Marie Guyau, respectively. I doubt Trump would know who either of these two people were. According to the Boston Globe, Trump speaks at the level of a fourth grader.....MORE AT LINK
https://www.salon.com/2016/03/11/trumps_not_hitler_hes_mussolini_how_gop_anti_intellectualism_created_a_modern_fascist_movement_in_america/
13:14 12/6/2017
Invoking the specter of Nazi Germany, Obama warns against complacency
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141932274
Source: ChicagoBusiness.com.
December 06, 2017 GREG HINZ
American democracy is fragile, and unless care is taken it could follow the path of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Mixed in with many softer comments, that was the somewhat jaw-dropping bottom line of Barack Obama last night as, in a Q&A session before the Economic Club of Chicago, the Chicagoan who used to be president dropped a bit of red meat to a hometown crowd that likely is a lot closer to him than the man whose name never was mentioned: President Donald Trump.
Obama's comments came after a series of playful questions from moderator and Ariel Investments President Mellody Hobson—in the great Batman vs. Superman debate, for instance, we learned Obama sides with Batman—before she eventually asked him what he's learned as a world citizen of sorts.
One thing he's learned is that "things don't happen internationally if we don't put our shoulder to the wheel," Obama said, speaking of the U.S. "No other country has the experience and bandwith and ideals. . . .If the U.S. doesn't do it, it's not going to happen."
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20171206/BLOGS02/171209933/barack-obama-invokes-nazi-germany-in-economic-club-remarks
21:41 12/3/2017
Modern Authoritarianism
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017468927
VIDEO
According to Yale Historian Timothy Snyder, Authoritarians (ala Putin/Trump) have policies that deliberately create uncertainty by casting doubt on all Media. They overwhelm everyone with uncertainty of what really is true. (IE: Clinton was too unhealthy to be President.)
Authoritarians like Trump Campaign found ways to waste political time and money with political
fiction (IE: Clinton was running a child sex slaves operation in the basement of a pizza parlor.)
By doing this, Voters are backed into corners arguing about fake issues while major legislative issues are ignored.
Further, the Trump Campaign was able to paint Hillary Clinton as corrupt because she was secretly being backed by Russian Oligarchs while Trump was an open, honest Oligarch who would return America back to some (imaginary) time when white men ruled and everyone's Daddy was happy and rich.
After a while people give up the fight and accept the Tyrant as normal.
All of this was thrown into the American Political campaign by russian bots backed by Putin in order to throw the election to tRump.
21:46 11/30/2017
The point of no return
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029905630
Jonah Freedman @jonahfreedman
Repeated warnings from my 98-year-old grandma, a Nazi Germany survivor, chill me. She says it all started this way, with one weird unsettling development after another, until they were past the point of no return.
11:36 AM - Nov 29, 2017
20:39 11/29/2017
Yet more proof: Donald Trump is a fascist sympathiser
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029901171
Trump’s decision to promote anti-Muslim videos by Britain First, an extreme far-right group, confirms what was abundantly clear after Chartlottesville
It was true after the racist mob in Charlottesville three months ago. And it’s still true today: Donald J Trump quite literally sympathizes with fascists.
He shares their worldview as easily as he shares their language and videos. He gives their voice and values the biggest platform in politics. He is a neo-fascist sympathizer in the mainstream of American politics, sitting at the heart of the West Wing and world power.
It’s considered impolite to call it what it is: fascism. But we are long past the point of giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, or respecting voters who exercise their democratic rights for racist causes.
There’s something more going on here that demands an honest response. Trump is a particularly stupid neo-Nazi sympathizer.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/29/donald-trump-britain-first-fascist-sympathiser
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