General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDon't you see the pattern?
Trump tweeting "Happy" Memorial Day was deliberate. He is attempting to denigrate anything sacred to the American tradition. By doing so he will enable his supporters in Congress to keep him from being impeached and removed from office because Americans will have no faith in anything as true no matter how much factual data Mueller provides. But it's more sinister than that. I highly recommend Jacques Ellul's book "Propaganda" if you want to get an idea of how Goebbels Nazified Germany by doing exactly what Trump is doing. Tell a lie often enough and long enough and it will be believed - but it must have a kernel of truth to it. An informant becomes a spy, an investigation becomes a witchhunt, etc., etc. Ellul does a very good job of breaking down Goebbels' methodology and how he was able to make the German people believe right up until the end of the war that they had secret weapons which would save Germany at the very last minute.
I also recommend Erik Larsens' book "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" if you want to see how Nazification takes place incrementally over time. This is precisely what Trump et. al. are doing via immigration, name calling, bullying etc, etc. It's all there for anyone to understand how it happened in Germany and how it is happening now in the U.S.
We learned from an interview of Ivana Trump by Vanity Fair that "Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitlers collected speeches, My New Order, which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. Kennedy now guards a copy of My New Order in a closet at his office, as if it were a grenade. Hitlers speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist." Source: Vanity Fair, by Marie Brenner September 1, 1990 3:08 pm.
What comes next will be the brown shirts if this model holds true. Perhaps ICE is the beginning of that trend. It's now becoming acceptable for 1,500 children to disappear or as Rick Santorum put it Sunday - the roughly 1500 migrant children whom the government has lost track of aren't lost. Call me paranoid but ask anyone who lived through Germany in the 1930's and they will agree. We are slowly but surely becoming a U.S. version of the Nazi state.
Laffy Kat
(16,354 posts)The parallels cannot be denied and the book was published in 2011, I think. It scared living daylights out of me. Even though I have been aware of 45's Hitler admiration, he has always seemed way too stupid to possess or carryout cunningness. You're OP has me re-thinking my skepticism.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)I'm finding multiple books with that name, published mostly before 2011.
He also wrote "Devil in the White City," another excellent read.
Ilsa
(61,675 posts)Zoonart
(11,748 posts)Ilsa
(61,675 posts)Laffy Kat
(16,354 posts)I think I've read just about everything he's published.
Ohiogal
(31,657 posts)The parallels are undeniable. Very frightening.
watoos
(7,142 posts)for his border wall, it will include money for more agents. These agents will not patrol the border area, they will patrol everywhere but the border, rounding up people.
raccoon
(31,089 posts)BlueJac
(7,838 posts)If you have a platform and lie enough over and over, people start to believe it as true. Trump is a true evil man with know conscience.
alterfurz
(2,467 posts)You're doing it right now. -- Amy Siskind
PearliePoo2
(7,768 posts)This question should be on giant billboards criss-crossing the entire country/planet.
So now I'm reflecting on what I'm doing and wondering if it's enough or what more can I do.
N_E_1 for Tennis
(9,593 posts)The digital walls of DU. We have to be reminded, they have to be taught.
ehrnst
(32,640 posts)He's really ignorant, stupid, and uneducated. Yep, I think I'll go with that.