Yale historian warns Trumps rise perfectly mirrors frightening ascent of Fascism & Nazis in 1930's

[Snarkoleptic]

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/07/yale-historian-warns-trumps-rise-perfectly-mirrors-frightening-ascent-of-fascism-and-nazis-in-the-1930s/

“During the 2016 campaign, Trump spoke of ‘America first,’ which he knew was the name of political movement in the United States that opposed American participation in the second world war,” Snyder explains. “Among its leaders were nativists and Nazi apologists such as Charles Lindbergh. When Trump promised in his inaugural address that ‘from now on, it’s going to be America first’ he was answering a call across the decades from Lindbergh, who complained that ‘we lack leadership that places America first.’ American foreign and energy policies have been branded ‘America first.'”

“Conservatives always began from intuitive understanding of one’s own country and an instinctive defense of sovereignty. The far right of the 1930s was internationalist, in the sense that fascists learned one from the other and admired one another, as Hitler admired Mussolini,” Snyder continued.

“One of the reasons why the radical right was able to overcome conservatives back in the 1930s was that the conservatives did not understand the threat. Nazis in Germany, like fascists in Italy and Romania, did have popular support, but they would not have been able to change regimes without the connivance or the passivity of conservatives.”

[workinclasszero]

1. Trump has been using Hitler's playbook all along

That's why I'm fearing his Reichstag fire event.

That's when Dumpf and the republicans/1% drop their BS lip service to freedom and democracy and lock down America into full blown fascism forever.

[Politicub]

6. It will be swift and brutal

and there will be nothing we can do about it.

[Nitram]

9. Oh, no! Let's give up and cower!

We are not that clueless and weak as a population. "There will be nothing we can do about it?" BS!!!!

[Politicub]

12. We're a population that's fast asleep

I hope you're right, though.

[atreides1]

26. Violence may be necessary!

The question is, how many Americans will be willing to resort to the use of violence in order to preserve this country?

[Nitram]

30. It is way too premature to be considering violence.

If the investigations get stopped, or find nothing, and Trump stays in office for a full term and is re-elected, I'd start spending more time on the shooting range.

[workinclasszero]

20. The news media will do their best to calm America

As all our rights are crushed beneath Trump/Putin's jackboot.

[yodermon]

24. I predict they'll try something during the eclipse.

but i'm just a kook.

[Snarkoleptic]

7. In more ways that one.

Here's an article detailing how he kept a compilation of Hitler's speeches in his nightstand.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/trump-files-donalds-big-book-hitler-speeches/

Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s 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. Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.

[katmondoo]

2. It is so obvious

But no one wants to say it.

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Including the use of anti-Semitism and other issues of "racial purity".

What many will NOT discuss is the rising anti-Semitism, the lazy response to it, and the intellectualization and rationalization of it by both sides of the political fence.

[Initech]

4. And the scary thing is I don't think we'll have anyone in the world who will stop this.

We've pissed off enough of the world that if what happened in Germany were to ever happen here, the other countries would just let us stir in our own juices.

[Orrex]

5. With all due respect to Snyder, people have been saying this for years

5 Ways Donald Trump Perfectly Mirrors Hitler's Rise To Power, 10/1/2015

How Actual Nazis Are Influencing Trump (More Than He Knows), 8/30/2016

4 Signs President Trump Is Headed For A Hitler-Like Reign, 11/16/2016


So thanks, Tom. Glad you could make it!

[Igel]

11. More than 3 years.

Not wrt Trump, per se, but any discussion of Republicans or conservatives by those sufficiently left of center has the words "facist" and "fascism" hanging on the speakers' lips. It's virtually a general term of abuse with an arbitrarily low bar for application.

Trump's fascist. Bush II was fascist and there were already concentration camps set up for the population. Bush II was a fascist. Reagan was a fascist. Nixon was certainly a fascist. Ford, a crypto-fascist. Eisenhower, fascist. So was Coolidge. And Harding. Meh.

The guy who rounded up people based on their race and put them in concentration camps? He wasn't a fascist. Nor was the guy who dropped the A-bombs. Or suspended habeas corpus. We like them, so they're okay.

There have been precisely one fascist state and one Nazi state. They viewed themselves as different. We view them as the same and apply 'fascist' as an exonym to both. Which were their defining characteristics? I've seen lists of 2-3 traits, lists of 20+. Depends on who you talk to, and that usually depends on who they want to call "fascist" at the time. Some of the longer lists have traits that apply to Obama more than to Trump. Nobody used those lists then--but they were all the rage when Bush II was around. The definition's fluid, so fluid that the term really is just a term of abuse. We find the target, and then change the meaning to make sure it applies. Yeah, that works. Not.

Snyder's trying to sell a book while proselytizing his views. I take him as such.

[mountain grammy]

14. This stuff really scares me. While people go on about their business

(my husband included) normalizing this, and the GOP cashes in on it, I see a dangerous and violent undercurrent running through the country.

[Nitram]

8. Yes there are some parallels. But there are also important differences.

Germany had been humiliated by defeat in WWI. Germans were resentful of huge reparations to France for WWI. Germans were resentful of being forced to give up a strong military. The US has the strongest military in the world. Hitler went after Jews who were German citizens. Trump is going after immigrants and others who are not citizens. Germany had gone through a terrible period of recession and inflation. Trump was elected after the stock market had fully recovered and unemployment had risen too less than 5%. People have been warning of the danger of fascism and pointing to the parallels with Hitler's rise ever since Trump's campaign got going. There were no such warnings in Hitler's Germany. US courts have blocked Trump's unconstitutional executive orders. There was no such counter-balance to Hitler. I could go on, but don't have time right now.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

10. The signs are already there..It is about INTIMIDATION and CONTROL....

Infrequent on camera Press Briefings with a controlled message.
Not answering direct questions.
Congress not doing its job regarding Checks and Balances.
Lashing out against the FREE PRESS.
Threatening protesters with arrest for speaking out.
Infusion of Religion into Government.
Banning a people from this country because of their religion.
Demanding voter information to SUPPRESS the vote in the future.
Blatant Nepotism and Corruption going unchecked.
Repeal of certain LGBT Civil Rights..
Make Abortion illegal once again.
Leader must have adoring crowds or he will not visit.

What we are witnessing is unprecedented in American History. We can alter this by continuing out protesting and resistance. NEVER GIVE UP this fight, people!

[YOHABLO]

13. Oh gee, something original like another "Nazi" regime comparison. Who knew?

[denbot]

15. One difference is the economy

Post WWI depression in Germany, and the Great Depression in the U.S. were greater societal stresses then we have today.
What we are seeing now is a latter day triumph of propaganda, in ways Orwell never dreamed of.

[Snarkoleptic]

16. Another difference is we now know what a 1930's Nazi-type movement looks like.

Whether we can see learn from these mistakes and heed the warning signs, is another thing altogether.

[moondust]

17. 1947 War Department film on rise of Hitler:

"Don't Be a Sucker" - 1947 (17 minutes)

[oasis]

18. The Brownshirts of today wear MAGA caps. nt

[ChoppinBroccoli]

19. That's Why I Keep Warning People: Be On The Lookout For The Modern-Day Reichstag Fire

It will happen when Trump is at his lowest point, so it could be happening anytime now. He will use it as a distraction and as a means of rallying everyone behind him, and Fox News will gladly don the pom-poms and cheerlead for this very thing. But if we keep out in front of this, and warn people over and over that it's coming, hopefully they'll see through it for what it really is: a manufactured crisis that was either staged or simply allowed to happen.

[SweetieD]

21. I definitely see this more and more. Whoever the next Hitler is the carnage will be way worse.

I don't know if DJT is the next Hitler. But he is setting the stage.

[Expecting Rain]

22. Hitler could not have come to power

without the Left aimings its main attacks on Liberals and Social Democrats.

It was the "Hitler First, Then Us" strategy.

History repeats itself, sad to say.

[barbtries]

23. it's a dark time for the country.

sigh. wish i knew where it will end

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

25. It seems to me that Trump is a dimwit in comparison to Hitler.

Trump would fumble any attempts to do anything comparable to what Hitler did.

[Johnny2X2X]

27. People are being lulled

We are being lulled into a false sense of security. Trump's Presidency is a joke and an ineffectual disaster. But don't let the disaster fool you, he has done nothing but consolidate his power since he's taken office. He is distracting the Press on purpose while he takes more control. They will manufacture some event where Trump can regain control of the story, and then it will be too late to get him out of power.

Impeachment really is a race against the clock.

[pansypoo53219]

28. i was watching the TR/FDR/ER ken burn's doc + it had some hitler stuff + hitler's

mannerism's were SO Turnipish. scary as hell. hitler anti-journalism. FDR pro journalism.

[Initech]

29. Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.