NY Times Charles Blow: Trump isn't Hitler but the Lying ...

[Botany]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/trump-isnt-hitler-but-the-lying.html?src=trending&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Trending&pgtype=article

One of those lessons is about how purposeful lying can be effectively used as propaganda. The forthcoming comparison isn’t to Hitler the murderer, but to Hitler the liar.

snip

“In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”

snip

Trump is no Hitler, but the way he has manipulated the American people with outrageous lies, stacked one on top of the other, has an eerie historical resonance. Demagogy has a fixed design.

It should be mentioned that Vanity Fair reported in 1990 that Trump’s first wife, Ivana, “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.” The magazine pointed out that “Hitler’s speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist.” (At the time, Trump said, “If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them.”)

[BSdetect]

1. He lied about having those speeches. What rubbish:"If I had them....I would never read them"?

So why have them, liar?

[tanyev]

2. No kidding. Bet you can count on one hand the number of books he owns other than his own.

[FakeNoose]

4. I'm guessing Cheeto hasn't even read his own books

They were ghost-written or else "as told to" stories.

On DU there have been several articles by Tony Schwartz the true author of "Trump the Art of the Deal." Very telling info on early Trump, when in his 30's and 40's had no interest in running for President. However he did show personality issues even then that we are seeing multiplied now. The tendency to lie and bullshit about everything, blaming someone else for everything, having an extremely short attention span, hiring toadies whose only job is to tell Trump how smart/great he is. Tony Schwartz says he's pretty sure that Trump never read the galleys before the book was printed, however he did show a great deal of interest in the selection of photos.

If Ivana Trump is correct about him having the book of Hitler's speeches, it was probably a fake cover on a porn book.

[librechik]

10. I bet he learned to read just so he could read them. Then forgot how again.

[FakeNoose]

18. Yep - good one!

[Cary]

3. National Socialism isn't the only variety of fascism

#fakepresident is very much in the fascist mold. Keep in mind that this is not the mid 20tb Century. Fascism has been spruced up a little. For example, not as much anti-Semitism although that too lurks and bubbles.

I see some who try to say it's not fascism because it doesn't meet their exact definition of fascism. There is no exact definition of fascism so that denialism is ad hoc.

#fakepresident is pernicious, stupid, venal, craven, incompetent, lying, malicious, vindictive, greedy,...

In short "conservatives" glorify all of the worst traits of human nature because they're mired in hate and spite.

Fascism. There's no glossing over that sad fact.

[lark]

5. Which, of course, means that exactly the opposite of his mouth shit is true.

Everything he says or tweets is always a lie, nasty and boorish unless of course it's about Nazis, KKK and then they are good people, because they are racist haters and crazies like him.

[longship]

6. Crucial two paragraphs!

Sums things up cogently and admirably.

Maybe I have crossed the ink-stained line of the essay writer, where Hitler is always beyond it. But I don’t think so. Ignoring what one of history’s greatest examples of lying has to teach us about current examples of lying, particularly lying by the “president” of the most powerful country in the world, seems to me an act of timidity in a time of terror. It is an intentional self-blinding to avoid offending frail sensibilities.

I have neither time nor patience for such tiptoeing. I prefer the boot of truth to slam down to earth like thunder, no matter the shock of hearing its clap.

In other words, Godwin's Law is not operative here. With very good reason!

[Botany]

9. The old Fox News "some people say"

Trump has found a way to couch the lies so that people believe they don’t emanate from him but pass through
him. He is not a producer but a projector.

One way he does this is by using caveats — “I was told,” “Lots of people are saying” — as shields.

Jenna Johnson of The Washington Post addressed this in June 2016, writing about Trump’s use of the phrase
“a lot of people are saying."

*****
And now the White House is trying to say that Trump was "misunderstood" when he told
the widow of Sgt. Davis that he knew what signed up for.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/white-house-walks-back-trump-claim-that-dem-fabricated-remarks-to-widow-now-says-he-was-misunderstood/

[dalton99a]

7. He is determined to broadcast the same damn lies every day for four years

or eight years, the way he sees it

[PatrickforO]

8. I've noticed the right wing evangelical 'christians' thought, and many times said,

that Obama was the Anti-Christ.

Now these same people are absolutely, and enthusiastically embracing Trump. They love him!

Yet, isn't it said that Satan is the 'father of lies?'

[Tommy_Carcetti]

11. Trump will always be Trump, but he does share traits with some of the worst despots.

He stokes ugly nationalism like Hitler, he's vindictive like Stalin, and he's got Mussolini's pomposity.

[Botany]

12. "He stokes ugly nationalism ..." And he is at that right now. He works for and with the Russians

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/lawmaker-russian-trolls-trying-to-sow-discord-in-nfl-kneeling-debate/2017/09/27/5f46dce0-a3b0-11e7-ade1-76d061d56efa_story.html?utm_term=.327eec1d5fb9

Lawmaker: Russian trolls trying to sow discord in NFL kneeling debate

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. I have family in Gainesville. Right now they're bracing for Richard Spencer's tour of hate.

Something like this would seem unfathomable just a few years ago. He's brought out the worst in some people.

[Botany]

14. Trump is always doing that "white power" hand sign and why did so many of the alt right ...

.... people in Charlottesville, VA dress up like Trump's golf outfits?

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/twitter-users-are-outing-charlottesville-protesters-n792501

[FakeNoose]

19. I assumed the golf shirts had the MAGA logo stitched on them

Another profit center for Trump, no doubt. If I'm wrong I hope somebody can say where these shirts came from and what's their significance?

[ginnyinWI]

15. that last bit is a "tell"

When someone declares, "I would never..." it is a sure sign of lying.

[Nasruddin]

16. Red Queen

I think he lies more and more and faster and faster in order to bury the consequences of his
previous lies. It's part of the distraction technique he uses (like wrapping himself in the
flag).

Someone pointed out that any one of the umpteen scandals that have rolled out the past few
weeks would've been headline material for months in a normal world. That's when it hit me.
When he finds himself in a jam he creates a new one to neutralize the old one.

[ginnyinWI]

17. more good bits for those behind a pay wall.

“It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.”

This demonstrates a precise understanding of human psychology, but also the dangerously manipulative nature that operates in the mind of a demon.

And yet, as many have noted, no person of sound reason or even cursory political awareness can read this and not be immediately struck by how similar this strategy of lying is to Donald Trump’s seeming strategy of lying: Tell a lie bigger than people think a lie can be, thereby forcing their brains to seek truth in it, or vest some faith in it, even after no proof can be found.

Trump is no Hitler, but the way he has manipulated the American people with outrageous lies, stacked one on top of the other, has an eerie historical resonance. Demagogy has a fixed design.