2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumUS editor of Israel's Haaretz: Thanks to Trump, We Can Better Understand How Hitler Was Possible
From Chemi Shalev, an Israeli journalist who's the US editor of Haaretz, Israel's oldest newspaperr:
http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/u-s-election-2016/1.749153
Chemi Shalev Oct 28, 2016 11:15 AM
-snip-
This is not to say that comparisons between the rise of Donald Trump and the ascent of Adolf Hitler are inappropriate. On the contrary: Such analogies may be light years from perfect, but they are hardly misplaced. It just seems to me that the emergence of the specifically German word Lügenpresse provided a convenient peg for some in the media to remake a connection that they have otherwise been shying away from in recent months, either because they are wary of the expected pushback or because, as Americans, they would prefer not to believe that America in 2016 bears any resemblance whatsoever to Germany of the 1920s or 1930s.
-snip-
Or Richard Evans, writing in The Coming of the Third Reich: He gained much of his oratorical success by telling his audiences what they wanted to hear. He used simple, straightforward language that ordinary people could understand, short sentences, powerful emotive slogans...There were no qualifications in what he said; everything was absolute, uncompromising, irrevocable, undeviating, unalterable, final. He seemed, as many who listened to his early speeches testified, to speak straight from the heart, and to express their deepest fears and desires. Increasingly, too, he exuded self-confidence, aggression, belief in the ultimate triumph of his party, even a sense of destiny.
-snip-
In The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt writes that initial successes of the Nazis and other totalitarian movements in the 1920s and 1930s stemmed from their reliance on hitherto politically uninvolved masses desperate for economic and social relief. Their success proved that democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country. Having been detached from political discourse and ignorant of recent history, Arendt writes, these masses were willing to accept bold lies and bald assertions as fact and to adopt the fantastical depictions of reality made by their leaders. And this was before the age of the Internet and social media, when the so-called Lügenpresse could still dictate the publics agenda.
For me, at least, the rise of Donald Trump has been an eye-opener. Watching so many Americans fall under his spell has provided a prism to the hypnotic influence that Hitler had on Germans close to a century ago. How justified grievances and genuine economic plight, the disintegration of classes in society and the formation of others in their stead could combine with resentment, racism and downright ignorance to bring a patently unqualified and dangerous person so close to a position of so much power. How masses of Germans were willing to accept and support the litany of lies, the fountains of fabrications and dangerous delusions offered by Hitler. How hatred toward foreigners and those perceived as foreigners can burst out from the underground and then be drummed up to fever pitch. How the established leadership of a country, like that of a political party, can find itself weak and paralyzed even when faced with such an existential danger. How a politician more disciplined, more focused, more knowledgeable and more persuasive than Trump but with the same dangerous ideas might have easily made up the 5-10 percent of popular support that Trump seems to be missing.
-snip-
annabanana
(52,791 posts)Cha
(297,237 posts)Daniel Dale
✔ @ddale8
Ultimate Trump Voter Quote, from Crystal: "Oh I think he's crazy, and he may get us killed, but at least he's going to be truthful with us."
8:33 AM - 29 Oct 2016
3,612 3,612 Retweets 3,489 3,489 likes
https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/792434118894182400/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
And, there you have it in a nutshell
baldguy
(36,649 posts)Martin Eden
(12,867 posts)If Trump's supporters really believe he's a truth teller, they are incredibly stupid or delusional.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Ilsa
(61,695 posts)but I doubt she's ever considered that he's dead wrong.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Lizzeee
(3 posts)In fact, truth has become fluid to the right wing as it no longer matters as long as they can use innuendo and paranoia to achieve their end.
calimary
(81,267 posts)I'd say it's about 98% of the time. Okay, maybe 95% of the time.
Every so often I like to pull this link out and set it on the table: It's a graph comparing lots of candidates present and past (Trump, and Sarah Palin, for example) and one sitting President (Obama) in a truth versus pants-on-fire comparison. You won't be surprised to see where Trump ranks. Some might be surprised to see where they rank Hillary Clinton, but most of us already know that.
http://www.attn.com/stories/10483/chart-compares-presidential-candidates-honesty
LiberalLovinLug
(14,173 posts)I like the lies he tells. He blames all the things and people that I blame for my situation. It doesn't matter if its the truth because the other side lies too.
IronLionZion
(45,442 posts)It's about people who have been left behind by the economy and social progress and other changes in this country. They want to send a big FU to the system the only way they can.
The typical Trumper's life sucks. They don't have much left to lose.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/
demigoddess
(6,641 posts)allowing companies to go to foreign countries, allowing companies to keep money outside the US so they don't have to pay taxes, by allowing right to work state laws, etc, etc. in our area a city raised the minimum to 15 an hour. One business owner said it would kill his business. Next thing you know the business is booming and he has to hire more people. I guess there is a new definition of killing his business.
IronLionZion
(45,442 posts)and they'll feel like you're talking down to them and being very condescending.
Is your area Seattle? There is a completely different economy in cities vs the rural areas. $15 min wage would help a city's economy by putting more money in the hands of consumers. Not so in the rural areas.
People in the country think city living is completely insane. They're not entirely wrong.
JI7
(89,249 posts)country and in fact there are many who do well.
their problem are things like seeing a black president in what is supposed to be THEIR country and gays getting married and other things like that.
bhikkhu
(10,716 posts)IronLionZion
(45,442 posts)Many Trumpette women don't have careers, so they have single income households. And we know most trumpers are less educated and more rural. You can see it at his rallies. More educated republicans tend to also be more moderate.
Most of the urban working class folks I know supported Bernie and Hillary.
Trump isn't religious and hasn't been spewing anti-gay nonsense. He even encouraged trans people to use the restrooms at Trump tower. It's not about him.
Many Trumpers feel their own party has screwed them, lied to them, took them for granted. They want to punish the GOP establishment.
uponit7771
(90,339 posts)... time either and wanted to be a part of Hitlers administration of Germany.
Had the US media NOT... NOT enabled tRump with free coverage there's no way he rises to this level of notarity
no_hypocrisy
(46,104 posts)Trump could have been thrown out on his ear the first three primaries. But he wasn't. He persuaded voters to go to the polls for him. And like Hitler, he did it with a multitude of republican candidates so he wouldn't need 51% consistently to win those primaries.
Now, although Trump's supporters (true believers) may statistically be in the minority, there are enough republicans who are afraid to NOT support him, to NOT vote for him because he is the leader of their party, to make their numbers an issue. Not to mention their willingness to set aside democracy if their will is not realized.
Ligyron
(7,632 posts)In Congress, the GOP know they have a better chance of working with Hillary than with Trump.
They also suspect, as I do, that Trump doesn't really believe the dogma he feeds to his slobbering masses. He's playing a role, acting - just as he did in The Apprentice. He'd take any position to win the adoration his narcissistic personality requires.
Also, he doesn't really want to be President as it's too much work and even if he did wish it, he'd quit after no more than a year when he realized it wasn't as much fun as he thought.
certainot
(9,090 posts)will work WITH hillary
Chasstev365
(5,191 posts)The Hitler analogy are his supporters!
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)Coyotl
(15,262 posts)Trump supporters behave as though hypnotized, with little concerns whatsoever for truth and reality.
warrprayer
(4,734 posts)Thanks for posting!
certainot
(9,090 posts)at a cheap $1000/hr x 15hrs/day x 1200 think tank-coordinated radio stations, rw talk radio is worth 4.68 BIL$/ year or 390MIL$ /month FREE for coordinated global warming denial, pro republican wall st think tank propaganda, free market deregulation bullshit, swiftboating, and the hate and fear used to get people to vote republican.
don't know about hitler, but that's why we have trump - a strong democracy would stop hitler and trump before they got going, but we don't have a strong democracy - we let rw talk radio monopoly PSYOPS short circuit democracy. we let it create made-to order constituencies for billionaires, motivated by alternate realities that only unchallenged repetition can create.
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)I know I sound like a broken record but it would have made them back up their stories and maybe have curtailed the influence of FOX News and the culture that it grew.
Even our MSM would have had to check into what they were reporting.
When we regain our democratic democracy by electing a Democratic house and senate we must reinstate a Media Veracity law for anything in print or anything reaching the public that calls itself NEWS.
Maynar
(769 posts)I'm with you on that.
certainot
(9,090 posts)groundloop
(11,519 posts)We as a nation need to start looking at solving the problems which tRump is exploiting. I can understand why these people are frustrated.
Many Americans are poorly educated for several reasons. There is a huge disparity in quality of education between rich and poor areas. There is a huge wage gap between working Americans and the CEO / upper management class. Healthcare can be difficult to obtain if you're poor.
I believe Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have begun to shed light on these issues, now we need to get Democratic majorities in Congress so we can start doing something about these problems.
MiniMe
(21,716 posts)He gained much of his oratorical success by telling his audiences what they wanted to hear. He used simple, straightforward language that ordinary people could understand, short sentences, powerful emotive slogans...There were no qualifications in what he said; everything was absolute, uncompromising, irrevocable, undeviating, unalterable, final."
W lied through his teeth, and pushed memes as far as he could before people started to fight back. Like with privatizing Social Security after his 2nd election. He tried to do it, but people fought back.
NoGoodNamesLeft
(2,056 posts)I think the people who are old enough to remember WWII probably have noticed the similarities for awhile now.
MarinCoUSA
(891 posts)n/t
lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Hekate
(90,686 posts)DippyDem
(659 posts)dRumph is following this...and had a book of Hitler's speeches by his bedside. Scary shit
Full 1 hour video is available free to any Amazon Prime customers.
link to video trailer....
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)polynomial
(750 posts)Americans via Mainstream Media and the Academic Group along with Bipartisanship have been fixed since George Washington, through the Bush era, and likely free speech has been money from that time forward to the electorate since.
Particularly since the establishment in 1913 of the banking group of Jekylls Island, the so called Federal Reserve, now just over a century old.
The electorate now understands they never had their country
The one percent owns most America, they screwed that up these past years via the housing bubble.
The Republican Hoi polloi or lay people, the religious right or wrong, the commoner person, or regular academics are personally shamed by Trump yet through anonymous media support their candidate in fear of their job and perhaps their life.
With incredible hypocrisy in veiled cowardly explanations within the academic arena, Americans are in what technocrats call the beginning footfall in the technology singularity movement, the so called screwed up pension funds.
As a date, '9/11' is both singular and repeatable likely to occur once more.
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are the initial perpetrators of this new era of Neo Nazi war crimes, torture, political dragon mapping also known as gerrymandering, Supreme Court Justice election corruption, profiteering with the art of pilots and carry forward tax exemptions every American should have especially veterans, not just the one percent like Trump.
And so one wonders why veterans take their own lifetime. Not me, I will work this one out until that carry forward tax exemption is created for veterans not to pay taxes at all.
Trump is taking in noise to side track the real railroaders, Bush and Cheney that established the 911 ground zero water fountain that cost two trillion dollars in profiteering taxes for the warfare.
Besides using American industry with not only Halliburton, and the Union Pacific Railroad, also the so called the Military Industrial Complex, which includes the media, in profiteering in the Iraq war.
The Democrats have been suffering through the ages of a perpetual propaganda of mainstream breaking news lairs.
With Binge, Special Programming by long term hate radio and television sophists, called news anchors, that craft double talk railroading carnival language, well applied, well paid electromagnetic journalist that punk the electorate daily
They should have term limits
What is really obvious is the current media across the board knows the Bush family via emails likely committed treason. Thats the subtle shade that is the argument, where classified documents tampered are not the same as betrayal.
The basic argument Hillary can bring forward some emails or documents is those documents during the Bush presidential term or before the Iraq war had been adjusted falsely with intent to deceive that corrupted the war. That is a serious crime. That is high treason.
With that said, let's begin:
Trump would turn orangutan orange, as would Bush and Cheney, likely the color called Vietnam Agent Orange.
Doodley
(9,091 posts)Trump could be the worst thing ever to happen to the human race. God help us all if he is elected.
ColemanMaskell
(783 posts)workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)to light up this world in nuclear death and destruction.
Alex Jones: Donald Trump Is A Messenger Of God And A King David Of Our Time
By Brian Tashman | October 28, 2016 1:46 pm
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/alex-jones-donald-trump-is-a-messenger-of-god-and-a-king-david-of-our-time/
Jim Bakker: Donald Trump Is Our St. Peter
By Brian Tashman | October 28, 2016 4:35 pm
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/jim-bakker-donald-trump-is-our-st-peter/
David Brody: God Is On The Move In Trump Campaign
Miranda BlueBy Miranda Blue | October 28, 2016 4:54 pm
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/david-brody-god-is-on-the-move-in-trump-campaign/
The Wielding Truth
(11,415 posts)win. There be no one to stop him with Congress and the Supreme court in his pocket. Think about it. He will finish the Job the the last Republican started.I do not want my government dismantled and sold off according to what deal Trump can get that best suits his future.
His followers will be left in the dust. He does this. This is his way. I wonder if they will see him for what he is soon.
ColemanMaskell
(783 posts)Even with Jim Jones and similar, sometimes some of the people decline to drink the Kool-Aid at the last minute.
Imminent death has a marvelous way of focusing the mind clearly (provided there's any mind left to focus)
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)... the POTUS picks his SoD.
The military is trained to follow the orders QUICKLY, not verify their necessity.
EDIT: And the SoD can't really stop it either!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football
It is argued that the President has almost single authority to initiate a nuclear attack since the Secretary of Defense is required to verify the order, but cannot legally veto it.
ColemanMaskell
(783 posts)so even if he cannot legally refuse the order, he still has the human ability to refuse illegally.
Agreed Trump will try to pick somebody who will follow him blindly, but people can surprise you in a crunch. If the person you trust and admire most in the world told you to push a button that would destroy half the life on earth and knock most of the rest of it back to before the stone age, would you do it yourself?
Even the worst of the several nutcases I know would probably hesitate and possibly refuse. True, Trump has access to worse nutters than I'm ever likely to meet or even imagine, but even so, people can occasionally surprise when the chips are down.
ColemanMaskell
(783 posts)Okay, actually a disagreement. I say: Gee whiz doesn't the Trump thing look disturbingly similar to the Hitler thing?
He says No, laughs, interprets Trump's complete lack of restraint as a joke. Initially he found Trump's speeches highly entertaining, like a late night comedy show. He's not laughing now, but he still isn't convinced there's any similarity to Hitler. So I've emailed part of your news clipping to him. He does seem to respect Jewish community ideas to a large extent, so who knows, there's a chance this article, from this source, could bring him to view things from a different angle. Why do I care what he thinks anyway, as long as Trump goes down on November 8th? I'm not completely sure. I laugh at the world a lot too, but to me Trump seems deadly serious. Thanks for sharing the Haaretz opinion piece.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)I am thinking of a Simon and Garfunkel tune, "Sounds of Silence....". The subject matter is timely.
Do we follow through by showing up in record numbers, as an informed citizenry at the polls?
We must stop intimidation at the polls, rigged voting laws, gerrymandering districts and the Koch Brothers who buy our politicians and legislatures.
Thank you Chemi Shalev
mountain grammy
(26,621 posts)Thank you for posting this excellent and thoughtful article.
PatrickforO
(14,574 posts)TRUE, and I don't want it to be.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)since that is what he would bring as POTUS, however....
Trump supporters are (in large part) the ruggedly individualistic 25% of Americans who would say "Yes, the earth is flat" to a pollster not because they believe it but just to show that they can say whatever they want, because it is more important to them to feel important now than it is what actually happens tomorrow.
Hitler's supporters where good little citizens who were trying to be good little citizens.
It will be very difficult for a European style fascist to ever get power in the US, because that same 25% will loudly object to goose stepping alongside their neighbors if their neighbors ever start goose stepping.
SunSeeker
(51,557 posts)alfredo
(60,071 posts)On his nightstand.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)JI7
(89,249 posts)but then Hitler and the holocaust did not just suddenly come out of nowhere.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)I'm also saving to read when it's not time to get to sleep.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,760 posts)Everyone ought to read this.
The Wizard
(12,545 posts)has been very effective in convincing viewers that they're victims of all things not Republican. As such, all Democrats are enemies for giving tax dollars to the disadvantaged and lazy (minorities). The deliberate dumbing down started by George Wallace and Spiro Agnew and later made policy by Reagan has produced a pliable underclass willing to vote against its own best interests out of the worst fears and lowest instincts exploited by the GOP, aided and abetted by Pox News and hate radio.
Our demise was by design to enrich the already wealthy, and ensure that the wealthy elites are never at risk of losing their fortunes, be they legitimate or ill gotten.
A two tiered feudal system is the ultimate dream of those who have the levers of power and 90% of the wealth.
The dupes have yet to realize that their heroes on the right have them forging the chains of their own enslavement.
Maybe that Nietzsche guy knew something about human nature.