Yeah, you're right about this. I was more teasing at the fact that, Nazis loved to appeal to ancient things. Classical architecture, use of pagan (völkisch) religious symbolism, eagles and other imagery resembling ancient Rome. You tend to have a bit more of this "classicism is better in art" thing on the right - which is the vein I was trying to get at.



I don't think most people on the right revere confederate heroes, more that they tolerate it. Southern boys will be southern boys kind of thing. I think any racism in the Republicans today is exactly like you say: dog whistling coded language. Here it's more valuable to look at what's done rather than what's said: Trump defunding anti-KKK groups, labeling antifa domestic terrorists, trying to equate racist groups with antiracist ones, Trump's comments on the NFL player.

It should be noted that, this isn't that far from what early Nazis were like. You can find more explicit, deliberate racist stuff they were saying, but when they were actually seeking political power, they geared themselves to appeal to a wide audience. And actually, most Germans didn't like the strong racism, so the party skirted around it, despite it being an obvious part of their message. Heilbronner wrote:



When giving speeches:



and Sarah Ann Gordon writes:



The point I'm getting at here is, people tend to think that the Nazis came forward blaming the Jews for everything and like, campaigned on a genocidal platform? They didn't, the rise of the Nazis was, as I heard it described once, "surprisingly banal", and that's what makes it so damned terrifying.

Like, things are working well enough now because the economy is fine and there are no wars. What will happen if, in a few years, we have a massive economic downturn? Lots of Americans lose employment? America is already violent with many groups acting against each other, in such an event the country's a powder keg. What do we think that will lead to?

Also, Trump allegedly had a book of Hitler's speeches he would read, and since his playbook for criticizing Obama has pretty much direct parallels at every point to what Hitler was doing and saying, well, I don't think it's unreasonable to think the guy's suspect. Just be glad he's an incompetent moron.

Wasn't Hitler's bubble of forced employment making goods nobody wanted going to blow up anyway?

No, it was still a strong move toward central control, and the pre-war vision of the Third Reich was this way as well. Hitler saw the entire economy as a tool of the party, and didn't make the strong distinction between private and public that a lot of socialists would be worried about. It didn't matter who owned it, it was used at the direction and discretion of the party. If owners were not cooperative, their businesses would be nationalized and they'd be murdered. Hilter's whole narrative was one of absolute nationalistic unity. Things were either done according to the wishes of the party or they were put in conformance. Hitler did not tolerate businesses having any power of their own. Everything led back to the party, and private ownership was just a way of rewarding loyal and useful contributors to the party and it's vision. The Third Reich wasn't a oligarchy of powerful interests; it had a single central ruler whose power was absolute.

Contrast this with the GOP's strong ethic of individualism and laissez faire capitalism.



This is an unbelievably clueless perspective on US and world history. The US has ALWAYS had strong element that has been suspicious and antagonistic toward immigrant. It's happened with the Chinese, the Irish, the Japanese, and Trump is extremely moderate compared to most of our past. There are obvious reasons for this, and they don't line up particularly well with Nazi ideology, which was in itself, just an extreme and unflinching application of depressingly old and and universal European prejudices. Nationalism is hardly unique to Nazism either. This comparison is historically ignorant to a pretty catastrophic degree. Just because the Nazis had some of those themes doesn't mean that they were exclusive to Nazism. Trump is a ham fisted ass who is trying to consolidate power by remove as many people as possible from government that he sees to be a threat. It's probably the oldest, and most simplistic approach in the book. That's hardly unique to fascism. Without exception, every single president has done this to the degree they can. The difference is that most of them aren't stupid enough to make themselves look weak by raging at enemies they can't touch.

It's like you haven't even stopped for even a minute to consider why many people in the US might be opposed to Mexican immigrants. You just paint them all with some stupid white supremacist brush so you can hop on your high horse, because you don't really care. You just want to feel indignant.

The right is wrong for much of their reaction to illegal immigration, but that doesn't mean the reaction isn't to real issues. You can't just assign them the worst possible motives because it gives you a self-righteousness boner.



Yeah, lets compare a party's reverence of their own symbol, to a symbol of a very old rebellion that has come to represent anti-authoritarian sentiment in general. Trump isn't appealing to Confederate nationalism, he is appealing to US nationalism, which weirdly, is also very opposed to central control. The Rebel Flag is used, among other things, as an expression of defiance toward authority in general, though this attitude doesn't always apply to minorities.

Well, I'm not so much interested in the consistency of mainstream Conservative ideology, because it's just not there. I'm saying that we should approach it more as a social phenomenon which arises from a long held, but highly American set of ideals and identity values.

You can certainly draw parallels between US conservative and Nazi Germany, as you could do with the US Left and almost any other groups. This problem is that these parallels aren't particularly unique to the conditions that created the Third Reich, and seem to be done more for the purposes of low effort shock value than any real insightful impulse.

I think that in general, the American right is absurdly and lazily caricatured by the left. There's quite a bit going on, and a lot more diversity than they want to admit. The way the South is viewed is probably the worst of all. There are certainly issues with conservative ideology, but for the most part the left can't be bothered to understand the right well enough to offer an insightful or useful criticism.

I liked this point about the preference for classicism. I definitely agree that it's relevant to the contemporary (so-called) alt-right. I think many on the far-right who are concerned with cultural and social issues do express a preference for classical forms in art, and I think the reason why such forms appeal to them is probably similar to what was appealing about the Nazi aesthetic. Namely, many cultural conservatives believe that we're living through a period of cultural decadence and nihilism, where nothing matters anymore, and that the antidote is to embrace a traditionalist aesthetic, rooted in European/western art, which, they believe, can have stabilizing, unifying effect for society. Undoubtedly, the militaristic dimensions of the Nazi aesthetic (which drew from ancient sources) were intended to convey a sense of order in the face of destabilizing and destructive change. So I do think that the aspirations of some on the contemporary right and Nazism/fascism do have something in common here.

Yet I don't think that the Trump administration has co-opted that aspect of the contemporary right's ambitions. Trump's aesthetic has more to do with irreverence than with a totalitarian sense of order. I think this article captures it quite well: Here's a quote that sums it up: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/07/a_decker_editor_dissects_the_trump_administration_s_comically_shoddy_videos.html

I hear you that the Nazis also equivocated and tailored individual speeches to their audiences, knowing that different audiences had different sensibilities and different prejudices. That definitely suggests some sort of similarity between the political savoir faire of Trump and Hitler. But I think there are still some incredibly important difference between them. One of those differences is that while Hitler was a deeply committed antisemite, Trump is not an ideological racist (we may have to agree to disagree on this point). He's used racist rhetoric because of its appeal to the Republican base -- and, I should add, much of the appeal to the Republican base was merely because of its transgressive nature (i.e., it was a rejection of PC culture and the condescending sensibilities, customs and mores of bourgeois liberals), rather than because of genuine hatred for minority groups (although I wouldn't deny for many that was the exact appeal).

The difference is that while Hitler may have offered more conciliatory speeches to earn the support of people who were more tolerant than he was, he made those speeches because he was personally eager to enact a radical, murderous policy towards Jews and other minority groups, and it helped him to gain power through their support. Trump, on the other hand, whipped up crowds with racist language, but he's personally indifferent to many of those minority groups, which means that he's occasionally willing to adopt conciliatory policies towards them. His pardoning of Arpaio may have been a white identity politics gesture intended to satisfy some of the most radical elements within his base. But also met with Schumer and Pelosi to talk about DREAMers, indicating a willingness to compromise that's far from where Hitler stood.

Ultimately, I think that matters. Even if I'm being naively optimistic, I think it points to some of the lines that Trump won't cross. But nobody's ever gotten an award for being not-Hitler.

Also, just to be a dick, I have to add this: you said "Here it's more valuable to look at what's done rather than what's said", but then in the list that follows, half the things you list are things that Trump said, rather than things he did. :p

Adolf Hitler, like Mussolini and other influential airquotes-"thinkers" in early Fascist movements, didn't give much consideration to economics at all. Business and the economy was an intentional afterthought and they broadly believed such issues would get shaken out as other social issues were resolved (i.e. the economy will just work when it's controlled by the herrenvolk). In other words, Hitler didn't have a pre-war economic "vision" of the Third Reich. Indeed, fascism is typified not by nationalization of industry, or central planning, or any other modern economic bugbear, but in fact by a complete lack of coherent economic vision. There's no shortage of references I can give you for this, either.

"No comparative study exists of fascist economic systems. Nor is this surprising. For one can legitimately doubt whether it is appropriate to use so distinctive a term as 'system' when discussing fascist economics ... Nor, in the economic field, could fascism lay claim to any serious theoretical basis or to any outstanding economic theoreticians."

Written by S.J. Woolf (The Nature of Fascism). He goes on to describe fascist economic policies as nothing more than "improvisations", and "responses to particular and immediate problems", and "so contradictory as to make it difficult to speak of a coherent and consistent economic policy in one country, let alone [in general]".

What you're saying here is essentially wrong. There are some grains of truth to it, like the fact that Hitler did punish economic sabotage (something we might consider a shrewd business strategy today), or that he did build some state enterprises in certain sectors, and that Hitler did apply political pressure to guide production and pricing. But those grains of truth betray the lie; contemporary writers considered Hitler's pre-war policies an unremarkable example of protectionism and expansionism, of the sort we today simply call Keynesian stimulus. This is best illustrated by the fact that, for German giants like Siemens and Bayer, business mostly kept on going as normal modulo the threat of competition.

The idea that companies and industrialists in Germany were entirely compelled into action, either through nationalization or the threat of violence, is a modern fabrication (n.b. mostly an American one) intentionally designed to make you forget the fact that corporations enthusiastically helped Hitler enslave and kill a lot of people, and made a lot of money doing it too (and help you avoid thinking about how they'd do it again in a heartbeat.

Here's what the ADL has to say about it:

"In 1947 and 1948, the communist countries watched with bemusement as the United States, the preeminent capitalist country, prosecuted dozens of executives of three of wartime Germany's largest companies for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In the dock were directors of the Krupp and Flick (steel and coal) companies, both of which had built weapons of war and had employed forced labor, and board members of I.G. Farben, the chemical and pharmaceutical giant that had run a synthetic rubber factory at Auschwitz. During the trials at Nuremberg, the American prosecutors were careful not to portray the proceedings as attacks on the market economy, but rather as attempts to punish individuals who had committed crimes. Nonetheless, it was clear that they had established a strong link between German industry and all aspects of the Nazi economy and, more specifically, between German business and the crimes of National Socialism. The trials resulted in the conviction and imprisonment of a number of important company owners and directors.

Most prominently, Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, the sole owner of Krupp, was found guilty of employing slave labor and plundering businesses in France and the Netherlands. Krupp was stripped of all his property and business holdings and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

After these trials, the American government's interest in the prewar and wartime behavior of German industry abated -- until now. The long lull can be explained primarily by Cold War considerations. As the fear of Soviet communism grew, American and Western European leaders (political and otherwise) became uneasy with the continued imprisonment of German businessmen, influential figures who were perceived as integral to the creation of a vigorous capitalist economy in West Germany. In January of 1951, during the Korean War, those businessmen still in prison were released through a declaration of clemency by the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, John J. McCloy, and almost all of their assets were returned to them.

International tensions and political ideology also inevitably affected how others in the West — scholars, et al. — approached the theme of business complicity in the Third Reich. From the late 1940s until the mid-1980s, it was, again, the years before 1933 that were the focal point of debate, for Marxists wanted to prove and anti-Marxists wanted to refute the claims that capitalism and fascism were linked. During the prosperous years of economic growth, many West Germans and Americans, particularly government and industrial leaders, were uncomfortable with this debate, because they felt it dredged up a past that might tarnish the postwar achievements of German companies and might reinforce the communist world's anti-capitalism crusade.

German Businesses Defend Themselves

It is important to note that German companies themselves did not simply ignore the debates over industrial guilt. Quite the contrary; German businessmen took the lead in defending their own and their companies' reputations. For the duration of the Cold War there existed, in West Germany, an ongoing struggle between German industry's critics and the country's largest companies, which strove by a variety of means to defend their reputations. Business leaders used aggressive public relations methods to gain the confidence of the national and international publics and, indeed, workers within their own companies. While some writers produced pamphlets and publications condemning the "return to power" of capitalist criminals, companies hired journalists and historians in Germany and the U.S. to write sympathetic corporate histories and to exonerate the companies from accusations that they were involved in the Nazis' criminal activities. Much of the work produced by these writers was, frankly, a whitewash. These histories usually blamed Nazi leaders and the SS for drawing industry "unwillingly" into reprehensible conduct. Clearly, big business was not owning up to its compromised past."

https://www.adl.org/news/op-ed/german-businesses-and-nazis

The GOP does not pursue policies consistent with this "strong ethic" in practice.

You don't understand fascism, the Nazi party, or WW2 history well enough to understand that you basically just described what people thought about the Nazi party before they banned Jews from their jobs.

As I already quoted two authors on this, you should reread them and think carefully. A big difference that you're not grasping is - Trump basically ran on the "build a wall" slogan, and otherwise most of his campaign was devoid of anything meaningful. Like, what Jon`C said is not an exaggeration. I spent a long time trying to understand the "core policies" of fascism, and all I found is that there was no coherent "core" - it was entirely nonsense conspiracy bull**** from top to bottom. So all these things you're talking about - trying to "distance" the Republicans from not having a coherent ideology? You yourself said that mainstream conservative ideology is inconsistent.

The important thing here is, there has always been an element of racism in the Republican Party, but with 2016 it became core. As well, it wasn't an establishment shift, Trump was closer to an insurgency.



No, what's core to Nazism is blaming Jews for everything. Which Trump doesn't do. So yes, like, in a strictly literal sense Trump isn't a literal Nazi. Maybe you would prefer the term fascist? The whole point is that Trump basically has no coherent plan, appeals to many of the same resentments, and many of the same structures are there, in a unique way in American history.



What reasons might people be opposed? Basically everybody already accepts that many of the grievances Germans had during the Weimar era were legitimate. Like, everybody. So saying people have something legitimate to be angry about doesn't mean much. In fact, it kind of supports the idea.



I certainly don't feel self-righteous about it, but okay.

They key feature here being that, no matter what grievances people have, typecasting groups of people and focusing blame on them is always wrong, both morally and factually.

GOP's strong ethic.

lol

You really think the first supporters of the Nazi party weren't diverse? Again, we talked about exactly that in this thread. The Nazis cast a wide net looking for any supporters they could find, seeking allies from as many places as they could.

You keep insisting that calling the Republicans Nazis is some sort of shock value thing. I'm not trying to shock you, I've come to this conclusion after some pretty extensive research. I went in thinking that it was mostly B.S. and the comparisons were overstated, and I came out realizing they are not overstated much at all. Possibly even understated.

You don't seem to realize how not extreme the Nazis appeared in earlier years.

Well said, that's exactly what I was getting at.



That article was great, I love Tim Heidecker. I think, though, that we might be overestimating Nazi propaganda. Not the stuff about the Untermensch, but films about the greatness of the party itself, i.e. Triumph of the Will. I mean, technically speaking - Riefenstahl was competent at putting the film together. But content-wise, Triumph of the Will is basically a novel-length version of that video Trump posted. Here's a good take on it from a good Youtuber:



So, what I think is going on in Trump's swiss-cheese brain, is he wants to affect boisterousness. To him, that's masculine, it's a sign of success. That's what films like Triumph of the Will sought to accomplish, too: they're absolutely overbearing, massive endless winning of the Nazis in huge parades. Of course, they're also pretty different - I can't reach too far here, I'm just pointing out that tacky self-aggrandizement is not unfamiliar to the Nazis.

To quote Tim Heidecker, "I can't believe that, like, the Hamburglar is president."

http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/22/poll-more-gop-voters-see-themselves-as-trump-supporters-rather-than-republicans/

Yeah, this is totally normal in U.S. politics. Run-of-the-mill stuff going on here.

It has more to do with Americans' disappointment over how broken congress is than any kind of dictatorial, personal loyalty to Trump. Trump ran as an insurgent within his own party and rejected many of its sacred cows. This poll only indicates that GOP voters prefer the vision set out by Trump during the election and as president over the ones set out by McConnell or Ryan and other mainstream Republicans. And if its reflective of broader tendencies that currently prevail in American politics, its only that we're living through an anti-establishment moment.

I see what you're saying about masculinity and self-aggrandizement. Those are similarities.


But Trump's propaganda and Nazi propaganda are intended to have a profoundly different effect on their audiences. Triumph of the Will was a film created at great cost and with state of the art film techniques. Even if it wasn't, as that YouTube video points out, innovative except for its massive budget, the sense of scale made possible in the film by all the money thrown at it is still decisively important. The scale was intended to establish and fortify the idea that the Nazis were an ineluctable force in history, that they were majestic and destined to rule, incapable of being opposed or dethroned, and that they were awesome (in the old fashioned sense of the word meaning 'inspiring fear and awe') worthy of being revered. Trump's propaganda has the opposite effect. It's intended to tarnish the respect and dignity that the presidential office already commands. It's not created with cutting edge techniques; it's created (poorly) with iMovie. It's a display not of reverence but of irreverence. And it's intended to inspire in the audience the conviction that "lol nothing matters". There is some element of self-aggrandizement in Trump's propaganda. But it takes on a very different hue than in Triumph of the Will.

As the YouTube video says, propaganda is by its very nature deceitful. But Trump's propaganda goes a step further: it's drawing attention to the deceit. It tells you that it's being deceitful. For Trump, the element of ironic detachment is crucial -- Triumph of the Will is sincere in a way that Trump's propaganda isn't. Here's an example of what I'm getting at: the number of flags in Triumph of the Will is supposed to be inspiring because of massive number of people being mobilized and the scale of the ceremony. You're supposed to be impressed -- even terrified -- of the power and military might on display. But the flag crowding in Trump's propaganda is supposed to make you laugh because it's so obvious that it's trying to signal patriotism, and in making you laugh, it's actually trying to undermine and mock patriotism.

The Nazis may have been incompetent (or at least disorganized), but at least in their propaganda, where they had the greatest level of control over how they were perceived, they didn't want to put their incompetence on display. But Trump is different. He does.

It says something, I think, about the different ways that Trump and the Nazis communicate their power to their audiences. In short, I think Trump's propaganda has more to do with 21st century Russian propaganda than Nazi propaganda.

Peter Pomerantsev is good on Russian propaganda (and entertaining, too). Here's him on how it works, discussing a book that he released several years ago:

So... what you're saying is, conservatives have turned to a strong single leader due to a loss of faith in a gridlocked republic? In the aftermath of a global financial crisis??

Yep. So in your mind the parallels mean what exactly?

I think we all know that means that Jon is advancing Terrence Mckenna's Timewave Zero theory which suggests that history is a series of fractal waves which cause past and present events to be linked archetypally. Who is Poland this time around?

That Obi_Kwiet is wrong.

Also that we should learn from real history, rather than parroting marketing slogans for why it happened there but could never happen in our own countries. We need to understand what a failing democracy really looks like, and how sudden the change can happen. We need to remember that revolutions are not always violent and the dictators they create are almost never popular. We need to remember that laws and constitutions can't protect us by themselves without an effective separation of powers. We need to learn that fascism happens because scared capitalists use divisiveness and racist populism to escape the guillotine.

But mostly that Obi_Kwiet is wrong.

Following up on this:



The Nazis were totalitarians. In their propaganda, they depicted a world in which, like their ceremonies, the world was choreographed. Everything in the world occupies a certain place, and it is the power of the Nazi regime that puts everything in order -- including you. But Trump isn't a totalitarian. He's an authoritarian. And more specifically, he's the sort of authoritarian who has something to gain from people becoming apathetic, and thinking that politics and civic engagement are unimportant and pointless. And that's precisely what his propaganda is intended to achieve: it tries to convey the his administration is so dumb, and so utterly preposterous and stupefying, that there's no good reason to follow politics anymore. And that same notion is supposed to be coupled with the idea that he's so powerful that it doesn't matter how dumb he is, because he's president no matter how shamelessly he defies the norms of the office. He has the power to do what he wants, whether you like it or not.

So maybe one might say that the left makes daft comparison of right wingers to "Nazis".

But... what about actual Nazi history, early on and before their transgressions turned them into a caricature for pure evil? Early Nazis probably weren't so bad by today's standards. Do Americans actually know enough about pre-WW II history to be objective about what the Nazi party was all about? Maybe the real unfair comparison being made here is not by the left between the right and "Nazis", but by Americans in general between Nazis and pure evil. Maybe they weren't so bad and Godwin's law was a mistake? Lol.

Nazi totalitarianism is somewhat overstated. For example, it was acceptable for party officials to criticize their own pogroms until about 1938 or so, IIRC. I mean, don't get me wrong - it was a brutal and oppressive dictatorship, I'm just saying it didn't happen overnight. The social changes took most of a decade to happen.

That's what I really think the parallels mean. Trump, or someone close to him, intentionally modeled his campaign and early administration after Hitler's. That doesn't mean Trump is going to become a Hitler, but it does mean the US is primed to elect one. And with the country basically limping along on executive orders, a media that is broadly distrusted, and a judiciary which is routinely attacked by the president and public for exercising their independence, isn't that scary enough by itself even if you don't consider the parallels to the Weimar Republic?


Regarding Nazi vs. Trump propaganda:

- The Nazis were actually super progressive about embracing new technologies for reaching the public. For example, Hitler was one of the first politicians who used aircraft for political campaigning (also one of the first politicians with enough wealthy supporters that he could afford to do it). The Nazis were similarly progressive about television broadcasting and, yes, film. I think for them it was more bragging about the fact that they were capable of doing these things, rather than the content. The closest modern equivalent would be Trump's Twitter account which he actually uses himself, oh my god. Or maybe a VR game, if Palmer Luckey gets around to it.
- Trump might actually be stupid. Hitler sorta was, he was smart in a greasy political way, and had a knack for swaying people in a one-on-one discussion, but totally inept and running a country, and prone to long, rambling speeches. Exactly like Trump, actually. I don't know whether it's an affectation or not.
- The Nazis also needed an engaged and moralized workforce. I don't think the US does. Like you said, a politically engaged public is a threat to Trump, at least for now.
- Culture has changed. Nazi propaganda would be considered cringeworthy today. Propaganda now would more likely resemble conventional PR efforts today.

No.

Ref: This thread.

No, the Nazis were real ****ing ****lords. Most Germans were super uncomfortable with the idea of them actually getting into power, but they thought it wouldn't happen, they considered Hitler an idiot and a joke candidate, and thought that even if he got into power he'd never actually do the things he promised he'd do or even be allowed to do them. Hitler was a Chancellory McChancellorface who only got in power because a coalition of right-wing businessmen and social conservatives thought he could be controlled. lol, guess what though? He couldn't. And nobody else that stupid or angry can be.

The real unfair comparison being made here is by Americans in general between their own country and the Weimar Republic.

lol.

The ways in which the United States appears to be slipping into authoritarianism are deeply concerning. Of course it's scary. But Hitler isn't the only historical example of an individual who became a dictator through democratic means. There are other countries we could look at to illuminate what's going on in the US that carry less baggage. My problem with comparing the rise of Nazism to the decline of American democracy is that it suggests the United States is currently progressing down a path whose steps are inevitable and which culminate with criminal acts that resemble the most murderous and cruel excesses of National Socialism at its height. Certainly, things could get much worse in the United States. But just because there are elements of American decline that resemble what occurred in the Nazi regime doesn't mean that it's inevitable that America will replicate what the Nazi regime did at its very worst, or that it will even get anywhere close to it.

I don't think you intend to suggest that it is that way (or maybe you do). But unfortunately, because of how we often talk about Nazism (i.e., we compare something to Nazism in order to condemn it), it's part of the freight that comes with comparing anything to National Socialism. (But let me be clear, I'm not saying that comparisons between the US and Nazism are bad or inaccurate. Only that it's very easy for them to be imprecise.) Rather than looking at the Nazis, I think we're better off looking at other 21st century authoritarian countries (Russia is the most obvious example) as models of what a less democratic America would look like. There are a lot of features to Russian government and society that are similar to what you point out that have little to do with starting a war that kills 60 million people, at least let's hope (e.g., the cooperation and collusion of industry with the national government, the breaking down of an impartial, impersonal bureaucracy in favor of chains of personal patronage, a political class that is increasingly concerned with enriching itself by selling access to political power to the wealthy and to corporations, close cooperation between the government and media in order to push stories that are sympathetic to the government, cracking down on and murdering journalists who write stories critical of the government, etc., etc.).

What if comparisons of 21st century America to 1930's Germany were simultaneously the best and worst comparisons one could hope to make? For different reasons, and depending who you asked?

Are we trying to see similarities, or are we trying to avoid conflating of differences and hurt feelings? Maybe it's not so good for rhetorical purposes, hence Godwin's law.

Is there another example that Marxists wrote about that captures the same kind of dynamic that Jon cites from Trotsky? I'm not sure we should shun the comparison if it lets us make some of the most germane (heh) analogies, just to avoid the bad ones.

Sorry, I should have read the second half of Eversor's last post before asking that question.

Talk about both the Holocaust and National Socialism have been completely divested of any genuine association with the incomprehensible magnitude of the cruelty and destruction that they entailed. So casual, uninformed comparisons of the Nazis to, say, the Republican party, or the Holocaust to, say, the American Health Care Act, are becoming increasingly prevalent. The people who say these things don't knows how glib they are to make such a comparison. And calling someone a Nazi is an easy, lazy way to insult and censure someone.

Here, I'll put it another way:



This is an astronomically shallow thing to say.

I think those are good points. And on the other side, you have AM radio propagandists like Mark Levin, who regularly calls his opponents (Democrats, IRS, etc.) "stalinists", the EPA "no growth eco-Marxist", etc. (And we all know Obama is a Muslim Kenyan socialist. )

This is a reasonable position. Unfortunately, though, the similarities between the United States and the Weimar Republic are too astounding to ignore. It's hard to make equally strong comparisons with 21st century dictatorships. For example, you can't frame Putin's ascension and Russia's decline outside the context of their history, in particular the power vacuum that formed after the August Coup, and the amnesty that kept hard-liners in positions of political influence. Russia might be a good example of what life might look like in a failed America, but it's not a good explanation for how an American dictator might rise to power in the first place.

Meanwhile, there are actual flag-bearing Nazis marching in American streets, murdering their detractors. There are law enforcement officers being pardoned for flagrant constitutional violations. So yes, I think I do intend to suggest that it is that way. I unequivocally think that is the path Trump is trying to take. Maybe I'm wrong. But maybe, if it honks like a goose, and steps like a goose...

You say this as though Hitler planned that destruction from the beginning. I don't think Hitler did plan for that level of cruelty from the beginning, at least, there's no direct historical evidence he was genocidal. So when I say "like the Nazis", I don't mean "like the Nazis in 1943", I mean "like the Nazis in 1933".

The Republicans are not literally committing genocide. But, I think there's a non-negligible threat that, given an unlikely dice roll, the future could hold something like that for America.

I see what you're saying about the associations, right, like, it's hard for people to read the word Nazi and not go in some weird overdrive of emotional alarm.. and that's partly because Americans can't sit down to make a rational comparison, because they know very little about the Nazis. If you do, though, there are serious parallels that should be far more concerning to us. The only comparisons I've seen getting popular attention have been, as suggested, cheap shock value jokes, like that Colbert thing (at 5:50):

I'm not sure why you called that comment shallow in context of the former post, or the context of this conversation. I've not tried to make a comparison with the holocaust or the AHCA, for one, nor would I, and the comparisons I'm making between the Republicans and the Nazis are clearly not within the framework of anything post-1935.