I know, cause I was arguing against that notion.
Did you read what I wrote? Did I defend dictators at all, of any political flavor? I was correcting historical misinformation about Hitler… not defending leftists dictators. Why would I do that?
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Yeah, I was just agreeing with you that Hitler did not come from the left. Sorry for confusing you.
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Ah! Okay. Thanks. Sorry for the confusion, then.
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Ai yai yai, this ‘left-right’ thing is feeling more and more like a cognitive trap. Break out of it, people. Human ingenuity at oppressing one another has proven too vast and diverse to have it mapped on a single bi-modal axis.
That’s an interesting graph. Synthesis at the top of the Y-Axis and Division at the bottom.
I’m trying to imagine the proper polar-descriptors for the X-axis… maybe reality practicality and idealism?
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Just wiait for the next Reichstag-like Fire.
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I think that’s the thing people often forget… Weimar was a constitutional republic, which had serious economic problems due to the depression and their war debt. It also gave us cabaret and the Bauhaus, as well as the Frankfurt scholars. Germany had given Jews full civil rights and it was considered a modern state by any metric, a center of culture and civilization as much as France or the UK. And still. that shit kind of turned on a dime.
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This is something I am honestly afraid of.
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Once again Frank Zappa was quite prescient, even predicted the turbulent right with the “What’s The Matter With Kansas?” meme, the populist Gov Ventura in MN, and finally the ultimate Freak Out in Washington DC.
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Weimar good or bad was bound to fail due to German disgust with the imposed Versailles settlement.
Ah, if only the USA had not entered the war. Kaiser Bill was a bigoted, egotistical twit, but he sure would have been easier to live with than Adolf.
I think there’s also a fundamental difference between “your numbers give you power” and “your numbers give me power”. One can masquerade as the other, but if you focus on what is in someone’s heart, I don’t think it’s ever that hard to tell the difference, because these two things spring from utterly different emotional roots (whether you’re talking about the leader or their audience).
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Actually, I just sent this to a friend, FWIW:
I think we have three possible outcomes here, on our magical "choose your own adventure journey"... The first is that he blunders along, and fucks up so much, transgresses so many norms, and does so poorly, that the congress flips in 2018 and he gets voted out in 2020. Some serious harm done, but we're all still here (well, except for the people who died because they lost their Obamacare). We lurch to the center again. The second is that something triggers congress to impeach him, it would have to be big that is so egregious, that they GOP can't ignore it. Pence is president, he sucks, and the GOP get voted out for utter fucking incompetence, but the dems learn nothing from this experience and continue having pressure from progressives. Third... he's the new Hitler, the US becomes a fascist state, and we plunge the world into the next world war, probably with nukes and seriously fuck up the planet. Something sci-fi and dystopian emerges as the new global society... Probably like Mad Max?
If only the French and British had listened to Wilson when he argued for a less onerous reparations regime… I agree that the reparations for the war were unfair, but the US argued against it and aren’t to blame for what was imposed. The war would have carried on with or without us, and who knows what the outcome would have been then. It was the spanish flu, more than anything else which ended the war, which would have happened regardless.
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Game of Thrones characters notwithstanding the US has three distinct branches of power The Legislative (Congress)
The Executive (the President) and Judicial (The Supreme Court) the President can’t do whatever he wants - remember “upholding the constitution” was part of the oath he just took.
And a lot of people believe in that piece of paper a lot more than Trump (let’s face it he barely made it through, thanks to the Electoral votes) There is also internal opposition as witnessed by the CIA’s publication of the Russian story recently.
Believe me people will be watching for any over-reach. (I would say that the closest to a dictator in the US was FDR though he was a benevolent one, but even he had trouble with the Supreme Court - he tried to appoint more judges to make it 15 but that didn’t work).
I’m also not sure about the GOP blindly following him, many of them strongly opposed him in the campaign, but even now Rand Paul and some others insist on replacement before repealing Obamacare. The thing is now he has to deliver on the promises and the GOP can no longer be a do -nothing bunch as they were under Obama. So if the jobs don’t materialize (there might be some but most of those factory jobs are gone forever) And how popular will it be if there is a tariff on the Iphone because 2% of the cost is made in China and Apple makes the rest. And if a lot of those who voted for him become disillusioned after they lose health care etc. Also the focus on the fossil fuels industry (many of the frackers are heavily in debt) means that if production goes up without an increase in demand the price of oil will continue to stay down. That spells trouble for the US fracking industry which is indebted for around $400 billion.
And all that is great, but it will still only protect us as long as the people believe in the Constitution as written and/or largely understood today rather than whatever Trump’s interpretation of it happens to be.
A man who can convince his followers that 3-5 million illegal immigrants voted against him or that all independent news is “fake” can convince them of anything. That’s why it’s so important to keep pushing back.
“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire (I’m on a quote kick today)
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Considering the GOP (non-)reaction to his conflicts of interest and ignoring if the emoluments clause, color me skeptical*.
* What color is skeptical?
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It’s hard for me to believe that you can give this big a push to something with as many moving parts as the US political system, and have it just pop back into the same equilibrium as before. There are bound to be aftershocks for a long time, whether in (over)reaction to Turmp, or by following Turmp to his horrific conclusion, or more likely just a period of chaotic political flux.
I think the US probably isn’t capable of switching the way Germany did. Polite middle-class people can easily be menaced into siding with 99% of their neighbors against the other 1%, but if the numbers are closer to 50/50 that’s a whole different proposition.
And that type of authoritarian regime does rely on controlling people with threats, and not overt force. There’s a memorable bit in Eichmann in Jerusalem about how the Holocaust largely didn’t happen in Denmark, simply because when the civil authorities were told to provide lists of names, their response was “OK, but we’ll need to see that in writing first”.
Which btw, considering that’s probably the single most valuable and costly lesson in Western history, it’s a shame Arendt is mostly ignored on account of how she makes people a bit uncomfortable.
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I’m reading “The Plot Against America” by Philip Roth. Very good so far.
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Arranged in decreasing order of skepticism regarding the Trump administration:
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I petition to refer to Trump from here on in as Windrip.
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