I strongly disagree. You must look at the development of the NAZI party, it did not start day one telling the German people lets murder the Jew, it was a process. To pretend that process couldn’t happen elsewhere is just fooling yourself. The holocaust was only a part of the NAZI endeavor, To not be able to examine a historical event and draw conclusions is intellectually lazy and dishonest in my opinion.
11 Likes
Nazis started committing genocide in 1939, but were running for office and in power for more than a decade before that. To suggest that we should not point out that Trump is calling for the same things as the early 1930s Nazis is to forget our vow, “Never again.”
Any time a candidate demonizes a racial group, calls for special registration for a particular religion, suggests special identification for members of that religion, and is open with closing their houses of worship the comparison is appropriate. No one is suggesting Trump is killing people at the Trump Casino or Golf Club, but he is advocating concepts similar to those advocated by early Nazis in the 1930s.
15 Likes
CNN host Jake Tapper grilled Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Gov. John Kasich and asked him if he thought his attack web video against GOP rival Donald Trump seemed “desperate.”
I wish Trapper the same standard to other Republicans when they accuse Obama of being a Muslim, or favoring Islam over Christianity, or not being born in the USA.
Trapper could start by asking Trump if it is “desperate” to have a video of Obama making faces cut with images of Islamic terrorists.
Or he could also ask Trump about what happened to his investigation on Obama’s birth certificate that “they cannot believe what they’re finding,”. He could start with actually providing the bills of the detectives he claims he sent to Hawaii. I honestly doubt he sent anybody. Just more bullshit from a bullshitter.
9 Likes
Trump has the support of 34% of the Republican primary electorate, which is a pretty large “limited” appeal.
And remember that Hitler lost the election to be President von Hindenberg, but was subsequently appointed Chancellor. Limited appeal today doesn’t mean limited appeal tomorrow.
5 Likes
With voter suppression, manipulation of voting machines and our Supreme Court I am not ready to rule him out as President. Never underestimate the stupidity of people either multiple large scale attacks could twist minds up too.
3 Likes
With all due respect, that concept is lunacy. No, the US is not going to have a mass extermination of a race of people in our own country, nor are we going to try to invade and occupy all of Europe, etc. This is lunacy.
'Nuff said.
3 Likes
I can hear 1930’s Germany saying the same.
4 Likes
In the late 70’s I thought it was absurd that a right wing wacko, tough talking, third rate actor who starred in a movie with a chimp titled “Bedtime For Bonzo” would ever become President. It all seemed improbable until suddenly it wasn’t.
8 Likes
Do I believe it is going to happen? No. Do I believe Donald Trump will be the next U.S. President? No. But, the man is starting to show up on my radar screen as possibly winning the GOP nomination. IF that were to happen, then there is always a chance–even if it is seems like a tiny sliver today–that he could win. The man himself is a fucking lunatic. The “good” people of Germany thought that sort of shit wouldn’t/couldn’t happen to them, too. Personally, I believe it is even far less likely to ever happen here–with the way we are set up Constitutionally, etc.–but that does NOT 100% guarantee a fucking lunatic like Trump can’t get in and start out slowly … just like Herr Hitler did.
Sorry, I really do understand where you’re coming from, but I also know too well the depth of the stupidity, complacency and downright hatefulness of people in large numbers.
6 Likes
And I am sure there are lots of people in 1932 who said, "Well, Hitler won’t beat von Hindeberg (he didn’t) and will never have power, and even if he does say, get appointed Chancellor he’ll still have to get all his plans through the Reichstag and that will never happen!
We live in a country that rounded up multiple generations of American citizens, took their property and locked them up solely because of their ancestry. We live in a country that made it legal until just 60 years ago to deny American citizens access to bathrooms and bus seats because of their race. We live in a country that turned a blind eye to murders of people advocating for voting rights. We live in a country where state houses flew the flag of a traitorous rebellion until just this year.
And we live in a country where the leading candidate for the GOP nomination to be President advocates closing down mosques, requiring Muslims to register with the government, forcing them to carry “special identification,” and the roundup and deportation of 12 million brown-skinned people and only one prominent Republican calls him on it. There’s no censure, no outrage, no loss in the polls for Trump.
And you think it couldn’t happen here? Until this year, I ddin’t either.
11 Likes
Hear, here!
3 Likes
Tell that to the native Americans. Or my 90 year old neighbor, who while not exterminated, spent her late teens in an internment camp. And we’ve invaded two South Asian countries in the last 15 years. One based totally on lies.
We like to think we’re better than that, but our history says otherwise.
7 Likes
Yes, that was 74 years ago. Then we got attacked just as bad on 9/11/01, with Republican nut jobs in power. Did that happen again? No.
And we live in a country where that will be impossible to do.
All this is no different than the Glen Beck nutty shit on Obama. Hey, Obama is getting involved in school curriculum. He wants to control our guns. The Obama Youth. Bill Ayers. All just like Hitler!!
It’s the equivalent of this nonsense.
http://www.infowars.com/homeland-security-graduates-first-corps-of-obamas-brown-shirts-homeland-youth/
Once again, no there will not be mass exterminations of a race of people here in the US. This is pure lunacy. And this is why Nazi comparisons are just plain silly.
Let’s attack him on his policies, etc. Not pull out the Nazi card. If anything, that helps him because it gives your side no credibility. Stick to facts.
That was idiotic, but I would also note that was not in this country. I never said we would not get involved in stupid wars.
This is all 75 years plus ago, and in some cases over 150 years ago. It’s 2015 now.
The difference with that argument is that Obama never advocated or promised to do those sorts of things. Trump has advocated and promised those sorts of actions (not the gun thing but mosques, going after families, closing the border, physically deporting 12M people, etc.). Trump seems to get more belligerent with each passing week, ramping up what he suggests, advocates, etc. – and his support grows accordingly. Yes, our nation of laws and checks and balances will prevent a lot of that outright, but not all of it and surely not the sentiment(s) he nurtures.
7 Likes
There is real similarity in this: they both created utterly fantasmatic paranoid images of a group that “menaced” their “way of life.” Hitler’s fantasy universe was truly psychotic discourse, with him as the usual ‘savior’ who could remedy the flaws in the order of life; Trump picks up each and every fantasy spun out by the psychotics who masquerade as commentators or pundits on the right, and says he believes them. And guess what: they all lead to being anti-black, anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim.
Look psychotics can gain a following. We just should not let them dominate our airwaves and our media by lending them credence for the delusions that they emit. Like if Trump had a gun during an attack, he’d shoot the guy down. [Apparently bullets fly faster than the speed of sound, so you might be done for before you even hear the bullet…]
2 Likes
“The Nazis killed 12 million people,” Tapper said. “It seems a little extreme and perhaps even a lot desperate to compare Donald Trump to the Nazis.”
I cannot imagine a better network announcement conveying the reality that Tapper is a miseducated idiot.
4 Likes
MrComments, please know that I think this is an excellent conversation we’re all having. It needs to be had. People need to talk about this. These thoughts and feelings need to be considered by all of us, mulled around in our psyche. The feelings are real. Knowledge is a good thing. I’m glad we have the message boards here at TPM to discuss topics and issues such as this in a space where we each are not trolling each other. Thank you for our thoughts on this. All you others, too!
4 Likes
You implore kendyZdad to “Stick to facts” which is all he’s done, while all you’ve done is insist “It’s lunacy.” Where are the facts in “It’s lunacy”?
You say his facts are outdated? Why does that make them less relevant than your blanket refusal to listen? Comparing Trump to Glenn Beck is a losing proposition because Glenn Beck has never shown any interest in running for President. But Trump has, and has voiced an interest in virtually every strategy employed by the Nazis in the early 30s in Germany. The problem is that you, and others who find this comparison unacceptable, can’t imagine Trump employing the Nazi endgame – world domination, the Final Solution – and I agree that is unthinkable. But it is not hard to see the similarities between Trump’s current strategy and the Nazi’s original strategy for taking power in Germany a decade earlier than those unthinkable end results.
6 Likes