GBRHouston said:
-He is not Hitler. Making comparisons between him and Fascism is completely sickening, because we all know that will never happen to our country.
Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. Go look at what the Germany people were saying about Hitler as he rose to power. You'll see they didn't think it could happen either.
Germany was in the dumps after losing WW1, and unlike this process, most people were on board with Hitler. If Trump is truly fascist (he's not), then he will have a lot of blockades before we even come close to how Nazi Germany was.
Germany was harshly punished through the Versailles treaty after WWI. The economic sanctions crippled them, they were scapegoated by most of the major powers for causing the war (unfairly, as it was a combination of factors), and they were downtrodden as a people during the 1920s while the rest of Europe and America enjoyed what was for them a very prosperous decade. Hitler convinced Germany that he could make them great again by restoring Germany to its rightful place in the world, as a leader and as the best people on Earth.
Trump doesn't have to be Fascist (he's not), nor does he have to be the second coming of Hitler (he's not) to have used a lot of the techniques that Hitler and Goebbels used in order to gain power. Hitler was known for making passionate speeches, often incoherent but very rousing, which inspired his followers. Hitler was a master of bending the truth, and the
Big Lie was one of his main tactics. People ate it up because Germany was, truly, a squashed society.
Is America squashed? Nope, not by a long shot.
But we've been told for eight years that we were. It has been the plan of the Republicans to instill in their followers as much fear (Obama's from Kenya! He's going to take your guns! He's Muslim!) into them as possible. It worked. The White America who consumes Fox News, Brietbart, The Blaze, et al, is afraid of Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims... basically,
them. Anyone not
us is
them, and
they are scary. Why? Because you've been told they are throughout Obama's tenure.
Most Germans, in fact, were not on board with Hitler. But by the time he came to power he had already established a pattern of violence that those not under his spell were scared of. It's not an easy thing to go against the establishment (which, side note, is why I think it's commendable for those Conservatives on this board who believe the "Liberal Mods" are squashing dissent to speak up. I don't agree with them at all, but I respect their right to dissent in the face of what they perceive to be long odds), and your average German citizen wasn't about to get his head bashed in to resist the Brown Shirts, and later the Nazi party. But enough Germans were convinced that Hitler could make them great again that they voted his party into power, and at that point it was too late. By the time most of Germany woke up to the ugly realization that a despot had seized power, there was already an army buildup, a secret police and the means to quell political dissent.
By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was too late to speak up. Speaking up meant death. Who's going to speak up at that point?
Let's be clear. Trump is not Hitler. Trump is not going to form secret police and he's not going to disappear people in the night. But that doesn't mean we don't need to be vigilant just in case.
