XPost: alt.politics.elections, alt.tv.oreilly-factor, rec.arts.tv
XPost: alt.politics.usa
On 2016-09-28 06:33:00 -0400, Ubiquitous <
weberm@polaris.net> said:
Goodwin's law violation noted.
Yeah... let's examine why that's NOT applicable here. I'm a student of
this period, so it's pretty obvious from where I sit.
Here are some excerpts from a recently reviewed book on the rise of
Hitler and nazism. See if any of this sounds vaguely familiar.
Some have focused on the social and political conditions in post-World
War I Germany, which Hitler expertly exploited — bitterness over the
harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles and a yearning for a return to
German greatness; unemployment and economic distress amid the worldwide Depression of the early 1930s; and longstanding ethnic prejudices and
fears of “foreignization.”
See: The Great Recession of 2009. Anti-Immigrant sentiments: Mexicans
are rapists and are taking our jobs. The Muslim ban.
Volker Ullrich focused on Hitler as a politician who rose to power
through demagoguery, showmanship and nativist appeals to the masses.
Mr. Ullrich, like other biographers, provides vivid insight into some
factors that helped turn a “Munich rabble-rouser” — regarded by many as a self-obsessed “clown” with a strangely “scattershot, impulsive style”
See: The Republican Primary Debates. Trump political rallies. Any of them.
Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the
latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his
message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between
lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
See: Fact checking Donald Trump at Politifact. No other candidate has
lied more, or more brazenly.
Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich reminds readers,
adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his
audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal
middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus.
See: Reality TV background. Every Trump rally. Every Trump speech.
Here, “Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of
his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,” Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches
with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented
chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself
as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.
See: "I'd like to punch 'em in the face." "Bomb the shit out of them".
"I am the Law and Order candidate." Believe me, folks.
“Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who ‘only loved himself,’”
she notes, “a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what
Mr. Ullrich calls a ‘characteristic fondness for superlatives.’”
See: "Great" "Tremendous" "bigly" "I'm really smart." "I'm really
rich." "I have the BEST words."
Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was
typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a
golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked
now, there was only decline and decay.”
See: "Make America Great Again"
Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and
reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for
the future.”
See: "Build that wall!" "Lock her up!" On Iranian boats: "We'll blow
it out of the water."
Mr. Ullrich suggests, and the belief of Hitler supporters that the
country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give the National Socialists a chance?”
See: "I alone can fix this." "What do you have to lose!"
Hitler’s ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and
by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression.
Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance, Mr. Ullrich
writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity,
while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating “evening’s entertainment.”
See: The sixteen Republican candidates, all with more knowledge and
experience than Trump. They all thought they'd eat Donald last, after
they'd finished with their more capable rivals. So... who ended up as
the last man standing?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html?_r=0
So, tell me... see anybody you recognize? Or does he have to grow an
orange mustache first?
--
Donald Trump on Hillary Clinton 9-7-16: "She is trigger-happy and very unstable…"
Four days later on 9-11-16 Trump said: "When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at
our people that they shouldn’t be allowed to make, they will be shot
out of the water."
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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