It's like there have been so other authoritarian leaders in world history.

... I suppose, but I don't mind if the parallels are accurate.

I think the objective of communication is to impart ideas and not to give equal time to 'other authoritarian regimes'. You assert we 'seriously need to' not mention Nazis. Why, exactly, is that a serious need?

It's reached the point where any mean or strict person is referred to as a nazi in everyday conversation.

... sometimes the "Nazi" analogy is appropriate. The Trump movement is one of those times.

Donald Trump paints a picture of a downtrodden and defeated America, not dissimilar to 1930's Germany. He plucks the strings of wounded nationalistic pride, points to racial minority scapegoats, and demonizes his political opponents with lies and demagoguery.

There is truth to the saying Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Obviously, the exact past can never be duplicated but there are common themes and methods for manipulating human nature and emotions to rally behind a flag-waving monster.

If you think there is a more apt historical analogy for Trumpism that is understood by and resonates with the general public, by all means let's hear it.

This one is particularly off-base in this case.

The United States is nothing like 1930s Germany in any respect.

There have been any number of politicians who have appealed to nationalism, pointed to racial minority scapegoats, and demonized political opponents with lies and demagoguery under circumstances very similar to our own.

Le Pen in France would be one example.

To quote a recent article by a university history professor:

I agree, but if you watched the GOP convention you would have seen a picture painted of a downtrodden nation under assault that has been losing, losing, losing. There's a huge gap between reality and the rightwing/Trumpist perception of it. When I listen to Donald Trump I see a fascist, and I see it in his worshipful crowds.

Still searching for a better historical analogy, if you can provide one.

Reagan painted a similar picture to what you describe, had passionately worshipful crowds, made promises about making America great again. He was going to bring us out of the malaise.

Look at this excerpt from Reagan's 1980 convention speech:

The level of hatred, off the charts falsehoods, and scapegoating racial/religious minorities simply isn't there.

Than anything Hitler said in any of his speeches.

Hitler's speeches were mirthless, carefully scripted, and devoid of any humor.

Trump, like Reagan, tries to be funny, casual, and loose.

Trump, like Reagan, tries to play on his previous reputation as an entertainer.

Trump, like Reagan, focuses on the corruption of the establishment and how only someone like him can fix the problems.

Trump like Reagan, talks about how the US is not respected on the world stage and needs to be tougher.

There are myriad similarities between the two.

Hitler was a military veteran who served time in prison, and had been devoted to political causes (and antisemitism) his entire life.

Trump and Reagan were both reluctant politicians who were more entertainers than politicians, who were known for their personalities, not their policies.

Not in temperament, personality (disorder), or political outlook. Trump's convention painted a dystopian nightmare, spewing hatred to the point of violence against the Democratic nominee while also demonizing racial and religious minorities as additional scapegoats for America's problems. Many conservatives who flocked to Reagan's banner are fleeing from Trump's.

Roger Katz, Republican state senator from Maine, calls Trump not fit to be president:[quote]Katz, who is Jewish, drew a parallel between Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany and Trump’s own fear-based rhetoric. He said Trump has seized on the anxieties of Americans and has given them someone to blame: outsiders.

“What Donald Trump has done, in a most calculated way, is to empower others to come out of the woodwork and spew their own dark vision of America,” Katz wrote. “He has appealed to and encouraged the worst of our collective instincts. This is not ‘telling it like it is’ – it is giving permission to others to legitimize bigotry, racism and hate."[/quote]

Trump and Reagan are very dissimilar. So are Trump and Hitler on a personal level, but that's not what matters most in the historical analogy. It's how the demagoguery manipulates people into supporting a highly nationalist vision by appealing to hate, fear, and loathing of "others" and blaming them for the horrid state of the country (real or perceived).

Trumpism is the closest thing to fascism I've ever seen in this country.

It may not play out exactly the same way, but the exact same dynamics are in play. It will not end well unless it is recognized for the danger it is and nipped in the bud.

Germany was an industrial country full of educated, reasonable people when the Nazis took power. The question is why so many reasonable people allowed it to happen.

Whether or not the angry mob of abandoned workers will sweep Drumpf into office is still moot. I just won't be surprised if they do, and the Nazis do provide a parallel, as do the conservative Democrats and the tone deaf Republicans to the parties of the Weimar Republic.

I've pointed out that Sanders and Drumpf were two sides of the same coin, a generalized discontent with the leadership of both parties that had led to outright rebellion. Theirs succeeded, at least temporarily, while ours failed for a number of reasons.

Our best hope is that their success destroys their party while ours gets elected. Even that will be a Pyrrhic victory, since the rational conservatives will flock to our party, driving it farther to the right.

Germany had just been defeated and humiliated in the First World War.

The German economy was devastated throughout the 1920s.

The circumstances are not even remotely similar in any significant respect.

but those have devastated the treasury. Our economy has been devastated by absurdly low wages paid for too few jobs, the good factory jobs having been offshored or automated out of existence. We're not paying for bread with wheelbarrows full of money because this country abandoned any pretense of keeping wages close to the inflationary rate 40+ years ago.

Even upper middle class parents are seeing their offspring start to take on debt to finish their educations.

Don't kid yourself about the US economy. For most of us, it's devastated. The analogy holds. It's why there was rebellion in both parties because both parties are in deep denial about this.

The US economy today is not similar to the Germany economy of the 1920s in any respect.

The US also has not been engaged in a military conflict that has led to significant loss of American lives in our recent history.

Germany, during World War I saw over 2,000,000 killed.

In terms of percentage of population, that would be the equivalent of 12 million Americans killed.

I don't like Godwin any better than you do, but recognize that the American working public has suffered a huge transfer of wealth away from them. There is a reason for discontent that exactly parallels that in Weimar Germany, work has ceased to pay, hope has largely disappeared, and both major parties are in total denial about the severity of the situation.

That is how the analogy holds. It's the beggaring of the working class leading to extreme discontent, not the minutiae of how many Reichsmarks it cost to buy a day's supply of bread or how a decrease in the population made unemployment figures look rosier.

If the Holaucast hadn't happened in Germany it would have happened here. We got the ball rolling with compulsory sterilization and marriage restriction laws and there were plenty of eugenicists who would have liked to see it expanded. The only thing that stopped the US from going farther was the worldwide horror felt by what we "discovered" had been happening under the 3rd Reich.

It was never far fetched that it could happen here.

Most people have never heard of it, much less studied what the eugenics movement was like in the USA.

We were not far removed from having camps for exterminating blacks and the disabled here, it was openly talked about and advocated for.

I agree, the only thing that stopped it here was Europe beating us to it.

they say the analogy is not accurate. They say that to compare "Trump to Adolf Hitler does a disservice to our debate". "After all", they continue, "Hitler killed 6 million people in concentration camps."

My response is, "he didn't do it until after he won the election of 1933, and then, it was too late."

By

Something I've been saying for quite a while now. It's obvious that no one is running the GOP. It's especially obvious that feckless, clueless Reince Priebus is about as effective as a headless hammer.


[hr][font color="blue"][center]A ton of bricks, a ton of feathers, it's still gonna hurt.[/center][/font][hr]

not just signs of the movement but the movement itself back in 2010. And whoever might have made up a list of currently known potential leaders would certainly have put Trump on it.

Now, wise prescience would have predicted that Trump would sweep aside the rest of the 17-candidate field, including the already-anointed Bush scion.

Chomsky's an attention seeker, who knows how to get it just as well as Trump. I'm not with his "frightening" statement at this point because far too many people are secure and hopeful enough to have no interest in grabbing a torch and setting the nation on fire.

I do worry that special interests like the Kochs are attempting to unite the nation-burner populists on both the right and left. Together, they have power. With assistance from mainstream conservatives, such as after a modest terrorist attack or recession, they could win elections.

... he made the announcement and started his demagogue rants, I assumed that he would be a force in Republican primaries. I was amazed that people like Nate Silver couldn't recognize it sooner.

historical data for adequate analysis? I confess I didn't realize it really early, but early enough I was irritating my husband by turning coverage of Trump on all the time. Didn't know he would win but definitely knew I was witnessing a phenomenon, not least because the media were such a huge factor in it.

You know, it might be claimed that Chomsky saw the signs of Trump's movement even before the Kochs and their staffs dreamed up the Tea Party movement, if rising populist anger qualifies. After all, it took time to plan and create the TPers. I read that it's believed to have actually started with some passions the tobacco industry whomped up in its support back in the early 1990s. In that version the Kochs took notes and replicated far bigger and better.

What I really don't like now is that the Kochs have been taking notes about populism on the left and are now wooing angry left-wingers too.

Koch as Libertarian, 1980 platform:
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/koch-brothers

Just a SMALL sample:
“We support the eventual repeal of all taxation.”
“We condemn compulsory education laws … and we call for the immediate repeal of such laws.”
“We support the abolition of the Environmental Protection Agency.”
“We support abolition of the Department of Energy.”
“We call for the dissolution of all government agencies concerned with transportation, including the Department of Transportation.”

Their platform should have been simplified to just: "We support the destruction of ALL government except those agencies that protect and support our wealth!"

"The only legitimate functions of government are protection of person and property." Charles Koch

He leads an alliance believed to rival the GOP in power, before this last disastrous year.

Sure, you can't vote us out of power or really see what we're doing, but trust us! You don't need the government overseeing us!

but just as demonstrably business and wealthy interests have infiltrated all our institutions, including government, achieving a degree of power that is a threat to democracy. We will have this problem until we dismantle the ultrawealthy class.

As for what the Koch alliance all by itself it planning, I agree it's scary, but after three decades of more wins than losses, the wheel has turned, we now know what they're up to and how, people are mad whether they know who to be mad at, and would-be oligarchs are having far more losses than wins.

that a flashy demagogue would appear and they'd all rush to join the cult of personality around him.

People in both parties are fed up with being irrelevant to the political process.