Why Hitler “succeeded” and Trump has already failed

Politics & Elections
141

You are correct that just being elected doesn’t mean Trump can arbitrarily dispense with democratic norms and dismantle legal strictures intended to distribute power. He’d have to convince the Congress to pack the Supreme Court with his hand-picked justices intent on overruling decades of legal precedence and hand over their plenary authority over immigration, tariff and trade policy, use of the military, et cetera. How is all of that going?

Donald Trump, who given his physical and mental condition is unlikely to be coherent if alive five years from now, has managed to avoid all legal consequences despite being convicted of 34 felony counts and indicted on numerous other charges; has managed to enrich himself through fraudulent schemes to the point of now being an actual billionaire; has set up his children in various broad-reaching schemes for further enrichment and political control; has cowered major business leaders including making three of the five richest men on the planet behave with performative submission, and although he isn’t living up to his bombast about deporting millions of people in short order (which was always a physical and logistical impossibility) is using the immigration apparatus of the Department of Homeland Security to terrorize people and misdirect media attention while other elements of the Trump regime continue to dismantle basic elements of democracy and institute a surveillance state with little public awareness. Trump has openly spoken about governing for another term (and for those who still think we should take him “seriously but not literally” he has assured anyone who listens that he’s not joking) all while members of his own party in Congress openly admit that they are afraid to speak out against him.

So yeah, I think he’s succeeding and will continue to do so without any serious restrasint. Not in every ridiculous thing he said or wants to do—because that was never the plan—but in fortifying his position of an executive with increasing authority, dismantling the apolitical administrative apparatus and utterly destroying institutions whose basic purpose is to research and promote factual information, and ensuring that much of what he does will be irreversible (good luck getting back all of the federal public lands once they’ve been sold off for hydrocarbon and mineral extraction).

Here is how much Donald Trump cares about public opinion after nationwide “No Kings!” protests this weekend:

Stranger

142

Not sure how much I disagree with this summary, as I don’t know where you fall on the “taking total power” thing, which is the main concern of the OP. I don’t think he will succeed with that, if that is in fact his intention. As for the rest, it’s already a terrible, disgraceful situation. I think where things are going is unpredictable, however, especially considering Trump’s age and health.

143

Out smart certainly. Out weasel, maybe not.

144

[quote=“Tatterdemalion, post:143, topic:1019533, full:true”]

I disagree. Trump has essentially no skills. He relies completely on other people to do things for him. And when it comes to running the country, the people he is dependent on are the Republican party. And that means Trump’s power is completely dependent on the Republicans’ willingness to work for Trump. The moment the Republicans choose to stop working for Trump, Trump will be powerless.

The magas? Yes, they listen to Trump. But they’re useless. Trump tried to use them on January 6 and we saw how incompetent they are. They’re loud and violent but they’re not capable of accomplishing anything. Trump can’t run a country with an army of magas.

145

Is this part of Project 2025 as well?

146

On the one hand, I do not think you are wrong - he cannot accomplish anything on his own.

On the other hand I think people keep underestimating (Or would that be overestimating?) Trump by expecting him to act rationally with some concern for consequences. Like a weasel, he has no higher mental faculties, he reacts purely on emotion with no concern for consequences or ethics. This confuses people, they have a hard time dealing with it. And it’s getting worse as his mind deteriorates.

147

You are creating a false dichotomy.
There are many examples of authoritarian rulers clinging to power for decades without ever creating a top to bottom totalitarian state like Nazi germany. Putin 20 years ago had all the means to be lifelong dictator. He just needed to change a few pesky constitutional term limits and now he is nicely on his way to become absolute ruler. He can already attack/defenestrate/imprison anyone who works against him.

What happens if you practically have absolute power with no-one to meaningfully oppose you but you want to keep up appearances that you are a “modern”, “free” country to not scare away foreign investors?
See Russia, the emirates, Saudi-Arabia, China, the list goes on.
Those are all countries where someone with enough pull can make you disappear without ever having to face consequences. e.a. a dictatorship.
Trump is already in that club.

If you are looking at Hitler to see how bad it is you are looking at the wrong metrics.
Try more meaningful ones:
Are thugs rounding up “enemies of the state” without even the suggestion of a judicial fig leaf ?
Are the media controlled? “Punished” for not sticking to the narrative?
Is there a meaningful trias politica?

The difference between Trump and Hitler is one of degree, not of kind.

How many cops does Trump need to look the other way while a couple of Proud Boys/ ICE thugs block/burn down a couple of strategically chosen polling stations? What more tools does Trump lack to be dictator for life?
Are you sure Vance wil not simply step in those high heels?

148

If you unpack this statement a little further, you’ll notice that Hitler didn’t really aim to unify Germany. He made frequent speeches in which he railed against a big portion of them, and ultimately packed them off to extermination camps.

I don’t think Trump/MAGA will get that far. But I also think it’s a mistake to think they don’t have a goal, and their goal won’t succeed. Their goal isn’t to build any institutions or or any enduring legacy. Their goal isn’t to build a new government. Their goal is to take a wrecking ball to every organization and institution challenges, defies, or despises them. Their goal is to entrench their individual personal corrupt interests in government for generations, to get while the getting is good. Their goal is to make it highly unlikely that liberal democracy can ever again check the power of rich white male oligarchs.

They have already succeeded; it’s now just a question of degree.

149

More likely the MAGA will toss them out; do recall the Republican leadership didn’t want Trump, but weren’t able to stop him taking over the party despite him not even trying that hard. The MAGA are the Republican party for all practical purposes; if the Republicans somehow did get rid of MAGA they would basically collapse, because there just wouldn’t be enough of them left to keep the party running. The Republican leadership can do what it wants, just so long as Trump and MAGA don’t mind; if they do mind then that’s it, the “leadership” can do nothing because they aren’t actually the leaders, just taking advantage of the people who have actual power.

Since people are pointing out differences between Hitler and Trump I’ll point out another; Trump didn’t rise to power by leading a movement. He became the leader of an existing movement within the Republican party that adopted him as its leader. They just didn’t call themselves “MAGA” at the time. Trump dropping dead won’t make them go away.

150

You have repeatedly said this but you’ve ignored what it means. The fact that the Republican party was an existing organization (even in its modern right wing sense) before Trump came along demonstrates where the real power is. The Republicans appointed Trump as their leader - and when they tire of him they will demote him and move on to the next guy. And Trump will be powerless to stop them.

151

The MAGA crowd did, against the opposition of the “leadership”. So no, the so-called leaders won’t be getting rid of MAGA; if it comes to a conflict the “leaders” lose.

152

Hitler also joined an existing political organization (the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP) and ended up taking over leadership over objections of some existing members and turning it into an explicitly Germanic pan-natiinalist, anti-Semitic, and ultimately fascist party (literally aping many of the slogans, ideals, and uniforms of the Italian Fascists under Mussolini). There are many ways in which Trump is a different kind of demagogue than Hitler was but many of the comparisons being made here to argue against Trump as an effective autocrat are not well-informed, and there are some disturbing parallels between the rise of the Nazi Party in the 1920s and ‘30s and the Republican swing toward MAGA politics in the last decade.

Stranger

153

Again, I don’t feel this is what has happened.

The Republicans have consistently demonstrated that they can take power and get things done when they are in power.

The magas have not. They tried to seize power on January 6 and all they accomplished was committing some crimes and then getting arrested. Which shows the magas are not a real factor in politics.

154

A real dictator doesn’t depend on a single power base. You have to have multiple sources of power which you control independently. That way if one group starts getting too powerful and threatens your position, you can call up another group to suppress them.

Hitler understood this. In addition to the Nazi political organization, he had separate groups that were outside of the party, like the SA, the SS, the Gestapo, and the Wehrmacht. I already mentioned how Hitler purged the SA when it got uppity. And when the military threatened a coup, Hitler had the SS around to fight them. And if Himmler had tried to take over, Hitler could have called on the army.

Trump hasn’t done this. All of his real power comes through one organization; the Republican party. This means they control him rather than him controlling them.

155

Maybe.

The Republican Party, at this point, has been largely, if not entirely, co-opted by Trump loyalists. Leadership of the Republican National Committee was finally taken over by Trump last year, and the leaders of the party are all hand-picked by Trump.

Beyond that, as we’ve seen, there are effectively no longer any senior members of the party (Senators, Representatives, Governors) who don’t toe the line on Trump’s dictates and proposals, even if they may put up a token fight when bills are being debated.

156

Maybe. But I really doubt it.

Right now, we have two possibilities.

One is that Trump and his inner circle have taken over the Republican party and are really running things.

The other is that the pre-Trump leaders of the Republican party are still running things from behind the scenes and Trump and his inner circle are only figureheads they are using.

From the outside, both situations look the same.

So why do I figure that we’re in the second scenario? Because I find it very implausible that Donald Trump is the political mastermind that the first scenario requires.

157

Except their votes were perhaps THE major factor in electing Trump twice.

158

I agree with you that Trump is no political mastermind. He’s controlling the party through threat: threat of being primaried, threat of being fired, and (frankly) threat of being harassed, if not outright attacked, by MAGA wingnuts.

He’s been able to bend GOP leadership to his will, because they’re now petrified of the consequences of standing up to him.

That doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be happy if he fell into a manhole, but they won’t stand up to him in the meantime.

159

How much of this can Trump do if the Republican party is the one opposing him?

Do you really believe Donald Trump could organize a primary challenge? Do you really believe Trump has any knowledge of how a state primary works and who he should be calling to tell them to set up the results he wants?

Do you remember Trump calling around to people after he lost the 2020 election and telling them to change the results? How did that work out for Trump?

As I’ve been saying Trump’s power is strictly limited by the Republicans’ willingness to do things for him.

Meanwhile if the Republicans decide to get rid of Trump, they just need to impeach him. They have the majority they need in the House and I don’t feel they would have any difficulty getting the Democrats to vote with them in the Senate. The Republicans could have Trump out of office by this weekend if they wanted.

160

What kenobi_65 said, but also I think there is a third possibility: that control of the GOP/MAGA complex is a mashup of both things. And I think this is the truth.

I think Trump is a kind of defective political mastermind: he is one of the greatest self-promoters and confidence men in American history, he reads people and their weaknesses very well, he knows how to push people along mob boss-style, and he’s one of the all-time greats at moron-whispering and whipping up the disaffected masses. In short, he’s a mastermind at getting elected.

But he’s terrible at the other half of presidential politics: leading. He has no understanding of theory or policy, and he’s a terrible delegator, since he can’t stand being told he’s wrong. That’s why the Trump organization has always been small, consisting of family members and trusted toadies. He doesn’t even pretend to know all that much about politics and governance, but what he thinks he knows is wrong (tariffs, immigration, etc.).

So Trump, with help, brings in the votes, for which the GOP leadership is grateful. The flip side of that is that they can’t oppose him or correct him in any way. He then needs help leading, and the GOP tries to help, but Trump can’t be handled, especially since he now thinks he was burned by disloyal people in his first term.

Thus, with respect to vote-getting, the GOP leadership is not in control, and with respect to leading, they participate to an extent and have some control, but not much. Where they do have some semblance of control is in constructing a macro “Trump appeasement, enabling, and mitigation” system in which they try to make the most of Trump-induced chaos and ride his popularity, such as it is, to what victories they can.

IOW, it’s a shitshow. Once Trump collapses, whether from health or a loss of support by the benighted masses, they will be left holding a very gross and decrepit bag.