It doesn’t start with officially sanctioned mass executions, it starts with the scapegoating of a particular group and the promise that getting rid of them will cure what ails you, whatever that might happen to be.
Paywall. (Appropriately, you might say).
He might be really dumb, but also very well informed on authoritarian movements, and willing to take a shot at almost every authoritarian gesture that he has time for. I think I can see him every day pursuing this. The idea of the “naivete” of trump it seems to me is a naive idea in itself.
My bad:
"It’s official: The Trump administration has replaced family separation with indefinite family detention
In a new court filing, Trump’s Department of Justice says it’s now legally allowed to detain migrant families — no matter how long their cases take."
They still support him for the same reasons they first supported him. Because a segment of White America feels under attack and they feel Trump is their only hope.
Thanks. Wow. Words fail me.
Nobody in Nazi Germany just woke up one morning and decided they were going to kill all the Jews. It was not the work of a single individual and it wasn’t an overnight shift. The Holocaust was the work of over a decade’s worth of antagonism, propaganda, and dehumanization. It happened by stages, and at each point the German’s thinking grew progressively more extreme they found ways to rationalize and justify it. That is the problem with this kind of rhetoric.
No one actually believes Trump is killing 6 million people at the border. But anyone who is literate of history recognizes that these are the early stages of a process that does lead to violence. It has happened repeatedly, and not just in Nazi Germany.
Trump’s rhetoric of dehumanizing racism and blaming our problems on foreign enemies is virtually identical to the rhetoric used to demonize the Jews. To believe otherwise requires a staggering ignorance of history. To ask that we wait until the killing is already underway is simply absurd. These problems can be reversed long before it reaches the point where actual violence begins.
The strength of the “it can’t happen here” blinders that many were wearing in November 2016 was a major factor in Trump’s victory.
“It can’t happen here” is looking more and more like the belief-system of utter fools. (And of course it’s also a slogan cynically pushed by chaos merchants, and those working for the destruction of Western democracy.)
I never understood how people could continue to worship people like Hitler and Stalin, even after their crimes were made public. Now I do. They just refuse to believe anything that contradicts them.
It has to be noted also that it was not us the ones that demanded others to consider that there were fine people among the Nazis marching now, that was Trump.
So it is that we are also aware that no one is being killed at the border as policy, but when wannabe fascists do start putting undesirables in concentration camps. It is time to stand up an tell the ones doing those fascist baby steps and kowtows to the worst that humanity saw in the 20th century: Heck no!.
When a nation or party murders 6 million, or another larger inclusive number, I have got to guess that they had some unprincipled and unethical behaviors prior to this.
So when they set about killing, they lost the control over their “public image” so that it is available for comparisons in the real world. No one can complain when someone makes the comaprison from 1922, 1932, 1933, 1936 or other good examples, that were from before the holocaust and have to do with authoritarians taking liberties. If they cannot be cited then why are there so many books about them? I think it’s because they’re relevant.
What a load of sensationalist nonsense.
America will never be even close to Nazi Germany. Ever!
Republicans will not have this happen, regardless of whether you think it so.
Dems pushing for a socialist agenda and to center more power in government, trying to hinder firearm ownership and control what people are able to say actually seem more likely as precursors to authoritarianism. Then again, I don’t think so because I am not being ridiculous.
Oh, yes, because America has never tried to incarcerate an entire ethnic group?
Republicans are the ones promoting the hatred. Republicans are the ones demonizing and dehumanizing their enemies. Republicans have rolled over for every other thing Trump has done so far. They have reached the point where overt white supremacists are running for office.
YAAAAWN
What worries me is the effect a “Reichstag fire” type event would have on the American psyche at this key point. Have it happen at a key point before the midterms, with full-on blame attributed to Muslim immigrants, and the country will be properly fucked.
Except that it’s not just Democrats. Look at all the conservatives who are ex-Republicans now. Or the spineless Republicans who feel they can’t speak the truth until they are retiring. The only “groupthink” going on is with the Trump fans.
I was very, very concerned about a coup by means of a false-flag attack, in the days and weeks after the January 2017 inauguration.
I’m less worried now because the percentage of Americans still in the ‘let’s give him a chance, he could turn out to be a good President’ mindset is basically just the hardcore 27% or so of Trump’s white-supremacist base.
I don’t think they could pull it off, now: too many people have seen Trump lie, cheat and steal. Too many people find him completely non-credible. If he came on prime-time TV and said ‘my fellow Americans, we’ve been grievously attacked by Latino Muslim black homosexual terrorists, and we must now suspend Constitutional rights and move to a martial-law footing so that I may protect you from these awful people’----only that 27% would believe it was an actual attack, and not an ‘attack’ manufactured by Trump’s own people.
Even a false-flag attack intended only to sway the November 2018 vote (as opposed to being used as an excuse to impose martial law) would meet with major skepticism, I think.
Of course, I could be wrong. Hope not.
- There is no “Democrat Party.” As you know.
- Many of us didn’t “worship” Mrs. Clinton, we just supported her candidacy. Personally, I haven’t vowed to resist everything the Republicans attempt to do, but I will resist to my dying breath anything Trump attempts to do.
I think both sides have a problem with being full of hate. How about having a conversation instead?
Trump won the election with an anti-establishment campaign. A lot pf people are still anti-establishment. Those people still support Trump.
I would understand this if the feeling was “Yeah, Trump sucks but he’s better than Hillary.” I would disagree but I could wrap my head around that. What I can’t fathom is people who think that Trump is doing a good job. He’s got majority in both chambers and a conservative-leaning court and what has he actually done? About the only thing I can give him any credit is the tax cut but even that was mostly GOP leaders like Ryan.
You should be kicking yourself; imagine what a real politician like Cruz could have accomplished?
I disagree. Keep in mind that more people actually voted for Clinton that Trump. It’s not like a majority of people walk in lock-step with Trump. We’ll get through this. (Unless the GOP gains seats in the mid-term elections. If that happens then I’ll start to worry.)
Meh, I voted for Cruz in the primary. I would have preferred him to Trump, but overall I’d say that President Trump “is doing a good job.”