When I was growing up, I heard lots of talk about Hitler. "How could anyone have listened to that madman rant and have believed what he said?" people would ask, shaking their heads sadly.
The implication was, good people like us — as we imagined ourselves to be — would have seen through Hitler from the outset and would not have been duped by the crazy talk about targeting minorities, ridding the nation of undesirables, letting blood flow in the streets to purify the country.
My father, his brother, his brother-in-law, my mother's brother and half-brother: all soldiers during World War II. All risked their lives to rid the world of Hitler.
Classes in school focused on signs the German people "should" have seen from early on, that Hitler was a madman, was plotting mass-murder, would cause bloodshed and chaos. I taught lessons as a college teacher centered on these ideas.
And all the while, I never dreamed that I'd live to a point in my very own country when millions of my fellow citizens could listen to someone not far removed from Adolph Hitler, when it comes to crazy rants about blood flowing in the streets and imprisoned enemies and the land rid of vermin, and would not merely agree but would applaud.
And would vote that dangerous madman into the highest office in the land.
Many of us have clearly not sought to learn.
@wdlindsy A few years ago, "serious" people would have scolded you for comparing Trump to Hitler. I doubt that is still the case. Maybe here in Germany, where Hitler is seen as unique by some that want do deny anything similar could happen again.
@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy I was pretty worried about his rhetoric in 2016 like "I'm going to open up our libel laws" – that sort of thing is gross and I'd strongly prefer a president who didn't say that, to put it mildly.
BUT: he didn't really *do* anything along those lines while he was president for 4 years. That's gotta count for something. I mean, it very much seems like he says stupid stuff because he's an idiot, and not because he's Hitler-in-waiting. (I realize this is not a *good* thing, I'm just saying it probably isn't nearly as bad as Hitler.)
What other aspects could a "serious" person compare to Hitler? The Guardian had an article about this in June, and in typical-insipid-Guardian fashion it basically just said he's legitimately Hitler-like because he's a populist that does weird political-theater.
OK so populism is probably usually bad, and political theater is annoying, granted, but the thing about Hitler that we all think of as being Hitler-level bad isn't the political theater or populism. This is not a "serious" argument.
@Kraemer_HB @wdlindsy apparently I'm a "trump sucker": "it very much seems like he says stupid stuff because he's an idiot" is not sufficiently anti-Trump, you see?
This is a weird place.
