Just as one cannot guess the precise lowest value of a stock at which to sell, it is difficult to point to a clear inflexion point when democracy falls and a dictatorship sets in. The process is always a slow one, even when it ends in an uprising or revolution. The French Revolution was decades in the making. The Russian revolution too.
For more than 10 years, during his ascent to power, Hitler was considered an establishment, albeit odd, politician. He worked through the system, winning seats in parliament and getting appointed as chancellor by the Weimar president Von Hindenburg. His opponents viewed him as a buffoon, just as many Americans view Donald Trump today. It took the burning of the Reichstag, Kistallnacht, and other increasingly violent events to begin convincing his casual detractors that the man was a real dangerous maniac.
Donald Trump too is working within the system, even as he violated the rules of democracy, waged a propaganda war based on lies and deception, led a seditious movement to overturn the duly elected government, brainwashed the ignorant hinterland into believing his lies and false promises.... only to get finally elected.
Once elected, he clearly steered himself onto a path to establish an autocratic dictatorship. But when do we say he crossed the line from working "within the system" to becoming an outlaw outlier trying to subvert the system? The trigger was in 2011, soon after the first Black President was elected which unleashed the hateful racism that has been simmering beneath the surface under such nomers as the KKK, the NRA, the GOP, and other racist rightwing groups. Even Mitch McConnell, the "respectable" southern republicans, tilted and promised to use all the powers of his leadership in Congress to make sure Obama's term is a failure. Trump, from outside the system, joined with the birther bullshit.
When did the country tumble? 2011? 2016? January 2020? November 2024? January 2025? Year after year, Trump slowly but methodically sapped the lawful foundations of the country and projected himself onto the scene as the outsider. Just like Hitler did. With anger. Hitler raged at the loss by Germany of World War I, and was driven by revenge. Trump raged at what he saw as the loss of power by the white population when Obama was elected, and has evenr since been driven by retribution and revenge. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind, even the blinded ones, that Trump is a white supremacist racist trying to salvage the reins of power of the white community that always saw itself as entitled to that power and is now witnessing the rise of the "immigrants and the slaves" as a threat.
But at this moment, while his opponents knew him from the start as a criminal Mafia racist con mant, his followers are, as we speak, in the throes of a difficult introspection to figure out HOW LONG can they go on supporting him, even as he flagrantly breaks the rules. The more his freewheeling lawlessness continues, the more independents and MAGA diehards he stands to lose. But he has a strong base that will never abandon him, just like the diehard Nazis went all the way, including suicide, with Hitler.
If you follow commentaries by MAGA people on social media, you will notice a growing difficulty by some of these people to justify the unacceptable. They defend Trump by saying, "he is keeping his campaign promises" despite the fact that his promises were catastrophic to the country, and despite the fact that he is doing so with a dose of lawlessness, cruelty, dishonor, savagery and bullying. Many know that he is not doing much more than Biden in terms of, for example, deportations of illegal migrants, but Biden did it quitely and humanely without the boisterous racist inciteful circus of Trump. Similarly with trade. Biden was working with allies and rivals in a civilized manner and within the confines of agreed upon rules of engagement. Difficulties and disagreements were worked through slowly and painfully, but politely and humanely. Trump, in contrast, demonizes his allies and rivals just so he can turn around and tell his MAGA herd of morons that "he did it the tough way", like some stupid superhero of a Hollywood movie with guns and shootings and macho bravado.
In other words, the difference with Trump is one of style (lies, false advertising, yelling and screaming, racism and xenophobia etc.) than of susbtance. Do the MAGA morons really believe that Democrats don't want America to be great?
MAGA people are taking stock of the damage they have done to the country by elevating a criminal moron to power. But many have a difficulty admitting they made a mistake, so they dig themselves deeper in the hole by not having the courage to admit failure and by coming up with weird explanations to justify the unexplainable.
We are at this moment at the inflexion point. In Donald Trump, we are witnessing Adolf Hitler in the late 1920s-early 1930s, pretending to work by the rules but aiming at subverting those rules and the entire democratic construct. Step by step, measure by measure, decree by decree, Trump is gnawing at the pillars of democracy. Whether or not he is aware of what he's doing is not the main issue. Many don't think he understands what he's doing and predicate his behavior on his Project 2025 handlers, i.e. the Racist White Supremacist Deep State that is gradually replacing the bureaucratic but largely apolitical deep state that prexisted Trump. But many attribute to him full awareness of what he's doing, which makes him even a more ominous dangerous to the republic.
We have three more years to go, and time will soon tell us where Trump is taking the country. My hunch is that those he represents - the large rural hinterland of American peasants, slavery nostalgics, racist KKK and backwoods survivalist redneck types, primitive ultra-religious savage barbarian Evangelicals, entitled wealthy billionaire scavengers, and such - believe they are in danger of extinction, and more importantly in danger of losing the entitled reins of power they hold. They see all those immigrants who began arriving after them, circa mid-1800s, as a threat to their original hold on power. Trump is exploiting these fears to manipulate these otherwise backward followers and incite them to wage a civil war. All his language and discourse is laced with anger and violence. All his actions are tainted with discrimination and xenophobia. All his policies are couched in threats and bellicosity. JUST LIKE HITLER IN 1930S GERMANY. Just like Trump is doing to the American people and the world, Hitler claimed to his people that he wants peace, while secretly preparing for war. Israel's Zionists too adopt this approach: They never say what kind of peace they want with the indigenous Palestinians, while working on genociding them and ethnically cleansing them. You'd have to be a MAGA moron to believe this crap.
Will this trajectory lead to the same outcomes as the 1930s in Europe and across the world? My guess is yes. There is no reason to believe that history has ended and that the wars of the past will not happen again. Humans are the same vilest and most violent species on earth now as they were 100 years ago, 200 years ago and all the way back to when we stepped out of Africa some hundreds of thousands years ago. History is always in motion, and the snapshot of it we get during our short lifetime is not fixed and etched in stone. We should be not surprised if things change. Wars will happen again. Upheavals and catastrophes will recur. And many Hitlers will be born again: Donald Trump is the 21st century's Hitler.
==========================================================
Beto O'Rourke compares 2025 America to 1933 Germany and 'can only imagine the history books'
Lindsay Kornick
Thu, August 14, 2025
Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke remarked how he "can only imagine the history books" that will be written about the people of 2025, and likened it to 1933 Germany on Wednesday.
The Democrat appeared with Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., on the governor's podcast "This is Gavin Newsom," where he commented on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton investigating his Powered by People PAC for allegedly violating the law by assisting Texas state Democrats' travel out of the state to avoid a quorum during a redistricting standoff.
O’Rourke lauded the efforts of the Texas Democrats, calling them some of the "very last lines of defense" of democracy.
By contrast, he predicted Republicans, and by extension, the Trump administration, would be remembered similarly to the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany.
Beto O'Rourke has come under fire from Republicans for funding Texas Democrats' fleeing the state through his PAC.
"I can only imagine the history books written 100 years from now looking at the people of 2025," O’Rourke said. "It's the way, you know, you and I when we were in school, we're looking at the people in Germany in 1933. That guy's named chancellor in January of that year. In 53 days, he has destroyed German democracy."
He continued, "The parliament or the congress, their legislature, passed these enabling laws just like the Republicans are doing in Congress today that said anything you want, you go out and do it. And he goes from being this buffoonish, clownish thug who can barely hold power to the undisputed master and dictator of the German people. And I know this s--- doesn't repeat, but it sure as hell rhymes."
O’Rourke has frequently compared President Donald Trump and his administration to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. In 2019, O’Rourke attacked Trump’s family separation policy at the border and accused him of calling all immigrants an "infestation."
Democrat Beto O'Rourke speaks alongside elected officials gathered for a rally ahead of a public hearing on the proposed congressional redistricting on Saturday, July 26, 2025 in Houston.
"Now, I might expect someone to describe another human being as an infestation in the Third Reich. I would not expect it in the United States of America," O’Rourke said.
He defended his comments days later saying, "Calling human beings an infestation is something that we might've expected to hear in Nazi Germany... Describing immigrants — who have a track record of committing violent crimes at a lower rate than native-born Americans — as rapists and criminals. Seeking to ban all Muslims — all people of one religion — what other country on the face of the planet does that kind of thing?"
In 2021, O'Rourke also warned the U.S. could become Nazi Germany within 10 years despite Trump losing the 2020 election.
Fox News Digital broke the news earlier that day that Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, has called for the Justice Department to also investigate O’Rourke’s PAC for potentially violating the law by raising funds for Texas Democrats fleeing the state.
No comments:
Post a Comment