@horgen said:
In some ways that is true. But still. From Washington Post
I think its true no matter how you cut it.
The whole point of Godwins law is to point out absurd and ridiculous comparisons that make no sense. To point out someone going from zero to sixty in absurdity.
When discussing fascist, fascism or even potential fascist, fascism, its a perfectly acceptable marker, comparison, analogy, however you use it. I will say that the direct Hitler/Nazi thing is misguided and not overly accurate, but even then it still does not point out what Godwins law is supposed to point out.
@horgen said:
In some ways that is true. But still. From Washington Post
The comparison is certainly overdrawn if we consider how the two men came to power. Unlike Hitler, Trump never tried to seize power by force; he has not spent a decade calling for violence against entire peoples and nations; and he does not speak of building an empire beyond America’s shores.
We can start there. Furthermore, Nazis used scapegoating(granted Trump does this, but not as well), media co-optation(impossible to do in US today), paramilitary organizations (I'll throw in a quote here)
While the SA controlled the streets, the Hitler Youth indoctrinated young generations, and the government required all young Germans to participate in labor activities (such as road-building for the autobahn) from 1935 onward.
As far as I am aware (and writer of the article), Americans are not fond of government run organizations. And last: Emergency laws. I am lazy and will throw in another quote here.
Emergency laws came about in Germany after the 1933 arson attack on the Reichstag (Germany’s parliament). Hitler used the threat of terrorism and foreign aggression to justify sweeping autocratic policies, including the 1933 Enabling Act (which let the government issue laws without the Reichstag). Similarly, the Reichstag Fire Decree in 1933 gave Hitler the power to suspend most Germans’ political and individual rights, effectively outlawing opposition parties.
Changing the U.S. Constitution to abolish elections and remove freedom of speech is hardly imaginable. The United States has an uninterrupted democratic history, while Hitler was able to tap into nostalgia for the times under the last German emperor.
So if someone is to use the comparison, they have to know where it comes short as well.
Right.
So that article was written on September 22nd of 2016. At that time i was firmly against the rhetoric of proclaiming him to be a fascist. And ill stick to fascist because i feel that it what people wanted to convey and that is the real problem. Direct comparisons to Hitler is silly, calling him a nazi is a bit silly, etc. the problem is fascism and him having a dictator mentality. Anyway, at that time i was personally against calling him these things because we had not witnessed him with political power. This was used far more as a ridiculous tactic by people who were playing red/blue games. That said, i did recognize he seemed to have a fascist streak in him, but i think most modern politicians and especially businessmen, do. And its really a matter of seeing how that comes up once they get political power. Of course one of the irresponsible things our media did was ignore this streak and instead went to hyperbole (at the time), which IMO we see here in this article. They seem to be addressing ridiculousness instead of getting at the heart of problem, which again is fascism and the many forms it can take. IMO one of the reasons they or no one else really wanted to address this topic is becasue part of an oligarchy is the same fascism and the more they reported and spoke of these things, the more people would recognize what we really are, even before Trump.
@horgen said:
TL;DR: Trump have not or can not do what Hitler did to get power. US is fundamentally different.
This is always a hard topic for me to address as i fully recognize how our constitution was groundbreaking and to this day is one of the best starting points for any democracy.
If we protected our constitution the way we should and if our politicians respected it the way they should, i'd fully agree. The problem is we've allowed for this era of war and fear to take over the American citizen view and in that process we've allowed for the near complete disruption of our constitutional laws when applied to the people. So if we kept power in check the way our constitutions demands, we should be fundamentally different. That said, i dont think anyone is fundamentally different when it comes to avoiding the nature of power. This is an issue we've seen every nation of every type in every era, deal with.
Power begets power.
And when it comes to governments, there is really only one destination if left unchecked. Some form of totalitarianism.
One of the things i felt the "Trump is not part of the swamp!" people did not seem to understand was that he was really the ultimate goal to an Oligarchy. He is the ultimate goal of this corruption, of this state. A person with no political experience, no previous promises or plans to the people, who is a billionaire CEO becoming president. Why bother with the middlemen politicians in an Oligarchy when we can go right to $ = direct political power.
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