This is the best article on Trump’s appeal I’ve ever read — 58 Comments
Agree with many of the author’s ideas.
People are upset and rightly so. They feel both parties have sold them out and I mostly agree. Immigration is the most obvious thing. The 7,000 plus page tax code is least obvious thing but it is at the heart of the problem.
Carly’s dad (tax prof and federal judge) told her that the tax code is how DC exercise power. A three page tax code eliminates the K Street lobbying industry. It also stops the subsidies of the Greens. It cut down on campaign contributions from people who want tax deals.
People don’t get it. Trump keeps the same system going. Imagine the deals as POTUS he would cut with his friends in RE and on the Street. Carly and Cruz tear down the DC establishment.
Thanks for posting the link.
Will any other more desirable candidate grasp the reason that Trump is far ahead of the field and be able to usurp his lead?
The attitude of the majority of voters does not appear to be improving. As primary election time draws closer, the odds diminish that a more substantive (and conservative) candidate will be chosen.
Time is running out!
Happy New Year.
The piece sounds like a rewrite of the rise of Chancellor Hitler. Anger and dissatisfaction. Status quo and abuse of the electorate for the established good.
Can we trust Trump to execute a constitutional executive office? I don’t trust this master of the art of the deal.
is neo just slightly warming to Trump?
My question (for Tim Moeller and his comrades): Has there ever been a Republican president that was not accused by the left of being on the brink of acting unconstitutionally? I recall such accusations against Bush, Reagan, and Nixon (although I can’t quickly find accusations against the latter two on the internet, for obvious reasons). So why should I believe the accusations now?
BTW, I’m not a Trump supporter. I think he’s a vulgarian and a blowhard. But calling him a Nazi only pollutes the civic discourse of our country.
Seems as though Voegeli merely articulates what Sen. Cruz has take as a strategic principle of his campaign since its inception — and therefore what stands Sen. Cruz in stark contrast to the majority of the other GOP candidates who gratuitously insult Trump at every opportunity, so turning off Trump’s supporters. But then it’s precisely of a piece with the failings of the ruling class that Jeb Bush, Kasich and their like cannot imagine the discontent they have created.
I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with you on much of anything, neo, but I thought the article you linked was shallow and unworthy of your attention (or mine). This one explains it better: It Has Come to This by E.M. Cadwaladr. He points out that although Trump probably doesn’t know what a Republic is, his last two predecessors didn’t either (I would extend that to more than two). The piece begins:
The United States of America that we grew up in, and in some cases fought for, no longer exists. I would like to write something stirring in defense of our Constitution, but it isn’t under attack. It is simply ignored. Some have proposed that we have a Constitutional convention to add new amendments. What would that accomplish? Would our present Federal government respect a set of new amendments when they don’t respect the old ones? What good does it do to insist on one’s rights as a citizen, when in fact mere citizenship has lost its meaning? Americans have no rights officials in Washington feel bound to recognize. Both Republicans and Democrats overrule majority opinion as a matter of course. They do not doubt for a moment that they are the best and brightest, and that our voting franchise is merely an antiquated inconvenience. My elected representatives represent no one but themselves. They make war on my culture, my faith, and my security– then they insult me in front of the elitist media on TV.
I thought the article I linked was hardly just about immigration. It’s about distrust of those who are in charge, and the fact that such distrust is justified.
y81:
Pointing out some parallels with something about a Nazi is not the same as calling a person a Nazi.
Hi y81. You should really read Bill Shirer’s epic book, The Rise and Fall…” before you start slinging ad hominems and quoting Godwin’s law. There’s an entire chapter in the book describing the political chaos leading up to the election of Adolph Hitler. I’ve read the book, and the situation in Germany in the twenties sounded a lot like what we have in the U.S. today. The Germans back then were fed up with their elected “representatives” just like many of us are today. Nobody could get anything done; The economy sucked; They had just lost a war; There was rioting in the streets like in Ferguson and Baltimore and Louisville. Eventually the people demanded a “strong leader” and they got one, good and hard, didn’t they? Just sayin’…
avi:
No, I have not changed my point of view in the least.
I have always recognized Trump’s appeal. Nothing has changed in that regard. I just don’t share the sentiment, because I don’t see him as the solution or even as a solution.
Excellent indeed, especially this sentence: “That such a flawed contender could be a front-runner tells us more about what’s wrong with the country than about what’s wrong with his followers”.
The Italian economist Luigi Zingales, who has for many years worked at the University of Chicago, recently compared Trump to Silvio Berlusconi, who was Italy’s Prime Minister four times between 1994 and 2011.
Berlusconi is a media tycoon; Trump a real estate, gambling, and media tycoon. Both like to proclaim the virtues of free enterprise, but neither practice it. Both epitomize crony capitalism and the importance of having government connections. Berlusconi integrated personal, business, and government corruption. As president, Trump would do the same, but on a much larger scale.
We already know about Hillary Clinton’s propensity for corruption, so it seems inevitable that we’ll be entering an era of extraordinary — possibly unprecedented — corruption.
The question is how long will it last, and how will the reaction take shape.
Neo-neocon: OK, change (and expand) my sentence to read: “Comparing someone to a Nazi and suggesting parallels or similarities pollutes our political discourse. No one important in America is a Nazi. No one important in America is like a Nazi in any interesting or alarming way.”
y81:
That is a fallacy, and a dangerous one at that.
Let me explain. Being “like a Nazi” isn’t an either/or thing, and does not depend on espousing Nazi sympathies. One of the many characteristics of Nazism, and one of the most generally relevant ones, is that it was a tyranny. It was many other things, and a particular sort of tyranny, but a tyranny nevertheless.
It is highly instructive to see how liberty is compromised in various ways, in different times and places, and what the commonalities are, and what to watch out for.
y81 should substitute the full name of the “Nazi” party (e.g. The National Socialist German Workers Party) and ask himself if there are Americans running for president who are socialists, or nationalists, or both.
Neo– OK, I’m in love now. You’ve read The Ominous Parallels? I thought I was the only one! If we’ve had a fight, you win. I was wrong. Please take me back. (big grin)
@Cornflour
Who is this crazy Italian economist you cite? He’s so far off the mark it’s a riot. Berlusconi started his “media empire” by getting a sweetheart deal from the Italian Socialist Party and Italian PM who, “via an emergency decree legali[zed] the nationwide transmissions made by Berlusconi’s television stations.” (See Wikipedia)
The guy was convicted of tax fraud, has charges pending against him for paid sex with a minor (remember his bunga bunga orgies with 20 girls at a time?), his soccer team, AC Milan, was kicked out of the UEFA Championship for game fixing, etc., etc., etc.
So, where exactly are all these similarities to Trump?
Unlike snopercod at 3:00 pm, I don’t think the article neo linked to is shallow and unworthy of attention. I do disagree somewhat with author Voegeli’s agreement with “most of the bad things that have been said about Donald Trump” but I agree with his analysis of the reason’s for Trump’s support.
However Voegeli and I part company with his concluding statement that America needs a “statesman” rather than a “showman’.
A statesman is NOT what America needs. It needs the intellect of a Cruz combined with a willingness to act as a Jacksonian in its purest, no holds barred sense.
And because that is my assessment and conclusion, I agree with snopercod that the article he links to has a far better ‘gut’ understanding of the depth of the challenge we face than does Voegeli.
The time for nuance and diplomatic negotiation is past, for should the next President be Republican, those activist within the democrat party will NOT act as the ‘loyal opposition’ but will instead continue to do all they can to destroy America.
You cannot defeat an enemy that you refuse to acknowledge is an enemy.
That self-honesty also compels another corresponding admission; the liberally inclined, indoctrinated LIVs are enabling the destruction of America as surely as, in the aggregate, the German people enabled the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
For those who missed it, here is a no holds barred assessment of the ‘activist’ Left, America’s fascists-in-all-but-name.
Nice link Geoffrey Britain.
Very well put, Geoffrey.
The Democrats in power ARE the enemy.
All else is secondary.
As to the respectworthy Voegeli, let us not be so quick to overlook the title of his piece: The Reason I am Anti- Anti-Trump.
Scott Adams — at Dilbert — has covered the matter much, much, much, better.
Trump is operating upon the subconscious — and with straight street talk that media elites — and other brains — find thuggish and repulsive.
That’s about it.
Trump’s rolling over his competition because of his street smarts.
He really is his own campaign manager.
His biggest problem — electability wise — are the countless sound bites and video clips that he has to drag along with him.
Trump is a wheeler-dealer — but he’s also an organizational man.
The problem with Trump is that he is simply not the strongest candidate to run against the demon.
After that, everything else is just sputtering.
HRC’s first panic attack: the realization that Ted Cruz is by far the odds on bet to be her actual opponent in November.
That’s really all that you need to know.
I fully expect that Trump will do very, very, well with Low Involvement Voters.
Trump’s personal profile is the absolute inverse of the great despots of history.
I would expect — as stated — that if it came to pass — a Trump Presidency would mostly resemble that of Andrew Jackson.
Keep in mind that when Jackson came to office — the central bank of his era was wholly out of control — and had corrupted Congress.
The parallels don’t stop with hair color.
The problem with a Sulla// Jackson// Obama // leadership is that it’s TOO personality centered.
I think that on many issues, Trump would be an outstanding president.
But his Big Mouth is a Big Problem for the post.
I also feel that it will take Trump far too long to get up to speed on the way Washington really works.
Ted Cruz has been around — knows the ropes — and is clearly the fellow that combines policy wisdom and electability.
Instead of harping on Trump — all and every ought to jump on the demon.
The demon duo, that is.
There is NO WAY that Bill is not going to have MAJOR policy say with his wife as president.
Starting with she’s not a people person — she’s a self-proclaimed policy wonk.
Put directly: A True Believer — but of the elites.
Going from King to Queen would be a disaster.
I might add that HRC — like BHO — has a BIG temper problem.
That 3AM phone call came at 5PM — and she didn’t answer it.
Mr. Bay has a punishing film coming out that will impact politics — I’d say.
Dang it.
Fouled up my bolding.
neo-neocon: I disagree totally. Many bad things have happened in America, and more bad things may happen in the future, but none of them resembled or will resemble Nazism. So any analogizing of any current American person or event to Nazism is not illuminating. And since such analogies do not illuminate, their only effect (and I suspect usually their purpose) is to inflame prejudice and hatred.
snopercod: All the current candidates of both parties are nationalists in the sense that the Nazis used the word, i.e., none of them is internationalist in the Socialist International sense. For instance, none of them would dream of saying that the working class has no country. None of them is socialist in the Soviet sense of advocating state ownership of the means of production. If by “socialist” you mean advocating expansion of the welfare state to Swedish levels, then Bernie Sanders is a socialist in that sense. But that doesn’t make him a Nazi, so I don’t see the point of your question.
Neo-neo: In reality, I think the public is disillusioned with both parties.
That may be true, neo, but the problem is the disillusionment comes almost equally from two opposed directions.
Because of the leftist propaganda from the media, the cultural industries, and Hollywood compounded by the Marxist revisionist “history” taught in what we used to call schools and universities, the last two generations have seen a huge rise in the number of leftlings in America. Coupled with a sense of entitlement from beneficiaries of the myriad benefits various victim classes receive plus cronyism for big businesses who no longer believe in free enterprise, there is a new gigantic cohort that does not like this country because they think it should give them even more than they get now by taking it away from the “others”, i.e., the ones they dislike.
So having a large majority of voters disillusioned with both parties means nothing and solves even less. Half the country thinks the government does too little while our half believes it does too much. This conflict will not end peacefully, and sooner than later.
Lastly, any comparisons to Nazis are also true of Communists; they are both totalitarian in nature and both stoked and took advantage of chaos and division among moderates to seize power. They never give it back either until their countries, their own citizens and all their neighbors have been savaged beyond belief.
I’ve been an atheist my whole life, but now the only thing I can say is “God help us.”
From an outsider looking in it appears that something obvious about Trump is completely overlooked.
Trump is a businessman (More correctly – a “BUSINESSMAN” writ large.)
Regardless of any “ACT” Trump puts on he remains – always- a businessman.
Trump is not a lawyer, banker, a politician or an academic. Trump is not one of the “credentialed” elite.
For those who don’t submit to the progressive narrative – the USA’s problems generally are ALL seen to have arisen from those who are the “credentialed” elite.
There is only one person standing for President who isn’t of the credentialed elite and that is Trump.
Regardless of how he “ACTS” in public – Trump remains a businessman – a BUSINESSMAN of the highest order.
The ‘unnarratived’ People know that a good businessman will fight to make his business succeed.
The ‘unnarratived’ People know that the USA was at its best when it ranked (business) success as a priority.
Trump has announced that he is making the USA his business. That he TRUMP personally wants it to succeed. And the People know that Trump has come back from previous heavy losses to make his businesses succeed.
On these small important points Trump links directly to the will of the People, yet I don’t see anyone mentioning this positive business aspects; whenever business is mentioned in the media it is mentioned negatively – always failing to point up how his past political(?) actions look different when you look at them through the lens of a businessman just trying to succeed (with or without the governments help or hindrance).
Yet the US People are crying out for positive business management… Literally: “Trump! Trump! Trump!” Yet where is his positive business aspects being mentioned? Anywhere? In fact it appears to be positively ignored and downplayed.
I think deep down the People know that this time, in order to succeed, the US really needs a BUSINESSMAN who knows how to win against the odds. Someone who is big on action not theory.
To this outsider it seems that (as things currently stand) the man for the time is Trump.
Referring back to the comment that conditions in the U.S.; someone has no real appreciation of how bad things were as Hitler made his power bid. American can hardly comprehend how bad things were in Germany in the years following WWI.
Not only were a generation of young men decimated; the country was under the burden of punitive reparations. All of this in addition to hyper inflation that wiped out pay checks–if there were any.
Pray that we never face such conditions.–unless you are a life long atheist–then I don’t have any suggestions.
PS
Not to mention that Germany was trying to transition from a Monarchy to a Democratic Republic under those conditions.
@Imsureihadameonce
Yes. I believe the three things most Americans are concerned about are the economy, immigration and terrorism. And Trump is probably one of the best qualified candidates to get American on its feet economically again. Maybe a lot of people don’t talk about it much because it’s just a given about him, but they’re certainly thinking about it.
If he makes it through the primaries, it’ll be a huge deal that he’s finishing a government project smack in the middle of Washington DC ahead of schedule and under budget. ‘Nuff said.
Happy New Year, Neo and to all the posters here. This is one of the best sites on the web!
Now we’re off for a lovely New Years lobster dinner.
I read that article earlier. It captures some of what propels the Trump bandwagon. The American Thinker article cited earlier, comes closer. The leading paragraph sums it up.
The United States of America that we grew up in, and in some cases fought for, no longer exists. I would like to write something stirring in defense of our Constitution, but it isn’t under attack. It is simply ignored.
Our borders are gone. We are letting in millions of illegal immigrants and giving them more benefits than our veterans. The illegals are bringing in drugs to poison our children, committing heinous crimes against our citizens, depriving our unemployed of job opportunities, and costing us billions to house in our prisons. One candidate stood up above the politically correct strictures that gagged every other GOP candidate, including Ted Cruz, and said what the people wished could be said. Unlike every other politician, he stood by his words. Trump made illegal immigration an election issue. Nobody else would do that. Yeah, we’d get all the usual platitudes about building a fence and securing the border, but we hear it every election cycle, and nothing gets done. The clincher is that Trump doubled-down and said he would end birthright citizenship — which may only need an act of congress — and deport every illegal alien. Notice how the hue and cry about Trump’s immigration has quieted as his poll numbers have risen.
After the San Bernardino and Paris terrorist attacks, Trump called for a halt to Muslim immigration until the authorities could separate the jihadists from the genuine refugees. Once more, the left, the pundits and the other GOP candidates went crazy. But the folk, who are deeply suspicious of Islam, and with good reason, approved. Trump’s poll numbers went up again. BTW, the GOP approved Obama’s Syrian immigration wishes in the omnibus bill – 200 thousand unvetted Muslims are being granted carte blanche plus benefits.
Cornhead wrote:
Carly’s dad (tax prof and federal judge) told her that the tax code is how DC exercise power. A three page tax code eliminates the K Street lobbying industry. It also stops the subsidies of the Greens. It cut down on campaign contributions from people who want tax deals.
Trump’s tax plan is a three page tax code. He’s had to deal with the complexities of the tax code all his business life. Sometimes, as in the Grand Hyatt deal that started his career, he got major tax breaks, and sometimes not. Making business decisions based on the tax code may be great for politicians but it strangles the economy.
Politicians are expert at talking the talk. When it comes to delivering on the talk, they fail. Mostly, they fail because it is against their self-interest to succeed. Some say it is because they are bought by special interests, such as pro-open border advocates like the Chamber of Commerce. Others say that actually doing anything reduces their ability to extort money from special interests. Either way, Joe Public loses. Enter Mr. Trump, the man who admits to contributing to politicians on both sides of the aisle, because it gives him access. He tells us he is funding his own campaign and won’t take Super-PAC money or allow Super-PACs to be created for him. He is the insider turned outsider.
The Clintons are sacred to the media. GOP candidates are reluctant to attack them on their lack of ethics. When Hillary lied about ISIS using videos of Trump to recruit, Trump laid into her and her husband. And he has Bill’s frequent visits to Epstein’s under-age sex palace as back-up. The MSM can ignore other GOP candidates bringing this stuff up, and they do. But, they can’t ignore Trump. So, he can go where no other GOP candidate can go, and attack the Clintons, their shady deals, their foundations, their foreign donors and get media coverage.
Can we trust Trump to deliver on his promises? He is not in it for the money, so that’s a good sign. Well, he might be in it for money, but then he’d be running like Jeb, and not offending any special interest. He seems to be running because he believes his negotiating and organization skills can get things done and bring back the America that is slipping away from us. The great country that won WW2 with its industrial might is a shadow of its former self. Can that country come back? Trump supporters see him as the only candidate with any hope of doing that.
As to the punditry, well they were all Obama fan-boys back in the day.
snopercod:
“He points out that although Trump probably doesn’t know what a Republic is, his last two predecessors didn’t either (I would extend that to more than two).”
One, Cadwaladr’s article seems describe a democracy more than a republic.
Two, I wonder where he takes issue with Bush since Cadawaladr’s complaints that have some detail point to Obama and the Left. In terms of upholding our system of government, Bush colored within the lines in his executive relationship with the legislature and the judiciary.
Greg Stillson won the presidency (until John Smith intervened). Stephen King has been on the mark so far.
I am curious as to how the Trump campaign would approach the general election. Whether his GOP-primary approach works for the general election remains to be seen. I don’t see any obvious reason why it wouldn’t work with re-tuning. I think Trump’s GOP critics over-value how much his ‘baggage’ would handicap him in the general election, at least relative to another GOP candidate. He’s playing a different kind of game. It might end up working better for the general election than a traditional campaign. It might not. But the rules will be different for him.
Which is not to say I believe Trump would beat Clinton in 2016. The Democrats are backed by their parent-Left’s activists that Trump’s GOP rivals don’t have. But based on comments under this post and other Neo threads, Clinton and the Democrats are not the principal target for Trump supporters, anyway. Their principal target is GOPe and mainstream conservatives.
At this point, the 2016 presidential race is shaping up more like the 1968 presidential race. While the upheaval within the Democrats eased the way for Nixon to win the White House twice, the leftists who staged the upheaval principally targeted mainstream liberals in order to start taking over the Democrats in earnest. For Trump supporters, the 1st objective is usurping mainstream conservatives to start taking over the GOP in earnest. It’s a long march to paradigm shift.
So far, mainstream conservatives have been non-plussed about what to do about the insurgency from their right. History repeats itself – people is people. From what I gather, mainstream liberals were just as dumbfounded while they were being usurped from their left.
Cruz is a brilliant man and a great lawyer — but does anybody here actually think he could get any votes outside the Republican base? (I mean outside of our little corner of the Republican base?) The guy is so anti-charismatic I think he’s an actual phenomenon. If Cruz is the top of the ticket, we will go down to defeat as badly as Goldwater did in 1968. I know — I was there.
Oops! Goldwater in 1964, of course.
The punch line in the article cited is, of course, “Demagoguery flourishes when democracy falters.” This is true not only in USA politics, but worldwide. The rise of populists nativist parties in Europe has the same root cause. When Weimar Republic failed Germans, they chose Hitler. European political establishment not only ignored valid concerns of their citizenry, but doubled down on denial of these concerns. What they will get in the result is a repeat of Weimar Republic fiasco.
Richard Sanders….
Goldwater lost because LBJ was the only man who could keep our boys out of war.
With LBJ we got policy continuance.
With Goldwater we’d had a hard line with Moscow and a highly polarized world.
The MSM media saved the nation.
I know, because they told me so.
I will say that Donald really seems to know how to handle both Hill and Bill.
They a dragging more baggage than an Atlantic convoy.
Cruz’s weakness is that he will not tar the other side. He wins the intellectual argument — but is unconnected with the LIV.
Whereas, the Hill-Bill team fights “no-rules.”
Trump has the LIV leaning out the window screaming: “I’m not going to take it any more!”
The highly educated — indoctrinated — classes are in-the-tank for the Left. The financial wall has not marched out to hit them.
They are True Believers — that even Ted Cruz is not going to wake up. For they were not ever logically persuaded in the first place.
They were indoctrinated to be “on-the-team.”
The latter being the defining nature of the Stalinist-Maoist-Hitlerist tyrannies.
Policy wise these terrifying trannies had no internal policy consistency — the reverse being the norm.
Staying PC — and on the party line — was everything.
Trump is pulling a voting bloc together — at the subconscious level.
Which is why all the logical pundits just can’t figure Donald out.
You know they’re lost when they refer to Trump as either being Conservative — or aligned with the Tea Party.
Whereas, Donald is Trump.
y81 Says: Many bad things have happened in America, and more bad things may happen in the future, but none of them resembled or will resemble Nazism.
Your very wrong… what is Nazism to you? the hatred of jews, and what else? overt despotism?
If this is the case, then you have no idea what made up most of Nazisms ideas, and they are derived from Marx, and the jewish question,which is why jews are under attack again.
but really? what would you need to know to make it apparent that what is going on is VERY much like Nazism?
Your basically educated on what the left thinks of its embarrasing period of socialism, and eugenics, and more, in which they sided thinking that everyone (those racist white folk) would side with them. just as Vladimir thought that once the revolution started (while he was far away in another country safe), the people on the farms and rural areas across russia would rise up. they didnt.
but really. please let me know what you think is different, and by actions not by names
1. Ernst Rudin wrote for Margaret sangers birth control review, and hitler praised her work. she openly stated that birth control was for the purpose of removng blacks who she was willing to hire blacks to trick blacks, and to remove the chinese who breed like vermin (paraphrasing her), and jews of course being the inventors of capitalism. So the Nazis approved and shared information with what now in the US is the Abortion business, which has been changing the US demographically since the 1970s, having murdered over 80 million before they could grow up and protest being put in to ovens.
2. the term Nazi is incorrectly attributed to national socialist german workers party, but its more common meaning (to those who were there or have family members taht remember as i do), the “nationalizers”. unlike the soviets, who took control by state ownership, the nazis were the first of the administrative states. unlike the socialist soviets, they believed there was talent and skill, and so they did not remove the people running the companies and replace them randomly, which in russia caused companies to fail and not be able to function (not to mention tweaking the reports and lying which over time makes things farther and farther from reatliy).. they decided that a series of laws that regulated companies would do the same, the owners would be responsible for carrying out the mandates of the state. so hitler didnt take krups, ibm, farben, and others into his own ownerhsip, they came up with regulations, rules, inspections, etc.. This is exactly what we have now in the US… prior to nazism type reguation of fascism, you could choose to do business or not, you could say i dont want to associate withyou and do business. but now, in violation of the consttutaion, you HAVE to do business with people you dont want to, and at great penalty if not. your not free to associate
3. public health and control of medicine was key. they used the same rule making and such to nationalize health care for the purposes of the state. the favored people got better care, the old, infirm, sick, handicappped, ended up disenfranchised and democided by the process to remove them from the population to make room for the favored. you know, the rationing of health care in ACA does the same thing.
other things to look that are the same is favoring natives who had propert and lost it. that was blood and soil. we are doing that now for the Palestinians against the jews the way hitler did it for the Germans of the Sudetenland.
htierl was a health conscious greenie who hated cigarettes (despite all those cigarette selling Germans in movies), regulated health programs, wanted vegetarianism, and a lot more that is normed today
THen you have social justice. the nazis were the first social justice warriors… Father coughlin had a paper called Social Justice and a radio show, where he got the moniker the nazi priest.
then there is gun control. weimar had registration of guns, but hitler decided to confiscate all the guns, leaving the jews unarmed. while they may not have been able to over throw th enazis, you can be sure, dying with a gun in your hand instead of naked and cold in a gas chamber, would have been preferred.
just so you know, our gun control laws were translated from hitler and copied… so we imported that too.
the party also controlled the press and the press lied to the public to manipulate them as lying, as now in liberal leftist america is a social good.
one of these lying manipulations was someting here in the US we call disparate impact. it had no name then, but its method was evident if you could read the press post elevation of the chancelor where he turned the population to indifference of the jews by explaining how we are equal germans, but how jews had disproportionate wealth and ownership of businesses and factories… which is what eventually led to crystalnact.. [the dems had their own crystalnact, but ti was against post war blacks in ny, during the draft riots. they and unions murdered a lot of blacks, smashed their businesses and drove them into harlem disefranchising them from that point on]
i could go on for pages and pages…
and its only your ignorance that keeps us from opposing things that are the same as the nazis, and soviets, but we dont know about that, as we dont study that, are taught that, and know few people alive who could clue us in.
Richard Saunders:
I’ve seen Cruz twice. Don’t write him off in the charisma category.
y81, i forgot to mention that speech was controlled as well, and despite the nazis being only about 17% of the population they intimidated and controlled the rest of the population using the methods the left uses today (and only because they dont have the power to do it another way. ie. lack of power makes it appear different)
by the way, obama is now writing laws from fiat position much like hitler did. he just wrote a EO that says he can put you to work and not have to pay you (making way for those civilian labor camps you can read about on the us army mil website)… and he is now going after guns… and more.
the parallels are very scare to people in the know, but to the ignorant who dont know the details of nazism, and what actually happened in the society
by the way, national passports… traveleing papers, police searches in travel points, and more are also the same… but not to the same degree as its mediated by power.
here is someone i recommended people read: Nazi philosophy in today’s America
Exclusive: Hilmar von Campe lists similarities
between National Socialism, Obama practices
[heavily edited to avoid being trimmed down]
It is an American custom of the day to assign the label “Nazi” to any ideological opponent. Those who do so know very little about Naziism and are more closely related to the National Socialists than to our Founding Fathers. Nazis are not fascists but belong to global socialism, a section of the radical left.
[i also cut out the anti christian stuff.. in which christianity had to be changed to more reflect the state. like they are doing now in the US]
Opposition is declared to be criminal or dangerous; intimidation and character assassination replaced honest reasoning for those who didn’t agree with Hitler.
every headline in the daily news of any note, is a slur. yesterday the headline called Cosby a scumbag.. .the list of names for trump (to avoid actual discussion of the point they are combating as that discussion would not go well with them) – today its “dons dork side”. Army of one against gun nuts…
all slurs… like the Nazis used in their press… including cartoons and pseudo science (AGW) that would lead to permission for more control and regulation…
It seems that a move in similar direction has surfaced in the U.S.; at least there are rumors about the existence of detention camps for American citizens. Intimidation and character assassination, however, are in place and being applied to the tea party, to political opposition personalities and media outlets
Civilian Inmate Labor Program
Army Regulation 210—3
“Papers please,” was a phrase that Americans used to utter in sarcastic tones in order to cast a negative light upon the totalitarianism of first Hitler and then later, Stalin
Executive Order (EO) 13603, all Americans are now slaves to the whim of the state under both emergency and non-emergency conditions. Legal scholars agree, we are under martial law
and
According to EO 13603, the President, or the head of any federal agency that he shall designate, can conscript “persons of outstanding experience and ability without compensation,” in both “peacetime and times of national emergency.”
EO13603 enables the labor camps, and other things… we have not talked about this or other eo, that also take control of everything else… (then there is the loss of rights within 100 miles of a border or shore)
these even have a name:
Trigger law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_law A Trigger Law is a nickname for a law that is unenforceable and irrelevant in the present, but may achieve relevance and enforceability if a key change in circumstances occurs.
Section 601 of the act specifies, in part, how far the government can go in terms of making you their slave.
section 502 of sections 710(b) and (c) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2160(b), (c); these are the people that the Secretary of the Labor will conscript in order “to employ persons of outstanding experience and ability without compensation and to employ experts, consultants, or organizations”.
there is TONS more, but every attempt to discuss it has failed as it would require people to read what they dont know, and if i put it up, its too long and will be cut down or deleted. so there is no way to inform the people that their freedom and the walls around them are now in place and NOTHING can stop this once its declared enforced by some terrorist act that is large enough… (or act of war, etc)
will obama do it? maybe, maybe not. no way to know until he does or doesnt… but he will leave all that scaffolding in place for the next guy, who may be the one to declare it, which they despertely want hillary or bernie to have that power not a disconnected opposition that is not their friend… they fear trump not cause he is a bombastic idiot, but because they just put the infrastructure in place to take over everyting and are on the verge of a declaration.
the problem? guns… but thats being worked on too
once they are gone there is NOTHING to stop these executive orders that control food, medicine, power, communications, the people, etc..
no, we are not like the nazis AFTER their rise to power
we are like the nazis/soviets before their consolodation of power
if you wait for it to appear like post power to see it, its too late
Obama is trying to disarm the populace, too. Another “Ominous Parallel”.
The main thing that I agree with in that article is that we are nation governed by idiots.
Sergey Says: When Weimar Republic failed Germans, they chose Hitler.
no. this is not true the way you wrote it. the women of germany who did not get killed in WWI elected the chancelor on his rhetoric to better economy, free stuff for women, etc… there was not enough men to vote otherwise. much as obama was elected… this is why you get the votor numbers of 1933 in percentages… to hide this, but if you take the percentages and go look up the population demgraphics of where they are from, you found huge disparities.
this is an extreme example to illustrate the math of the lie:
60% of women voted for chancellor Hitler
70% of men voted against him
however if there were 1000 women and 100 men, who wins? the game in the books is played by feminists who want to wash the responsibility of women first votes voting in a despots (Wiemar gave women the vote before the USA did)
there was no way to avoid the chancelor being elected and put in a place of opportunity as there were not enough men to outvote the women.
in 1914, the population of Germany had reached about 68 million. A major demographic catastrophe, the war claimed 2.8 million lives and caused a steep decline in the birth rate. In addition, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles awarded territories containing approximately 7 million German inhabitants to the victors and to newly independent or reconstituted countries in Eastern Europe.
this 2.8 million was all men of voting age as women did not fight in the war (like they will in the next one thanks to the left in the USA).
given that there are more women than men of voting age without war, and with war the imbalance was made a lot more, there was nothing the men could do to not vote in such a man. even hitler wrote in his books how to appeal to the people is to treat them like a woman.
Hitler Made many promises to the country of Germany in order to come to power. Most of the promises he made, he did not keep.
sound familiar?
The people of Germany heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the violence of the Nazi party. Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the “corrupt” politicians, communists, and Jews. He told Germany that if they got rid of them, all of Germany’s problems would vanish and the whole country would improve. Many people in Germany protested Hitler’s ideas and reasoning. They put blame on him for all of Germany’s problems. The people that did disagree with Hitler were faced with violence
sound familiar? what groups are said to be born racists? that the society is infused with their hatred and if we get rid of white males, it will all be socialist and good..
From the spartacus league:
After the First World War women in Germany were given the vote and a feminist elite, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin, helped to shape the political post-war scene.
Luxemburg, the leader of the Spartacus League, was murdered by the Freikorps in January, 1919, but other women replaced her at the forefront of politics and by 1932 they had 36 members of the Reichstag. Germany also had 100,000 women teachers, 13,000 women musicians and 3,000 women doctors.
[snip]
During the early 1930s women often found it easier to find jobs than men. The main reason was that female labour was cheaper. As Richard Grunberger has pointed out: “Skilled women earned 66 per cent of men’s wages, unskilled ones 70 per cent, which explains why during the Depression nearly one man in three (29 per cent) was dismissed but only one woman in every ten (11 per cent)… In 1933 women formed 37 per cent of the total employed labour force in Germany.
now where have you heard that SAME argument as to womens salary and pay, and the state will fix it? shall i quote the american feminists?
During the election campaign in 1932, Adolf Hitler promised that if he gained power he would take 800,000 women out of employment within four years. Hitler told a delegation who had come to discuss women’s rights with him he told them the solution was for every woman to have a husband.
like women in the USA today, they are getting tired of their feminist working for everyone… or soon will be once they realize that the Men are out of work, and the women are the ones doing the work.. and it matches germany of that time, but by other means… marraige strike, etc.
Cate Haste, the author of Nazi Women (2001) has suggested that Hitler was popular with German women. “When Hitler came to power, almost half of those voting for him were women. His promise to restore order and end unemployment held strong appeal. German women had experienced the anarchy of street fighting between rival political gangs on their doorsteps. Unemployment bred uncertainty and discord at the heart of their family lives. Women who worked to keep their families as their husbands lost their jobs, or who saw their standard of life deteriorate, longed for stability and certainty – feelings successfully tapped by Hitler.”
and
Melita Maschmann was a young German woman who supported Hitler because she believed he would bring an end to unemployment: “Part of the misery about which the adults complained daily was unemployment. One could have no conception of what it mean for four, five or even six million people to have no work. Berlin had four million inhabitants…Imagine all the families living in Berlin having scarcely enough dry bread to satisfy their hunger… I believed the National Socialists when they promised to do away with unemployment… I believed them when they said they would reunite the German nation, which had split into more than forty political parties, and overcome the consequences of the dictated peace of Versailles.”
and the left has been working to create the same malaise here in the US.. men out of work (mancession), and women working… high normal unemployment, huge welfare burden
The anger between unemployed men and working women is much the same in the US… who will take advantage of it?
i should have put the spartacus league stuff in a second post, but i get those deleted… there is just not enough space to cover such things post assertion
its easy to write a one sentence assertion… its impossible to refute in a limited space… without just a he said she said type opposition assertion with no backing.
sigh
Arfldgr:
Here’s an in-depth study of voting patterns for Hitler and the Nazis (who of course did not receive a majority of German votes when he came to power). The whole thing makes very interesting reading. Nazi power was in the rural and Protestant areas. As for gender, here’s the way it went down [in the following, “(NSDAP” is the Nazi Party, “SPD” is the Social Democrats, “KPD” the Communists, “DNVP” the Nationalists, and the “BVP” the Bavarian party]:
Women were less likely to vote for left-wing parties than their menfolk, though there was an increase in the percentage of female votes that went to the SPD in the 1920s. In fact around 3.5 million women cast their votes for Social Democracy by 1930; and far fewer female than male SPD voters deserted to the Communists in the Depression. In the Berlin Reichstag election of 1930, 27.1 per cent of male and 28.8 per cent of female votes went to the Social Democrats; but in the case of the KPD the gender difference was more marked, with the party picking up 37 per cent of the male but only 29.8 per cent of the female vote. In the Cologne-Aachen district in 1930, 20 per cent of male and 17.2 per cent of female voters gave their support to the SPD; but for the KPD the voting percentages were 21.4 and 13.4 respectively.
The relative unattractiveness of the Left to female voters was compensated by a propensity to support those parties close to the churches, such as the nationalist DNVP in the case of Protestants and, to a much greater extent, the Centre Party or BVP in the case of Catholics. In Cologne-Aachen in 1930, 18.9 per cent of male and 33.1 per cent of females voted for the Centre Party. In Augsburg in the same year, 24.8 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women gave their support to the BVP. Desertions from the Catholic camp to the KPD and the NSDAP in the Depression were almost exclusively male.
Until 1930 women remained unlikely to vote for the Nazi Party. Moreover, in the presidential election of 1932 a clear majority of women preferred Hindenburg to Hitler. However, the early 1930s did see a narrowing of the gap between male and female voting patterns, especially in Protestant areas. Indeed, in some of these by July 1932 the NSDAP was winning a higher percentage of the female to male vote. In that month some 6.5 million women voted Nazi, many of them probably with few or no previous political ties. Where they came from the working class, they were likely to be non-unionised textile operatives or domestic workers.
So, it was in certain Protestant regions (where Nazi support was generally highest among both sexes, as it also was in rural regions) that a higher percentage of women voted Nazi than men did. It doesn’t say what percentage, but as a whole, women voted for Hindenburg in 1932.
blert:
Goldwater was indeed portrayed as a warmonger.
But he never had a chance of winning, even without that. He was the least charismatic presidential nominee in my lifetime, and I even include Nixon and Dukakis in that. It wasn’t just lack of personal appeal, although that was important. He also was considerably more conservative than America was ready for at that time.
Charisma, charisma. Let us not be moved by ideas, but by charisma.
Goldwater was a remarkable man. The Democrats of his day were the same as they are today: Liars.
texexec Says:
January 1st, 2016 at 10:46 am
The main thing that I agree with in that article is that we are nation governed by idiots.
%%
Don’t conflate “idiots” with ‘ideologues.’
%%
Our ‘folks’ are so smart that they’ve elevated policy beyond reality.
Eric Hoffer’s True Believer is essential reading to comprehend what is happening now — what happened in other tyrannies.
Ben Shapiro has a highly illuminating presentation that shows how appearances and self-identification lead one astray.
Grandiosity is a very noticeable feature of our current elite. Apart from the massive overspending (with deficits now routinely hitting $1 trillion), the military adventurism, and the expansion rather than contraction of global cultural influence (a kind of imperialism without an empire), there is the long list of crusades that our elites are currently engaged in. Grandiosity is a consistent feature in all these endeavors.
Grandiosity is collective insanity// irrationality:
“Multiculturalism, gay rights, anti-racism, the elimination of sex roles are examples of grandiosity in the social sphere.
In economics we see the growth of mega-corporations and “too big to fail” financial institutions (where too big to fail means too big to regulate).
In education we see the drive to push everyone into at the very least a four year degree, even as changing demographics makes this entirely unlikely and impractical.
Movie studios stake their fortunes on giant “tentpole” releases with massive budgets–$200 million is no longer an outlier.
…
“Why are our elites grandiose?
My initial hypothesis is that grandiosity is a feature of late-stage political leadership.
As power accrues to centralized government, elites increasingly exist in a world of their own, with only their elite peers to judge them.
Large scale governments reduce the ability of democratic constituencies to exert any influence.
Concentration of power may select for grandiosity as a side effect of political dynasties and large scale coalitions which service the needs of a growing elite political class.
Leaders fixated on “legacy” concerns lose interest in the day to day running of massively complex governments (the bureaucracies of which run on auto-pilot) and switch their attention to bold schemes and sweeping changes.
Socioeconomic complexity also increases the scale of problems faced by political leaders.
%%%
He’s entirely wrong about the latter.
Folks get grandiose when they have an unlimited check book.
That’s ALL IT TAKES.
You’ll see the exact same phenomena with LOTTO winners.
They go bonkers — and there is nothing for them to run but their imaginations.
Bill Whittle addresses the endless resources mirage in this long winded “r” versus “K” selection argument:
It’s a shame that Whittle didn’t whittle his argument down tightly like Ben Shapiro — because he’s actually dead on target.
The magic concept is espoused around 16:00 — but you’re advised to back up to 15:30 to get the argument.
Whittle lays out WHY LOTTO winners go bonkers… almost uniformly.
They become grandiose — just like Congress and the President.
This is taken as insanity, irrationality, stupidity, idiocy by all grounded intellects.
Barry Soetoro is DRUNK with grandiosity.
It’s the intoxication endemic to tyrants.
Tyranny and grandiosity are the opposite faces of the exact same coin.
And it’s not for nothing that ancient tyrants ALWAYS put their face on their specie.
When the practice was initiated — it was a scandal.
For only the dead — the mythic — the gods — were previously used as specie icons. ( American coinage went straight back to the foundational practice.)
( The very first coins were struck ‘privately’ — by merchants — and no merchant dared use the Big Man’s image on his shoddy specie. The first coins minted were total ‘hack jobs’ pounded out with dies and human hammer ‘men’. — Normally teen age boys.
( The latter practice is still seen in Japanese katana artisan fabrication.
Cornhead — if Cruz’s charisma doesn’t come across on television, which is where it counts, it’s for naught. And that’s the way it looks from here.
Comparing William Shirer’s time to ours, and similarly invoking Peikoff’s “The Ominous Parallels,” does nothing to enhance your credibility, neo.
Peikoff – who spent a stint in Colorado because his then wife, Amy, taught at the US Air Force Academy for a few years (and I have a several friends who are, or were, both of their friends) – knows almost nothing about the dynamics of real world American politics.
How can I support such a sweeping statement?
Because logic, philosophy, and intellectual history? Those are different matters. How the latter interacts with the former (politics) in mass society requires different methods than deductive logic to grasp. Peikoff is far too reductionist to deal competently with American politics, as seen by how often his prognostications have proved completely wrong.
While intellectual historian David Gordon has done pointed work in showing how Peikoff repeatedly gets important thinkers like J S Mill and Herbert Spencer wrong, you can get a feel for the types of errors Piekoff makes in a few short blog posts by Greg Nyquist:
Which quotes Gordon on “The Ominous Parallels:” “Peikoff gives us a history of philosophy with the arguments left out.”
In short, Peikoff tortures intellectual history to divine political consequences much like how Noam Chomsky re-arranges facts to suit his various anti-American and anti-capitalist agendas: questionably, if not simply dishonestly.
To put my point differently, any handful of Ayn Rand’s pieces on American mass society are far more penetrating and veridical than almost the entirety of Peikoff’s.
Orson:
Accusing me of “comparing William Shirer’s time to ours” does nothing to enhance YOUR credibility. I explicitly did not compare William Shirer’s time to ours. I wrote that Nazism was:
…a particular sort of tyranny, but a tyranny nevertheless.
It is highly instructive to see how liberty is compromised in various ways, in different times and places, and what the commonalities are, and what to watch out for.
In other words: Nazism and Germany in the 20s-30s was a particular, idiosyncratic time with certain conditions that do not necessarily resemble ours. However, it is very instructive to study how different tyrannies, in different times and places, arise, and see whether there are commonalities that can be instructive in telling us what to watch out for. That is actually true of all tyrannies, and it’s one of the main reasons we study history.
The first book I recommended does just that. The second book does it for America and Nazi Germany. Neither recommendation represents an endorsement of everything in it—they are merely recommendations for books that treat the subject in a way that makes many interesting points, some of which I agree with and some of which I disagree with. I often recommend reading books I find interesting for various reasons, without writing entire posts on exactly what points of agreement and disagreement I have with them.
I feel like I just sat through a graduate-level political science seminar.
Thanks everyone – lots to consider going forward.
And Happy New Year to all.
Ha!
you want to hear a non poly-sci version of what law abiding,working class, blue clollar, beer drinking, gun loving, Harley riding Americans of various colors think is a good analogy for Trumps appeal….?
“You’ve been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement. You want them gone immediately so you hire a guy.
A pro.
You don’t care if the guy smells, you need those raccoons gone pronto and he’s the guy to do it! You don’t care if the guy swears, you don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, you don’t care how many times he’s been married, you don’t care if he voted for Obama, you don’t care if he has plumber’s crack…you simply want those raccoons gone! You want your problem fixed!
He’s the guy.
He’s the best.
Period.
That’s why Trump. Yes he’s a bit of an ass, yes he’s an egomaniac, but you don’t care. The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republican Party is two-faced & gutless, illegal’s are everywhere. You want it all fixed! You don’t care that Trump is crude, you don’t care that he insults people, you don’t care that he had been friendly with Hillary, you don’t care that he has changed positions, you don’t care that he’s been married 3 times, you don’t care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell, you don’t care that he doesn’t know the name of some Muslin terrorist,…this country is weak, bankrupt, our enemies are making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegal’s, we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo and Hamid is a special group with special rights to a point where we don’t even recognize the country we were born and raised in; “AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED” and Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want. You’re sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and sick of illegal’s. You just want this thing fixed. Trump may not be a saint, but doesn’t have lobbyist money holding him, he doesn’t have political correctness restraining him, all you know is that he has been very successful, a good negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he’s also not a politician, he’s not a cowardly politician. And he says he’ll fix it.
You don’t care if the guy has bad hair.
You just want those raccoons gone.
Out of your house.
Now”
Over.
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Agree with many of the author’s ideas.
People are upset and rightly so. They feel both parties have sold them out and I mostly agree. Immigration is the most obvious thing. The 7,000 plus page tax code is least obvious thing but it is at the heart of the problem.
Carly’s dad (tax prof and federal judge) told her that the tax code is how DC exercise power. A three page tax code eliminates the K Street lobbying industry. It also stops the subsidies of the Greens. It cut down on campaign contributions from people who want tax deals.
People don’t get it. Trump keeps the same system going. Imagine the deals as POTUS he would cut with his friends in RE and on the Street. Carly and Cruz tear down the DC establishment.
Thanks for posting the link.
Will any other more desirable candidate grasp the reason that Trump is far ahead of the field and be able to usurp his lead?
The attitude of the majority of voters does not appear to be improving. As primary election time draws closer, the odds diminish that a more substantive (and conservative) candidate will be chosen.
Time is running out!
Happy New Year.
The piece sounds like a rewrite of the rise of Chancellor Hitler. Anger and dissatisfaction. Status quo and abuse of the electorate for the established good.
Can we trust Trump to execute a constitutional executive office? I don’t trust this master of the art of the deal.
is neo just slightly warming to Trump?
My question (for Tim Moeller and his comrades): Has there ever been a Republican president that was not accused by the left of being on the brink of acting unconstitutionally? I recall such accusations against Bush, Reagan, and Nixon (although I can’t quickly find accusations against the latter two on the internet, for obvious reasons). So why should I believe the accusations now?
BTW, I’m not a Trump supporter. I think he’s a vulgarian and a blowhard. But calling him a Nazi only pollutes the civic discourse of our country.
Seems as though Voegeli merely articulates what Sen. Cruz has take as a strategic principle of his campaign since its inception — and therefore what stands Sen. Cruz in stark contrast to the majority of the other GOP candidates who gratuitously insult Trump at every opportunity, so turning off Trump’s supporters. But then it’s precisely of a piece with the failings of the ruling class that Jeb Bush, Kasich and their like cannot imagine the discontent they have created.
I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with you on much of anything, neo, but I thought the article you linked was shallow and unworthy of your attention (or mine). This one explains it better: It Has Come to This by E.M. Cadwaladr. He points out that although Trump probably doesn’t know what a Republic is, his last two predecessors didn’t either (I would extend that to more than two). The piece begins:
Trump’s appeal goes much deeper than the immigration issue but, speaking of immigration, the new federal regulation opening up the floodgates was just published today: Retention of EB—1, EB—2, and EB—3 Immigrant Workers and Program Improvements Affecting High-Skilled Nonimmigrant Workers The Drudge headline reads “All you Americans are fired!”
snopercod:
Is this our first fight? 🙂
I thought the article I linked was hardly just about immigration. It’s about distrust of those who are in charge, and the fact that such distrust is justified.
y81:
Pointing out some parallels with something about a Nazi is not the same as calling a person a Nazi.
See this.
Hi y81. You should really read Bill Shirer’s epic book, The Rise and Fall…” before you start slinging ad hominems and quoting Godwin’s law. There’s an entire chapter in the book describing the political chaos leading up to the election of Adolph Hitler. I’ve read the book, and the situation in Germany in the twenties sounded a lot like what we have in the U.S. today. The Germans back then were fed up with their elected “representatives” just like many of us are today. Nobody could get anything done; The economy sucked; They had just lost a war; There was rioting in the streets like in Ferguson and Baltimore and Louisville. Eventually the people demanded a “strong leader” and they got one, good and hard, didn’t they? Just sayin’…
avi:
No, I have not changed my point of view in the least.
I have always recognized Trump’s appeal. Nothing has changed in that regard. I just don’t share the sentiment, because I don’t see him as the solution or even as a solution.
snopercod:
See also this.
Excellent indeed, especially this sentence: “That such a flawed contender could be a front-runner tells us more about what’s wrong with the country than about what’s wrong with his followers”.
The Italian economist Luigi Zingales, who has for many years worked at the University of Chicago, recently compared Trump to Silvio Berlusconi, who was Italy’s Prime Minister four times between 1994 and 2011.
Berlusconi is a media tycoon; Trump a real estate, gambling, and media tycoon. Both like to proclaim the virtues of free enterprise, but neither practice it. Both epitomize crony capitalism and the importance of having government connections. Berlusconi integrated personal, business, and government corruption. As president, Trump would do the same, but on a much larger scale.
We already know about Hillary Clinton’s propensity for corruption, so it seems inevitable that we’ll be entering an era of extraordinary — possibly unprecedented — corruption.
The question is how long will it last, and how will the reaction take shape.
Neo-neocon: OK, change (and expand) my sentence to read: “Comparing someone to a Nazi and suggesting parallels or similarities pollutes our political discourse. No one important in America is a Nazi. No one important in America is like a Nazi in any interesting or alarming way.”
y81:
That is a fallacy, and a dangerous one at that.
Let me explain. Being “like a Nazi” isn’t an either/or thing, and does not depend on espousing Nazi sympathies. One of the many characteristics of Nazism, and one of the most generally relevant ones, is that it was a tyranny. It was many other things, and a particular sort of tyranny, but a tyranny nevertheless.
It is highly instructive to see how liberty is compromised in various ways, in different times and places, and what the commonalities are, and what to watch out for.
I suggest the book The Path to Tyranny, for example, or The Ominous Parallels.
y81 should substitute the full name of the “Nazi” party (e.g. The National Socialist German Workers Party) and ask himself if there are Americans running for president who are socialists, or nationalists, or both.
Neo– OK, I’m in love now. You’ve read The Ominous Parallels? I thought I was the only one! If we’ve had a fight, you win. I was wrong. Please take me back. (big grin)
@Cornflour
Who is this crazy Italian economist you cite? He’s so far off the mark it’s a riot. Berlusconi started his “media empire” by getting a sweetheart deal from the Italian Socialist Party and Italian PM who, “via an emergency decree legali[zed] the nationwide transmissions made by Berlusconi’s television stations.” (See Wikipedia)
The guy was convicted of tax fraud, has charges pending against him for paid sex with a minor (remember his bunga bunga orgies with 20 girls at a time?), his soccer team, AC Milan, was kicked out of the UEFA Championship for game fixing, etc., etc., etc.
So, where exactly are all these similarities to Trump?
Unlike snopercod at 3:00 pm, I don’t think the article neo linked to is shallow and unworthy of attention. I do disagree somewhat with author Voegeli’s agreement with “most of the bad things that have been said about Donald Trump” but I agree with his analysis of the reason’s for Trump’s support.
However Voegeli and I part company with his concluding statement that America needs a “statesman” rather than a “showman’.
A statesman is NOT what America needs. It needs the intellect of a Cruz combined with a willingness to act as a Jacksonian in its purest, no holds barred sense.
And because that is my assessment and conclusion, I agree with snopercod that the article he links to has a far better ‘gut’ understanding of the depth of the challenge we face than does Voegeli.
The time for nuance and diplomatic negotiation is past, for should the next President be Republican, those activist within the democrat party will NOT act as the ‘loyal opposition’ but will instead continue to do all they can to destroy America.
You cannot defeat an enemy that you refuse to acknowledge is an enemy.
That self-honesty also compels another corresponding admission; the liberally inclined, indoctrinated LIVs are enabling the destruction of America as surely as, in the aggregate, the German people enabled the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
For those who missed it, here is a no holds barred assessment of the ‘activist’ Left, America’s fascists-in-all-but-name.
Nice link Geoffrey Britain.
Very well put, Geoffrey.
The Democrats in power ARE the enemy.
All else is secondary.
As to the respectworthy Voegeli, let us not be so quick to overlook the title of his piece: The Reason I am Anti- Anti-Trump.
Scott Adams — at Dilbert — has covered the matter much, much, much, better.
Trump is operating upon the subconscious — and with straight street talk that media elites — and other brains — find thuggish and repulsive.
That’s about it.
Trump’s rolling over his competition because of his street smarts.
He really is his own campaign manager.
His biggest problem — electability wise — are the countless sound bites and video clips that he has to drag along with him.
Trump is a wheeler-dealer — but he’s also an organizational man.
The problem with Trump is that he is simply not the strongest candidate to run against the demon.
After that, everything else is just sputtering.
HRC’s first panic attack: the realization that Ted Cruz is by far the odds on bet to be her actual opponent in November.
That’s really all that you need to know.
I fully expect that Trump will do very, very, well with Low Involvement Voters.
Trump’s personal profile is the absolute inverse of the great despots of history.
I would expect — as stated — that if it came to pass — a Trump Presidency would mostly resemble that of Andrew Jackson.
Keep in mind that when Jackson came to office — the central bank of his era was wholly out of control — and had corrupted Congress.
The parallels don’t stop with hair color.
The problem with a Sulla// Jackson// Obama // leadership is that it’s TOO personality centered.
I think that on many issues, Trump would be an outstanding president.
But his Big Mouth is a Big Problem for the post.
I also feel that it will take Trump far too long to get up to speed on the way Washington really works.
Ted Cruz has been around — knows the ropes — and is clearly the fellow that combines policy wisdom and electability.
Instead of harping on Trump — all and every ought to jump on the demon.
The demon duo, that is.
There is NO WAY that Bill is not going to have MAJOR policy say with his wife as president.
Starting with she’s not a people person — she’s a self-proclaimed policy wonk.
Put directly: A True Believer — but of the elites.
Going from King to Queen would be a disaster.
I might add that HRC — like BHO — has a BIG temper problem.
That 3AM phone call came at 5PM — and she didn’t answer it.
Mr. Bay has a punishing film coming out that will impact politics — I’d say.
Dang it.
Fouled up my bolding.
neo-neocon: I disagree totally. Many bad things have happened in America, and more bad things may happen in the future, but none of them resembled or will resemble Nazism. So any analogizing of any current American person or event to Nazism is not illuminating. And since such analogies do not illuminate, their only effect (and I suspect usually their purpose) is to inflame prejudice and hatred.
snopercod: All the current candidates of both parties are nationalists in the sense that the Nazis used the word, i.e., none of them is internationalist in the Socialist International sense. For instance, none of them would dream of saying that the working class has no country. None of them is socialist in the Soviet sense of advocating state ownership of the means of production. If by “socialist” you mean advocating expansion of the welfare state to Swedish levels, then Bernie Sanders is a socialist in that sense. But that doesn’t make him a Nazi, so I don’t see the point of your question.
Neo-neo: In reality, I think the public is disillusioned with both parties.
That may be true, neo, but the problem is the disillusionment comes almost equally from two opposed directions.
Because of the leftist propaganda from the media, the cultural industries, and Hollywood compounded by the Marxist revisionist “history” taught in what we used to call schools and universities, the last two generations have seen a huge rise in the number of leftlings in America. Coupled with a sense of entitlement from beneficiaries of the myriad benefits various victim classes receive plus cronyism for big businesses who no longer believe in free enterprise, there is a new gigantic cohort that does not like this country because they think it should give them even more than they get now by taking it away from the “others”, i.e., the ones they dislike.
So having a large majority of voters disillusioned with both parties means nothing and solves even less. Half the country thinks the government does too little while our half believes it does too much. This conflict will not end peacefully, and sooner than later.
Lastly, any comparisons to Nazis are also true of Communists; they are both totalitarian in nature and both stoked and took advantage of chaos and division among moderates to seize power. They never give it back either until their countries, their own citizens and all their neighbors have been savaged beyond belief.
I’ve been an atheist my whole life, but now the only thing I can say is “God help us.”
From an outsider looking in it appears that something obvious about Trump is completely overlooked.
Trump is a businessman (More correctly – a “BUSINESSMAN” writ large.)
Regardless of any “ACT” Trump puts on he remains – always- a businessman.
Trump is not a lawyer, banker, a politician or an academic. Trump is not one of the “credentialed” elite.
For those who don’t submit to the progressive narrative – the USA’s problems generally are ALL seen to have arisen from those who are the “credentialed” elite.
There is only one person standing for President who isn’t of the credentialed elite and that is Trump.
Regardless of how he “ACTS” in public – Trump remains a businessman – a BUSINESSMAN of the highest order.
The ‘unnarratived’ People know that a good businessman will fight to make his business succeed.
The ‘unnarratived’ People know that the USA was at its best when it ranked (business) success as a priority.
Trump has announced that he is making the USA his business. That he TRUMP personally wants it to succeed. And the People know that Trump has come back from previous heavy losses to make his businesses succeed.
On these small important points Trump links directly to the will of the People, yet I don’t see anyone mentioning this positive business aspects; whenever business is mentioned in the media it is mentioned negatively – always failing to point up how his past political(?) actions look different when you look at them through the lens of a businessman just trying to succeed (with or without the governments help or hindrance).
Yet the US People are crying out for positive business management… Literally: “Trump! Trump! Trump!” Yet where is his positive business aspects being mentioned? Anywhere? In fact it appears to be positively ignored and downplayed.
I think deep down the People know that this time, in order to succeed, the US really needs a BUSINESSMAN who knows how to win against the odds. Someone who is big on action not theory.
To this outsider it seems that (as things currently stand) the man for the time is Trump.
Referring back to the comment that conditions in the U.S.; someone has no real appreciation of how bad things were as Hitler made his power bid. American can hardly comprehend how bad things were in Germany in the years following WWI.
Not only were a generation of young men decimated; the country was under the burden of punitive reparations. All of this in addition to hyper inflation that wiped out pay checks–if there were any.
Pray that we never face such conditions.–unless you are a life long atheist–then I don’t have any suggestions.
PS
Not to mention that Germany was trying to transition from a Monarchy to a Democratic Republic under those conditions.
@Imsureihadameonce
Yes. I believe the three things most Americans are concerned about are the economy, immigration and terrorism. And Trump is probably one of the best qualified candidates to get American on its feet economically again. Maybe a lot of people don’t talk about it much because it’s just a given about him, but they’re certainly thinking about it.
If he makes it through the primaries, it’ll be a huge deal that he’s finishing a government project smack in the middle of Washington DC ahead of schedule and under budget. ‘Nuff said.
Happy New Year, Neo and to all the posters here. This is one of the best sites on the web!
Now we’re off for a lovely New Years lobster dinner.
I read that article earlier. It captures some of what propels the Trump bandwagon. The American Thinker article cited earlier, comes closer. The leading paragraph sums it up.
Our borders are gone. We are letting in millions of illegal immigrants and giving them more benefits than our veterans. The illegals are bringing in drugs to poison our children, committing heinous crimes against our citizens, depriving our unemployed of job opportunities, and costing us billions to house in our prisons. One candidate stood up above the politically correct strictures that gagged every other GOP candidate, including Ted Cruz, and said what the people wished could be said. Unlike every other politician, he stood by his words. Trump made illegal immigration an election issue. Nobody else would do that. Yeah, we’d get all the usual platitudes about building a fence and securing the border, but we hear it every election cycle, and nothing gets done. The clincher is that Trump doubled-down and said he would end birthright citizenship — which may only need an act of congress — and deport every illegal alien. Notice how the hue and cry about Trump’s immigration has quieted as his poll numbers have risen.
After the San Bernardino and Paris terrorist attacks, Trump called for a halt to Muslim immigration until the authorities could separate the jihadists from the genuine refugees. Once more, the left, the pundits and the other GOP candidates went crazy. But the folk, who are deeply suspicious of Islam, and with good reason, approved. Trump’s poll numbers went up again. BTW, the GOP approved Obama’s Syrian immigration wishes in the omnibus bill – 200 thousand unvetted Muslims are being granted carte blanche plus benefits.
Cornhead wrote:
Trump’s tax plan is a three page tax code. He’s had to deal with the complexities of the tax code all his business life. Sometimes, as in the Grand Hyatt deal that started his career, he got major tax breaks, and sometimes not. Making business decisions based on the tax code may be great for politicians but it strangles the economy.
Politicians are expert at talking the talk. When it comes to delivering on the talk, they fail. Mostly, they fail because it is against their self-interest to succeed. Some say it is because they are bought by special interests, such as pro-open border advocates like the Chamber of Commerce. Others say that actually doing anything reduces their ability to extort money from special interests. Either way, Joe Public loses. Enter Mr. Trump, the man who admits to contributing to politicians on both sides of the aisle, because it gives him access. He tells us he is funding his own campaign and won’t take Super-PAC money or allow Super-PACs to be created for him. He is the insider turned outsider.
The Clintons are sacred to the media. GOP candidates are reluctant to attack them on their lack of ethics. When Hillary lied about ISIS using videos of Trump to recruit, Trump laid into her and her husband. And he has Bill’s frequent visits to Epstein’s under-age sex palace as back-up. The MSM can ignore other GOP candidates bringing this stuff up, and they do. But, they can’t ignore Trump. So, he can go where no other GOP candidate can go, and attack the Clintons, their shady deals, their foundations, their foreign donors and get media coverage.
Can we trust Trump to deliver on his promises? He is not in it for the money, so that’s a good sign. Well, he might be in it for money, but then he’d be running like Jeb, and not offending any special interest. He seems to be running because he believes his negotiating and organization skills can get things done and bring back the America that is slipping away from us. The great country that won WW2 with its industrial might is a shadow of its former self. Can that country come back? Trump supporters see him as the only candidate with any hope of doing that.
As to the punditry, well they were all Obama fan-boys back in the day.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2015/12/29/not-coincidental-trumps-2015-conservative-critics-were-obamas-2009-fan-boys/#more-110313
snopercod:
“He points out that although Trump probably doesn’t know what a Republic is, his last two predecessors didn’t either (I would extend that to more than two).”
One, Cadwaladr’s article seems describe a democracy more than a republic.
Two, I wonder where he takes issue with Bush since Cadawaladr’s complaints that have some detail point to Obama and the Left. In terms of upholding our system of government, Bush colored within the lines in his executive relationship with the legislature and the judiciary.
Trump’s strongest Republican supporters: Registered Democrats?
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/12/31/trumps-strongest-republican-supporters-registered-democrats/
PatD:
“Politicians are expert at talking the talk. When it comes to delivering on the talk, they fail.”
Yep. That’s the nub.
Greg Stillson won the presidency (until John Smith intervened). Stephen King has been on the mark so far.
I am curious as to how the Trump campaign would approach the general election. Whether his GOP-primary approach works for the general election remains to be seen. I don’t see any obvious reason why it wouldn’t work with re-tuning. I think Trump’s GOP critics over-value how much his ‘baggage’ would handicap him in the general election, at least relative to another GOP candidate. He’s playing a different kind of game. It might end up working better for the general election than a traditional campaign. It might not. But the rules will be different for him.
Which is not to say I believe Trump would beat Clinton in 2016. The Democrats are backed by their parent-Left’s activists that Trump’s GOP rivals don’t have. But based on comments under this post and other Neo threads, Clinton and the Democrats are not the principal target for Trump supporters, anyway. Their principal target is GOPe and mainstream conservatives.
At this point, the 2016 presidential race is shaping up more like the 1968 presidential race. While the upheaval within the Democrats eased the way for Nixon to win the White House twice, the leftists who staged the upheaval principally targeted mainstream liberals in order to start taking over the Democrats in earnest. For Trump supporters, the 1st objective is usurping mainstream conservatives to start taking over the GOP in earnest. It’s a long march to paradigm shift.
So far, mainstream conservatives have been non-plussed about what to do about the insurgency from their right. History repeats itself – people is people. From what I gather, mainstream liberals were just as dumbfounded while they were being usurped from their left.
Cruz is a brilliant man and a great lawyer — but does anybody here actually think he could get any votes outside the Republican base? (I mean outside of our little corner of the Republican base?) The guy is so anti-charismatic I think he’s an actual phenomenon. If Cruz is the top of the ticket, we will go down to defeat as badly as Goldwater did in 1968. I know — I was there.
Oops! Goldwater in 1964, of course.
The punch line in the article cited is, of course, “Demagoguery flourishes when democracy falters.” This is true not only in USA politics, but worldwide. The rise of populists nativist parties in Europe has the same root cause. When Weimar Republic failed Germans, they chose Hitler. European political establishment not only ignored valid concerns of their citizenry, but doubled down on denial of these concerns. What they will get in the result is a repeat of Weimar Republic fiasco.
Richard Sanders….
Goldwater lost because LBJ was the only man who could keep our boys out of war.
With LBJ we got policy continuance.
With Goldwater we’d had a hard line with Moscow and a highly polarized world.
The MSM media saved the nation.
I know, because they told me so.
I will say that Donald really seems to know how to handle both Hill and Bill.
They a dragging more baggage than an Atlantic convoy.
Cruz’s weakness is that he will not tar the other side. He wins the intellectual argument — but is unconnected with the LIV.
Whereas, the Hill-Bill team fights “no-rules.”
Trump has the LIV leaning out the window screaming: “I’m not going to take it any more!”
The highly educated — indoctrinated — classes are in-the-tank for the Left. The financial wall has not marched out to hit them.
They are True Believers — that even Ted Cruz is not going to wake up. For they were not ever logically persuaded in the first place.
They were indoctrinated to be “on-the-team.”
The latter being the defining nature of the Stalinist-Maoist-Hitlerist tyrannies.
Policy wise these terrifying trannies had no internal policy consistency — the reverse being the norm.
Staying PC — and on the party line — was everything.
Trump is pulling a voting bloc together — at the subconscious level.
Which is why all the logical pundits just can’t figure Donald out.
You know they’re lost when they refer to Trump as either being Conservative — or aligned with the Tea Party.
Whereas, Donald is Trump.
y81 Says: Many bad things have happened in America, and more bad things may happen in the future, but none of them resembled or will resemble Nazism.
Your very wrong… what is Nazism to you? the hatred of jews, and what else? overt despotism?
If this is the case, then you have no idea what made up most of Nazisms ideas, and they are derived from Marx, and the jewish question,which is why jews are under attack again.
but really? what would you need to know to make it apparent that what is going on is VERY much like Nazism?
Your basically educated on what the left thinks of its embarrasing period of socialism, and eugenics, and more, in which they sided thinking that everyone (those racist white folk) would side with them. just as Vladimir thought that once the revolution started (while he was far away in another country safe), the people on the farms and rural areas across russia would rise up. they didnt.
but really. please let me know what you think is different, and by actions not by names
1. Ernst Rudin wrote for Margaret sangers birth control review, and hitler praised her work. she openly stated that birth control was for the purpose of removng blacks who she was willing to hire blacks to trick blacks, and to remove the chinese who breed like vermin (paraphrasing her), and jews of course being the inventors of capitalism. So the Nazis approved and shared information with what now in the US is the Abortion business, which has been changing the US demographically since the 1970s, having murdered over 80 million before they could grow up and protest being put in to ovens.
2. the term Nazi is incorrectly attributed to national socialist german workers party, but its more common meaning (to those who were there or have family members taht remember as i do), the “nationalizers”. unlike the soviets, who took control by state ownership, the nazis were the first of the administrative states. unlike the socialist soviets, they believed there was talent and skill, and so they did not remove the people running the companies and replace them randomly, which in russia caused companies to fail and not be able to function (not to mention tweaking the reports and lying which over time makes things farther and farther from reatliy).. they decided that a series of laws that regulated companies would do the same, the owners would be responsible for carrying out the mandates of the state. so hitler didnt take krups, ibm, farben, and others into his own ownerhsip, they came up with regulations, rules, inspections, etc.. This is exactly what we have now in the US… prior to nazism type reguation of fascism, you could choose to do business or not, you could say i dont want to associate withyou and do business. but now, in violation of the consttutaion, you HAVE to do business with people you dont want to, and at great penalty if not. your not free to associate
3. public health and control of medicine was key. they used the same rule making and such to nationalize health care for the purposes of the state. the favored people got better care, the old, infirm, sick, handicappped, ended up disenfranchised and democided by the process to remove them from the population to make room for the favored. you know, the rationing of health care in ACA does the same thing.
other things to look that are the same is favoring natives who had propert and lost it. that was blood and soil. we are doing that now for the Palestinians against the jews the way hitler did it for the Germans of the Sudetenland.
htierl was a health conscious greenie who hated cigarettes (despite all those cigarette selling Germans in movies), regulated health programs, wanted vegetarianism, and a lot more that is normed today
THen you have social justice. the nazis were the first social justice warriors… Father coughlin had a paper called Social Justice and a radio show, where he got the moniker the nazi priest.
then there is gun control. weimar had registration of guns, but hitler decided to confiscate all the guns, leaving the jews unarmed. while they may not have been able to over throw th enazis, you can be sure, dying with a gun in your hand instead of naked and cold in a gas chamber, would have been preferred.
just so you know, our gun control laws were translated from hitler and copied… so we imported that too.
the party also controlled the press and the press lied to the public to manipulate them as lying, as now in liberal leftist america is a social good.
one of these lying manipulations was someting here in the US we call disparate impact. it had no name then, but its method was evident if you could read the press post elevation of the chancelor where he turned the population to indifference of the jews by explaining how we are equal germans, but how jews had disproportionate wealth and ownership of businesses and factories… which is what eventually led to crystalnact.. [the dems had their own crystalnact, but ti was against post war blacks in ny, during the draft riots. they and unions murdered a lot of blacks, smashed their businesses and drove them into harlem disefranchising them from that point on]
i could go on for pages and pages…
and its only your ignorance that keeps us from opposing things that are the same as the nazis, and soviets, but we dont know about that, as we dont study that, are taught that, and know few people alive who could clue us in.
Richard Saunders:
I’ve seen Cruz twice. Don’t write him off in the charisma category.
y81, i forgot to mention that speech was controlled as well, and despite the nazis being only about 17% of the population they intimidated and controlled the rest of the population using the methods the left uses today (and only because they dont have the power to do it another way. ie. lack of power makes it appear different)
by the way, obama is now writing laws from fiat position much like hitler did. he just wrote a EO that says he can put you to work and not have to pay you (making way for those civilian labor camps you can read about on the us army mil website)… and he is now going after guns… and more.
the parallels are very scare to people in the know, but to the ignorant who dont know the details of nazism, and what actually happened in the society
by the way, national passports… traveleing papers, police searches in travel points, and more are also the same… but not to the same degree as its mediated by power.
here is someone i recommended people read:
Nazi philosophy in today’s America
Exclusive: Hilmar von Campe lists similarities
between National Socialism, Obama practices
[heavily edited to avoid being trimmed down]
It is an American custom of the day to assign the label “Nazi” to any ideological opponent. Those who do so know very little about Naziism and are more closely related to the National Socialists than to our Founding Fathers. Nazis are not fascists but belong to global socialism, a section of the radical left.
[i also cut out the anti christian stuff.. in which christianity had to be changed to more reflect the state. like they are doing now in the US]
Opposition is declared to be criminal or dangerous; intimidation and character assassination replaced honest reasoning for those who didn’t agree with Hitler.
every headline in the daily news of any note, is a slur. yesterday the headline called Cosby a scumbag.. .the list of names for trump (to avoid actual discussion of the point they are combating as that discussion would not go well with them) – today its “dons dork side”. Army of one against gun nuts…
all slurs… like the Nazis used in their press… including cartoons and pseudo science (AGW) that would lead to permission for more control and regulation…
It seems that a move in similar direction has surfaced in the U.S.; at least there are rumors about the existence of detention camps for American citizens. Intimidation and character assassination, however, are in place and being applied to the tea party, to political opposition personalities and media outlets
Civilian Inmate Labor Program
Army Regulation 210—3
http://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/pdf/r210_35.pdf
and
Obama’s EO 13603 Reintroduces Slavery to America
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2013/12/30/obamas-eo-13603-reintroduces-slavery-to-america/
“Papers please,” was a phrase that Americans used to utter in sarcastic tones in order to cast a negative light upon the totalitarianism of first Hitler and then later, Stalin
Executive Order (EO) 13603, all Americans are now slaves to the whim of the state under both emergency and non-emergency conditions. Legal scholars agree, we are under martial law
and
According to EO 13603, the President, or the head of any federal agency that he shall designate, can conscript “persons of outstanding experience and ability without compensation,” in both “peacetime and times of national emergency.”
EO13603 enables the labor camps, and other things… we have not talked about this or other eo, that also take control of everything else… (then there is the loss of rights within 100 miles of a border or shore)
these even have a name:
Trigger law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigger_law
A Trigger Law is a nickname for a law that is unenforceable and irrelevant in the present, but may achieve relevance and enforceability if a key change in circumstances occurs.
Section 601 of the act specifies, in part, how far the government can go in terms of making you their slave.
section 502 of sections 710(b) and (c) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2160(b), (c); these are the people that the Secretary of the Labor will conscript in order “to employ persons of outstanding experience and ability without compensation and to employ experts, consultants, or organizations”.
there is TONS more, but every attempt to discuss it has failed as it would require people to read what they dont know, and if i put it up, its too long and will be cut down or deleted. so there is no way to inform the people that their freedom and the walls around them are now in place and NOTHING can stop this once its declared enforced by some terrorist act that is large enough… (or act of war, etc)
will obama do it? maybe, maybe not. no way to know until he does or doesnt… but he will leave all that scaffolding in place for the next guy, who may be the one to declare it, which they despertely want hillary or bernie to have that power not a disconnected opposition that is not their friend… they fear trump not cause he is a bombastic idiot, but because they just put the infrastructure in place to take over everyting and are on the verge of a declaration.
the problem? guns… but thats being worked on too
once they are gone there is NOTHING to stop these executive orders that control food, medicine, power, communications, the people, etc..
no, we are not like the nazis AFTER their rise to power
we are like the nazis/soviets before their consolodation of power
if you wait for it to appear like post power to see it, its too late
Obama is trying to disarm the populace, too. Another “Ominous Parallel”.
The main thing that I agree with in that article is that we are nation governed by idiots.
Sergey Says: When Weimar Republic failed Germans, they chose Hitler.
no. this is not true the way you wrote it. the women of germany who did not get killed in WWI elected the chancelor on his rhetoric to better economy, free stuff for women, etc… there was not enough men to vote otherwise. much as obama was elected… this is why you get the votor numbers of 1933 in percentages… to hide this, but if you take the percentages and go look up the population demgraphics of where they are from, you found huge disparities.
this is an extreme example to illustrate the math of the lie:
60% of women voted for chancellor Hitler
70% of men voted against him
however if there were 1000 women and 100 men, who wins? the game in the books is played by feminists who want to wash the responsibility of women first votes voting in a despots (Wiemar gave women the vote before the USA did)
there was no way to avoid the chancelor being elected and put in a place of opportunity as there were not enough men to outvote the women.
in 1914, the population of Germany had reached about 68 million. A major demographic catastrophe, the war claimed 2.8 million lives and caused a steep decline in the birth rate. In addition, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles awarded territories containing approximately 7 million German inhabitants to the victors and to newly independent or reconstituted countries in Eastern Europe.
this 2.8 million was all men of voting age as women did not fight in the war (like they will in the next one thanks to the left in the USA).
given that there are more women than men of voting age without war, and with war the imbalance was made a lot more, there was nothing the men could do to not vote in such a man. even hitler wrote in his books how to appeal to the people is to treat them like a woman.
Hitler Made many promises to the country of Germany in order to come to power. Most of the promises he made, he did not keep.
sound familiar?
The people of Germany heard what they wanted to hear and ignored the violence of the Nazi party. Hitler blamed Germany’s problems on the “corrupt” politicians, communists, and Jews. He told Germany that if they got rid of them, all of Germany’s problems would vanish and the whole country would improve. Many people in Germany protested Hitler’s ideas and reasoning. They put blame on him for all of Germany’s problems. The people that did disagree with Hitler were faced with violence
sound familiar? what groups are said to be born racists? that the society is infused with their hatred and if we get rid of white males, it will all be socialist and good..
From the spartacus league:
now where have you heard that SAME argument as to womens salary and pay, and the state will fix it? shall i quote the american feminists?
During the election campaign in 1932, Adolf Hitler promised that if he gained power he would take 800,000 women out of employment within four years. Hitler told a delegation who had come to discuss women’s rights with him he told them the solution was for every woman to have a husband.
like women in the USA today, they are getting tired of their feminist working for everyone… or soon will be once they realize that the Men are out of work, and the women are the ones doing the work.. and it matches germany of that time, but by other means… marraige strike, etc.
Cate Haste, the author of Nazi Women (2001) has suggested that Hitler was popular with German women. “When Hitler came to power, almost half of those voting for him were women. His promise to restore order and end unemployment held strong appeal. German women had experienced the anarchy of street fighting between rival political gangs on their doorsteps. Unemployment bred uncertainty and discord at the heart of their family lives. Women who worked to keep their families as their husbands lost their jobs, or who saw their standard of life deteriorate, longed for stability and certainty – feelings successfully tapped by Hitler.”
and
Melita Maschmann was a young German woman who supported Hitler because she believed he would bring an end to unemployment: “Part of the misery about which the adults complained daily was unemployment. One could have no conception of what it mean for four, five or even six million people to have no work. Berlin had four million inhabitants…Imagine all the families living in Berlin having scarcely enough dry bread to satisfy their hunger… I believed the National Socialists when they promised to do away with unemployment… I believed them when they said they would reunite the German nation, which had split into more than forty political parties, and overcome the consequences of the dictated peace of Versailles.”
and the left has been working to create the same malaise here in the US.. men out of work (mancession), and women working… high normal unemployment, huge welfare burden
more here: http://spartacus-educational.com/GERwomen.htm
The anger between unemployed men and working women is much the same in the US… who will take advantage of it?
i should have put the spartacus league stuff in a second post, but i get those deleted… there is just not enough space to cover such things post assertion
its easy to write a one sentence assertion… its impossible to refute in a limited space… without just a he said she said type opposition assertion with no backing.
sigh
Arfldgr:
Here’s an in-depth study of voting patterns for Hitler and the Nazis (who of course did not receive a majority of German votes when he came to power). The whole thing makes very interesting reading. Nazi power was in the rural and Protestant areas. As for gender, here’s the way it went down [in the following, “(NSDAP” is the Nazi Party, “SPD” is the Social Democrats, “KPD” the Communists, “DNVP” the Nationalists, and the “BVP” the Bavarian party]:
So, it was in certain Protestant regions (where Nazi support was generally highest among both sexes, as it also was in rural regions) that a higher percentage of women voted Nazi than men did. It doesn’t say what percentage, but as a whole, women voted for Hindenburg in 1932.
blert:
Goldwater was indeed portrayed as a warmonger.
But he never had a chance of winning, even without that. He was the least charismatic presidential nominee in my lifetime, and I even include Nixon and Dukakis in that. It wasn’t just lack of personal appeal, although that was important. He also was considerably more conservative than America was ready for at that time.
Charisma, charisma. Let us not be moved by ideas, but by charisma.
Goldwater was a remarkable man. The Democrats of his day were the same as they are today: Liars.
texexec Says:
January 1st, 2016 at 10:46 am
The main thing that I agree with in that article is that we are nation governed by idiots.
%%
Don’t conflate “idiots” with ‘ideologues.’
%%
Our ‘folks’ are so smart that they’ve elevated policy beyond reality.
Eric Hoffer’s True Believer is essential reading to comprehend what is happening now — what happened in other tyrannies.
Ben Shapiro has a highly illuminating presentation that shows how appearances and self-identification lead one astray.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5IqH7oJ9h4
Grandiosity is a very noticeable feature of our current elite. Apart from the massive overspending (with deficits now routinely hitting $1 trillion), the military adventurism, and the expansion rather than contraction of global cultural influence (a kind of imperialism without an empire), there is the long list of crusades that our elites are currently engaged in. Grandiosity is a consistent feature in all these endeavors.
http://mpcdot.com/forums/topic/6807-grandiosity-as-a-feature-of-pre-collapse-political-leadership/
Grandiosity is collective insanity// irrationality:
“Multiculturalism, gay rights, anti-racism, the elimination of sex roles are examples of grandiosity in the social sphere.
In economics we see the growth of mega-corporations and “too big to fail” financial institutions (where too big to fail means too big to regulate).
In education we see the drive to push everyone into at the very least a four year degree, even as changing demographics makes this entirely unlikely and impractical.
Movie studios stake their fortunes on giant “tentpole” releases with massive budgets–$200 million is no longer an outlier.
…
“Why are our elites grandiose?
My initial hypothesis is that grandiosity is a feature of late-stage political leadership.
As power accrues to centralized government, elites increasingly exist in a world of their own, with only their elite peers to judge them.
Large scale governments reduce the ability of democratic constituencies to exert any influence.
Concentration of power may select for grandiosity as a side effect of political dynasties and large scale coalitions which service the needs of a growing elite political class.
Leaders fixated on “legacy” concerns lose interest in the day to day running of massively complex governments (the bureaucracies of which run on auto-pilot) and switch their attention to bold schemes and sweeping changes.
Socioeconomic complexity also increases the scale of problems faced by political leaders.
%%%
He’s entirely wrong about the latter.
Folks get grandiose when they have an unlimited check book.
That’s ALL IT TAKES.
You’ll see the exact same phenomena with LOTTO winners.
They go bonkers — and there is nothing for them to run but their imaginations.
Bill Whittle addresses the endless resources mirage in this long winded “r” versus “K” selection argument:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY-ueR0OLlQ
It’s a shame that Whittle didn’t whittle his argument down tightly like Ben Shapiro — because he’s actually dead on target.
The magic concept is espoused around 16:00 — but you’re advised to back up to 15:30 to get the argument.
Whittle lays out WHY LOTTO winners go bonkers… almost uniformly.
They become grandiose — just like Congress and the President.
This is taken as insanity, irrationality, stupidity, idiocy by all grounded intellects.
Barry Soetoro is DRUNK with grandiosity.
It’s the intoxication endemic to tyrants.
Tyranny and grandiosity are the opposite faces of the exact same coin.
And it’s not for nothing that ancient tyrants ALWAYS put their face on their specie.
When the practice was initiated — it was a scandal.
For only the dead — the mythic — the gods — were previously used as specie icons. ( American coinage went straight back to the foundational practice.)
( The very first coins were struck ‘privately’ — by merchants — and no merchant dared use the Big Man’s image on his shoddy specie. The first coins minted were total ‘hack jobs’ pounded out with dies and human hammer ‘men’. — Normally teen age boys.
( The latter practice is still seen in Japanese katana artisan fabrication.
Cornhead — if Cruz’s charisma doesn’t come across on television, which is where it counts, it’s for naught. And that’s the way it looks from here.
Comparing William Shirer’s time to ours, and similarly invoking Peikoff’s “The Ominous Parallels,” does nothing to enhance your credibility, neo.
Peikoff – who spent a stint in Colorado because his then wife, Amy, taught at the US Air Force Academy for a few years (and I have a several friends who are, or were, both of their friends) – knows almost nothing about the dynamics of real world American politics.
How can I support such a sweeping statement?
Because logic, philosophy, and intellectual history? Those are different matters. How the latter interacts with the former (politics) in mass society requires different methods than deductive logic to grasp. Peikoff is far too reductionist to deal competently with American politics, as seen by how often his prognostications have proved completely wrong.
While intellectual historian David Gordon has done pointed work in showing how Peikoff repeatedly gets important thinkers like J S Mill and Herbert Spencer wrong, you can get a feel for the types of errors Piekoff makes in a few short blog posts by Greg Nyquist:
“The Intellectual Sources of Peikoff’s Ominous
Parallels”
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2007/05/intellectual-sources-of-peikoffs.html
And questioning Peikoff’s idee fix that ideas determine the course of history:
http://aynrandcontrahumannature.blogspot.com/2009/02/taking-ideas-seriously-pt-1.html
Which quotes Gordon on “The Ominous Parallels:” “Peikoff gives us a history of philosophy with the arguments left out.”
In short, Peikoff tortures intellectual history to divine political consequences much like how Noam Chomsky re-arranges facts to suit his various anti-American and anti-capitalist agendas: questionably, if not simply dishonestly.
To put my point differently, any handful of Ayn Rand’s pieces on American mass society are far more penetrating and veridical than almost the entirety of Peikoff’s.
Orson:
Accusing me of “comparing William Shirer’s time to ours” does nothing to enhance YOUR credibility. I explicitly did not compare William Shirer’s time to ours. I wrote that Nazism was:
In other words: Nazism and Germany in the 20s-30s was a particular, idiosyncratic time with certain conditions that do not necessarily resemble ours. However, it is very instructive to study how different tyrannies, in different times and places, arise, and see whether there are commonalities that can be instructive in telling us what to watch out for. That is actually true of all tyrannies, and it’s one of the main reasons we study history.
The first book I recommended does just that. The second book does it for America and Nazi Germany. Neither recommendation represents an endorsement of everything in it—they are merely recommendations for books that treat the subject in a way that makes many interesting points, some of which I agree with and some of which I disagree with. I often recommend reading books I find interesting for various reasons, without writing entire posts on exactly what points of agreement and disagreement I have with them.
I feel like I just sat through a graduate-level political science seminar.
Thanks everyone – lots to consider going forward.
And Happy New Year to all.
Ha!
you want to hear a non poly-sci version of what law abiding,working class, blue clollar, beer drinking, gun loving, Harley riding Americans of various colors think is a good analogy for Trumps appeal….?
“You’ve been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement. You want them gone immediately so you hire a guy.
A pro.
You don’t care if the guy smells, you need those raccoons gone pronto and he’s the guy to do it! You don’t care if the guy swears, you don’t care if he’s an alcoholic, you don’t care how many times he’s been married, you don’t care if he voted for Obama, you don’t care if he has plumber’s crack…you simply want those raccoons gone! You want your problem fixed!
He’s the guy.
He’s the best.
Period.
That’s why Trump. Yes he’s a bit of an ass, yes he’s an egomaniac, but you don’t care. The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republican Party is two-faced & gutless, illegal’s are everywhere. You want it all fixed! You don’t care that Trump is crude, you don’t care that he insults people, you don’t care that he had been friendly with Hillary, you don’t care that he has changed positions, you don’t care that he’s been married 3 times, you don’t care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O’Donnell, you don’t care that he doesn’t know the name of some Muslin terrorist,…this country is weak, bankrupt, our enemies are making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegal’s, we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo and Hamid is a special group with special rights to a point where we don’t even recognize the country we were born and raised in; “AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED” and Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want. You’re sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, and sick of illegal’s. You just want this thing fixed. Trump may not be a saint, but doesn’t have lobbyist money holding him, he doesn’t have political correctness restraining him, all you know is that he has been very successful, a good negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he’s also not a politician, he’s not a cowardly politician. And he says he’ll fix it.
You don’t care if the guy has bad hair.
You just want those raccoons gone.
Out of your house.
Now”
Over.