The Cult of Trump part 8 Godwin's Flaw 2

 

 




This is the direct sequel to the cult of Trump part 7 Godwin's Flaw. That should be read first. Really the entire series Cult of Trump ideally would be read in order.

This will include a few simple parallels to the methods Hitler and the Nazis used compared to the Methods Trump and his surrogates and supporters use.

It's not going to be all inclusive or comprehensive because honestly that could fill an entire large book.

Aside from the specific Hitler quotes I referenced in my last post, Godwin's Flaw, I can note similarities in Trump's actions and Hitler's.

Hitler: Used racism to rise to power
Trump: Used racism to rise to power
Hitler: Proposed mass deportations
Trump: Proposed mass deportations
Hitler: Promised to make Germany great again
Trump: Promised to make America great again
Hitler: Anti-Jew fascist
Trump: Anti-Muslim fascist
Hitler: Blames Jews for Germany's problems
Trump: Blames immigrants for America's problems
Hitler: Thought Jews should wear special IDs
Trump: Thinks Muslims should wear special IDs

Now this can be fleshed out a bit. Hitler blamed Jews for the loss of jobs in Germany and treated Jews as morally inferior. Trump blames immigrants for the loss of jobs of white men and has called Mexicans rapists and criminals and said they are bringing drugs. He's also at rallies stirred fears of refugees in local communities. He has stirred racial prejudices against black Americans by retweeting white supremacist memes and a long history of overt racism and extreme support for white supremacists and tacit approval for them or if pressed hard by the media repeatedly very meak and half hearted disavowals. His racism is extremely similar to Hitler's and he has tweaked his approach so he dare not be overtly antisemitic and has shifted to the far more socially vulnerable groups Muslims and immigrants, specifically Latino immigrants.

Hitler promised deportation that turned into forced labor and extermination. The holocaust is obviously a very important and historic event in genocide history. It stands out in many ways.

Trump like Hitler has announced in his recent 60 Minutes interview that he can round up,  IMPRISON and hold two to three million immigrants he called criminals. But it's a vagueness trick. Criminal can be used to describe ANYONE in the country without legal permission.

Under current law ANYONE can be apprehended, imprisoned and held in indefinite detention forever with no trial, no charges, no record of the arrest, and no access to attorneys or family or anyone else.

If Trump had immigrants, or anyone else, rounded up and forced into involuntary labor it would be slavery and could become permanent. Trump said in his interview that he could imprison the immigrants until we get the border situation straightened out. That means forever.

It's like banning Muslims until we figure out what the hell is going on. That's indefinite.

Hitler claimed to have Jews rounded up for labor camps that in reality were extermination death camps. If Trump would dare go that far I am not absolutely certain. I believe he would dearly want to but might fear discovery with modern technology making hiding death camps too difficult.

But just think about it. First Trump monitors Muslims and rounds up some immigrants. He might even wisely start with a few hundred or thousand actual criminals. He would cherry pick the very worst he could and put vivid and graphic images of them up with a constant narrative of their bloody crimes. Just a half dozen rapists and murderers would do.

He can get a consensus that taking these people off the streets is good. Then take more immigrants, and more then it becomes normal. Just like how Jews in Germany gradually lost jobs and property and rights. Each step was a slightly bigger compromise.

So Trump can take the true criminal immigrants, then more immigrants. Then Muslims that he says either are criminals or terrorists or have terrorist ties or sympathies or radical beliefs or dangerous potential. He probably wouldn't take all these groups outright at once. Take a few, then more, then more, then after a while we stop paying attention.

Eventually ALL Muslims and Mexican immigrants that he chooses get rounded up and put in prison indefinitely, if you listen to Trump's own statements.

The statements and the past actions of Hitler are obviously about as similar as they can be on this point if you take into account that outright antisemitism isn't socially acceptable enough for Trump to have outwardly pursued and advanced in the republican party. Even they would have cast him out, so he went for the socially acceptable targets for scapegoating now in America of Muslims, Mexican immigrants and to a degree black Americans.

He has admitted to being open to making Muslims wear special IDs and monitoring Mosques and banning all Muslims from other countries from entering the US. His supporters recently sited internment camps as legal precedent to support their plans. That's about as obvious as possible without outright saying we are following Hitler's plan and committing genocide as a final solution.

They are really just one step away in their rhetoric, but can act like it's absurd for anyone to compare them to Hitler if it comes up. It's not said in polite company, but a reporter ignoring obvious facts to seem polite is foolish. Most media just won't dare to explore the very relevant similarities.

There are many other similarities. Hitler blamed Jews for the humiliation of losing World War I. He stirred the desire to regain honor by winning. Trump shocked republicans by bringing up the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and said they were terrible blunders by George W Bush. People thought it was to criticize Jeb Bush and eliminate him from the republican primary race.

It actually wasn't. It was so Trump could say we have been humiliated and can't win anymore. It was so he could use the simple image of World War II and sat we used to always win wars and now we can't win any ever. It was meant to resonate with a nostalgic spirit for the forties and fiftees. To make the America before the sixties seem better.

That's a multi layered approach. It knocked out Jeb Bush, but Trump could have easily crushed him. He was a bully in the debates and effectively destroyed him by talking over him and labeling him as low energy. It stuck and Jeb had no answer simple enough to stick in voter's minds.

Trump picked the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as a way to zero in on the fifties and forties as a golden age to return to without having to clearly say it.

If he said it or was pressed by the press and named a year of greatness to return to it would have been something a serious examination of would have forced Trump into a corner.

He would have had to discuss civil rights in depth, gay rights, abortion, and the much, much higher tax rates both corporations and wealthy individuals have had to pay. Several analyses have claimed corporations paid about three times the taxes they pay now in the fifties and wealthy individuals paid at the top tax rate over ninety percent of their income. That's not something Trump could have admitted was great. And he certainly dared not say he would pursue it. Republicans would never accept it. And no corporations or billionaires would tolerate it.

So, like Hitler he used vague claims to stir passionate images of an earlier America that actually never was.

Without saying it Trump stirred visions of a time white male Christians had everything set up for them. Best opportunity for jobs. Best opportunity for religious expression. In any conflicts usually the white male Christians could rely on the law and authorities to support their values.

In the Jim Crow South whites had dominance over everyone else. Women accepted a lower position in class than men and above minorities. Religious minorities were often treated as second or third or fourth class citizens and many would hide being Jewish or atheists as examples to limit discrimination.

The similarities in his propaganda techniques and beliefs to Hitler's are initially striking and upon long examination they are far too similar to be coincidence.

It's just not rational to call two things that are so close unrelated. Trump didn't spontaneously acquire dozens of methods and ideas that are the exact ones Hitler used or slightly tweaked ones by random chance. It's an unsupportable claim.

The big thing is understanding Trump has a vision for the future. This isn't random or a half hearted effort. He wants a pure white America. He wants white male Christians to rule everything and everyone else to be either eliminated or removed or subservient to the ruling straight, white, male Christians.

He has already laid the groundwork with his rhetoric for rounding up Muslims eventually, Latinos immediately, and black Americans with racial profiling, aggressive stop and frisk policing nationwide and packing private prisons to effectively enslave black and Latino Americans. He will pursue long sentences and the decline of rights.

He will pursue opening up libel laws to oppose critics and crack down on activists and journalists.

He will have a hard time with the current internet, but he will certainly try. He has millions of critics online. That's something he may never overcome.

Because once he starts censorship or arrests of protesters and journalists the news will get out and a true resistance will spring up. It's inevitable. With millions of critics and already hundreds of thousands of people have marched in protests. They keep coming out and scheduling more and bigger protests. Different groups are uniting to oppose Trump.

He won't like it and even if we have domestic terrorism that justifies a police state he can't cut off the negative information that millions and millions of people already have regarding him.

It's quite different than Nazi Germany. Even if Trump took over all media on TV, in newspapers and seized the internet somehow people would know it and just the change from a media packed with criticism of every possible view would be an inescapable fact that would prove Trump has established a totalitarian state. The lack of free media would spark open revolt. I am not saying an army would form and fight battles with the US military. That would be suicide. It's more likely weapons would be used in an assassination attempt on Trump and perhaps his inner circle.

It's debatable whether you see killing a US president as acceptable under any circumstances. It's a personal matter. I am merely saying I believe someone would make a serious effort or efforts. If suicide bombers were employed it would make protecting Trump extremely challenging. I don't love the tactic of suicide bombers personally, but understand desperate people may use it.

I think Trump has the very real challenge that he has literally millions of people in the US that ALREADY see him as a fascist and obvious Hitler knockoff. With that population to start with he can't round up half the population and enslave or liquidate them in a speedy manner. He knows that.

He has the problem that video evidence and his own words often show he is lying so getting even half the population to believe he is honest is unlikely. People have simply seen too much already.

Through the eight years under Barack Obama as president his critics were free to criticize him and did so ruthlessly. They had a constant PR campaign against him for eight years on Fox news, right wing radio and innumerable websites and newspapers.

He let them lie, lie, lie and give valid criticism too. So, if one day under the FCC or some other government control ALL criticism of Trump and reporting on his lies and acts was to disappear it would be obvious. If his most famous critics like Lawrence O'Donnell and Stephen Colbert disappeared it would be clear what happened.

I believe Trump will try to con people. He will try to seem cooperative and reasonable enough to get his programs authorized. He will try to get the absolute furthest right candidates in his cabinet and in departments of the US government. He wants people with no conscience regarding white supremacy or extermination of Muslims. No one with any compassion regarding prisoners or casualties.

He has already appointed a veritable who's who of racists and bigots. His enemies will be the internet, the normalcy of free speech, the omnipresent video of events, the awareness of his authoritarian, racist, anti Muslim and whites first policies.

Not everyone will see the clear connection to Hitler and the unity of their visions of racial purity. But millions already see enough that Trump can never reeducate them into believing something else. Not in any efficient and timely manner.

His age at seventy years old and his term of four years or eight if he's reelected also limit his opportunities. Fortunately some people have claimed Trump constantly eats junk food and doesn't exercise. I certainly hope he doesn't live another thirty years ruling America.

I recently read an article in which the author suggested Trump will find a reason to cancel the next election. If that happens the revolution will come in earnest. Taking out the entire military is impossible and a short suicide mission. No one would pursue it. It's far more likely a small direct strike would occur. If Trump cancelled the election he probably would go to a secure military location and hole up.

I don't know if he will cancel elections or stay in power after eight years. A more covert act would be to select a successor with the same Nazi ideology and simply rig the election so republicans stay in power for generations. Though again, it's hard to find Nazis. They don't take ads in the paper saying "secret Nazi seeking government to take over."

If worst comes to worst Trump passing away from natural causes could end his reign and inevitability survivors of his horror would live to tell the tale. Presuming he doesn't destroy us with a nuclear holocaust or climate catastrophe.

It's so bizarre to realize the new reality is living in a fascist state under a totalitarian regime ruled by a white supremacist in the mold of Hitler with in my opinion genocidal aspirations. He has a government filled with people that think he's either good, someone they can work with or an incompetent conman that won't amount to much. Even some opponents like Bernie Sanders in my opinion may know he has Nazi or white supremacist goals but they are severely underestimating his intelligence, skill at propaganda and ruthlessness. It's part of how he became president elect.

I think he's effectively conned virtually everyone in the government. Ironically some other white supremacists in the government have studied Hitler's speeches in detail and the culture and customs of white supremacists and realize Trump IS undoubtedly one of them.

There's a longstanding practice of not publicly admitting things but skirting around them that white supremacists know and follow. It's a way to signal each other but not inform others that one is a white supremacist. It's their own code.

They learn it and it's practiced by KKK members and white supremacists in the Southern US and other places with high white supremacist populations.

A few reporters have noted these subtle signals and been ignored by Trump. That's part of the culture. If someone calls you out and you can ignore them then ignore them so your words can't be used against you. The reporter can't take the long road of teaching white supremacist culture in a short segment or even a whole show. It lacks concision. The quality of being described in a few minutes or seconds.

Hitler relied on the phenomenon of incredulity to hide his true intention.

“If you cannot recognize the signs of Hitlerian Power, if you do not know how to counter their efforts, if you remain confused and uncertain as your opponent makes his moves, step by step with decisiveness and intention, and your inaction allows him to come closer to power, then you have already lost and they have won, for they know the rules of the game and you do not.” 
― Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf

Hitler in my opinion relied on reverse projection. In literature on narcissism and sociopaths reverse projection describes the deadly error normal people make of projecting their own qualities onto others that are not normal. Specifically narcissists and sociopaths as examples.

A normal person can think a Hitler or Trump has a conscience, empathy, compassion, humility or basic human decency and with those incorrect assumptions make fundamentally flawed judgments about a Trump or Hitler from there on. Hitler made certain that by the time aspects of his true desires were exposed it was far too late to use reason or government checks and balances to stop him.

Trump knows ALL OF THIS. The reassuring assumption that Trump is stupid because he uses a limited vocabulary in public is unfortunately untrue. It's a calculated tactic to appear stupid to critics and appeal to the masses and the stupidest Americans by speaking to them AT their level of understanding.

His obvious lies he can be caught in are not proof of stupidity either. By working the press and public he has created an us versus them mentality in his followers. They either deny his lies or say you need to look past his words or some other special excuse that sets aside contradictions and negative information about Trump.

That's obviously cult like, but how many hard core cult followers he has is still hard to say. It's a complex issue. He certainly doesn't have even half the country as only about eighteen percent of Americans voted for him and certainly not all of them are in a cultic relationship.

I sincerely hope something prevents Trump and his successors from carrying out his plans. Even if we get lucky and the electoral college members grow backbone and reject Trump as unsuitable and it holds up in court or Trump gets impeached and convicted early into his reign or simply has a heart attack or other natural death in his first few months or even before his inauguration several problems remain. His supporters are going to be a huge source of trouble for generations to come. If Trump carries out his oppressive and fascist policies a segment of the population would treat this as the new normal. It will be difficult to turn back from that. Additionally outside the halls of power his followers have reportedly committed hundreds of hste crimes against Jews,women, black Americans, Muslims, Latinos, gay people, trans people and others since Trump won the election. It's barely been a week.

White supremacists are a terrorist threat to America and likely to be ignored under Trump. An administration after Trump would be criticized if they seriously pursue white supremacists as terrorists or criticized if they don't. It's going to be a tough road for anyone. Obviously I would prefer a very serious and relentless effort to stamp out white supremacists that becomes a routine action.

No matter what happens I feel that people that oppose the totalitarian and oppressive policies Trump seeks to pursue and his vision of a pure white supremacist America have a serious challenge ahead. It's going to be difficult. Difficult to pursue, difficult to stay optimistic and committed. Difficult to achieve. Perhaps many of us won't live to see Trump stopped. But we have to live what life we have left knowing his intentions and knowing our own choices. That's the real challenge. To live with yourself when morally challenged. This challenge is extreme. But we at least have the history of Germany and Hitler to look at. And our own hearts to look into.