No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument [of] the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say ‘Heil’ to him, nor will they call him ‘Führer’ or ‘Duce.’ But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of ‘O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!’
Dorothy Thompson (1935)
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We do not learn from history.
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No siree, we don’t. We don’t need no stinkin’ learnin’.
Dorothy Thompson, a remarkable woman, was one of many people who warned the world — or tried to — about the dangers of Hitler coming to power in Germany. She interviewed him in 1931 and this is how she described him (according to Wiki):
“He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the little man.”
Sounds like our Slippery Donny too, doesn’t it?
I’m reading Daniel Pick’s “The Pursuit of the Nazi Mind,” where he says this:
“Human nature could be changed for the worse, [Dorothy] Thompson warned. Hitler was the voice of ‘unreason’, screaming ‘to the accompaniment of a tom-tom of mechanized howls from a drilled mob—howls that seemed to come from the throats of ten thousand robots’. Thompson declared Hitler a psychopath, who used the threat of his own, future complete psychosis as a means of ensuring international compliance: infuriate him and he would go still crazier. Thompson warned of Hitler’s cynical calculations, as well as his ‘Napoleonic obsessions’, anti-Semitic ravings, and sadism. Nazism relied on, or in many cases engineered, the pathology of captive minds. Göring’s helpless addiction and crazy bombast, Röhm’s depravity, and Goebbels’ paranoia were all frequently cited in diagnostic assessment of Nazism during the 1930s. These qualities not only marked them as deficient people, but also found expression, so it was argued, in their warped political thought.”
And the parallels just keep piling up.
Nope, we are not learning. Not now, not then, not ever.
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One of my boys, who is 20, immediately noticed the similarities between Drumpf and Hitler. I for the life of me cannot understand how so many thousands of people can’t see it.
Now I should mention said boy happens to be a history buff of sorts. But I was certainly pleased to see that he has his eyes open. He finds religion a joke as well, so when he is released into the wild I will know I have done what I could. 🙂
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“…released into the wild…”
LOL!
Though this — the “wild” part — is actually more true than we often realize (although mothers know).
Yes, the blindness of so many people to what is, or should be, painfully, frighteningly obvious is really mind-boggling. Evidence of individual and collective denial with potentially lethal consequences.
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Shelldigger – I, too, appreciated that phrase, “When he’s released into the wild” – ha, ha. . .we’ve had four ‘released’. . .so far, so good.
I run into many young people on a daily basis (at the local High School) and am quite surprised – and pleased – at the number who are skeptics. I think it has to do with the idea that most teachers I know really work hard to promote critical thinking, and the fact that so many avenues for searching information are available to them.
I’m also Canadian, and have yet to run into anyone here (from students to adults) who do anything but laugh at the Trump shenanigans. Although I do agree with your psychological assessment of him, Emma, I feel that he hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell (not that I believe in it) of becoming your next President.
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“four released” — now that’s an accomplishment!
You Canadians are too gentle and civilized, I’m afraid, to appreciate the violent bloodlust that’s rising to the South of you.
I hope that cooler heads prevail and that this deeply pathological individual is not our next president, but I also know it is possible and probable.
If he does not become president, chances are he’s not going away from politics: having gotten a taste of ultimate power, he may continue to foment disorder on a national stage by starting his own party, for example.
It is not just Trump, though. There are millions of enraged people in America, mostly white men, who are itching for a fight and a wholesale destruction of our world order with its horrible liberal agenda — you know, feminism, pluralism, tolerance, and all that — and for whom Trump represents a chance to make these dreams a reality.
This is not just anger over economy and the elites’ misappropriation of power, although that looms large too. We are talking some fundamental destructive forces at play: misogyny, racism, xenophobia, seasoned with dreams of masculine glory and return to the old patriarchal order and religious purity (not unlike some of the main psychological motivations of ISIS). You know, all that “good” stuff that fuels the reactionary right everywhere in the world.
The manosphere, neo-Nazi, and white supremacy blogs have been abuzz about Trump’s presidency since the beginning of this election process. These guys are ready to put their rage into action the moment their Fuhrer nods his head approvingly (or even if not).
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