Category: Adolph HItler

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Whenever I despair about Donald Trump he does something that reminds me he has absolutely no fixed ideas on how the world should look. He has authoritarian instincts but his only vision about the future is how he, and maybe his family, make out financially. Unlike Hitler, Mao and Stalin, he doesn’t want to eliminate the Jews or bring about a Communist Revolution. He wants to line his pocket book in any way possible. This makes him wildly inconsistent and difficult to gauge.

So, I was oddly comforted when I heard Donald Trump wants to make Venezuela the 51st State. Venezuela has a population somewhere between Texas and California — roughly 30 million Spanish speaking people? The very people who he wants to stop at the Mexican border and is having ICE round up in cities across the nation. He now wants to make them citizens.

I am not sure what Trump sees. I suspect he sees a cut of the oil revenue from Venezuela. On the other hand, I see 2 Democratic senators and a large Democratic delegation in Congress. I see an even larger Spanish speaking population — perhaps doubling the number in one fell swoop. It makes no sense particularly to his White Christian Nationalist friends. It is baffling position to take.

But,OK, until I can see a good reason to oppose statehood for Venezuela, you can bet I going to support statehood perhaps quietly until it passes.

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I was talking with my brother about the Hitler/Trump comparison and I always end up in the same place. Trump just isn’t Hitler. Not even close. It is an impossible measurement. Hitler is one of the all time champion dictatorial monsters. Valid comparisons to Hitler are Stalin and Mao but Trump falls short in this competition. Way way short.

This doesn’t mean Trump isn’t dangerous, he just fails to match Hitler.

I think the Hitler comparison comes about because Hitler’s rule was so disastrous for the entire world. A lot of people died directly and indirectly during his rampage through history. He is the worst case scenario. Hitler is meant to scare people. But because Trump isn’t nearly as bad as Hitler the comparison fails to accomplish this task and might even be counter productive.

The danger of this comparison is that people will judge the comparison as faulty and dismiss the argument.

The real problem, as my brother pointed out, is that Trump is crossing lines that are intolerable in democracy. He is arresting people and taking over countries with very thin pretexts. He is condemning people to death without trial. He thinks the president can do anything he wants. He is no longer playing by the rules of American democracy so when is it all right for people who disagree with him to stop playing by those rules.

This is a much more difficult proposition and one we need to be very careful about. Political violence is terrible because once it starts, all bets are off. Once the bodies pile up, things get pretty bloody awfully fast. I, personally, would like to avoid that if at all possible. I may be wrong but I still think we aren’t at a point to stop playing by the rules.

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Elon Musk has compared Justin Trudeau to Hitler so we can all take hims a little less seriously. Any time that someone compares a person to Hitler you pretty much know that they stopped making sense and that all reasonable argument with this person is done. Musk believes Trudeau is Hitler because Trudeau mandated COVID vaccinations and declared a national emergency due to the truckers blocking Canadian roads and bridges.

While Trudeau has been behaving like Hitler, Canada still has a functioning legislature and a vocal opposition leader who daily challenges Trudeau. Canadian Courts are functioning. The truckers, as a matter of fact, are still actively protesting. He has not shut down opposition presses. Nobody has been sent to a concentration camp. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, there are no concentration camps yet in Canada at all. Canada still hasn’t invaded Poland or started a world war. But give Hitler, I mean Trudeau time, I am sure this will all happen in time.

Trudeau is trying to clear the roads and bridges that some protesters have blocked. These trucker’s actions are illegal and Canada’s government has every right to remove them. Now you may disagree with Trudeau about the vaccine mandates. Protest away, Trudeau isn’t stopping you unless you are blocking public thoroughfares. Trudeau maybe many things but Hitler is not one of them.

And just so you know, I feel the same way about Donald Trump. Trump may have some fascist tendencies but they pale when compared to Hitler. Until January 6, Trump worked through democratic institutions to get what he wanted. Those institutions held firm, resisted his actions and thwarted him. Even though he thought he was wronged and still complains about it, he left the White House on inauguration day and Biden became President. It wasn’t pretty and he behaved badly but he failed spectacularly to meet the high standards of evil that would merit a comparison to Hitler. It is, as it should be, a difficult standard to meet. The best example of someone who deserves the Hitler comparison is Pol Pot of Cambodia. Pol Pot rounded up his opponents, set up camps to house them and killed millions of Cambodians who’s only crime may have been possessing a college degree. Trudeau isn’t even Pol Pot at this point much less Hitler.

You have to ascend to a certain level of evil to deserve a Hitler comparison. Most people never come close. Trudeau is not Hitler. Trump is not Hitler. Instead of laying out a more nuanced argument, Musk resorted to name calling in the hopes that this comparison would move his audience to a quick agreement that something must be done about our local tyrant. I am afraid it only weakens whatever argument he was trying to make because, really, if you think Justin Trudeau is Hitler then what else can he be wrong about?