I mean, yeah, this guy is wrong for thinking Trump will keep us out of wars, and the idea that you would vote for someone you think it like Hitler to stop new wars is both contradictory and morally reprehensible. But I've heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that's bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That's a big shift that's occurred in my lifetime, and it's worth examining.
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But I’ve heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that’s bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That’s a big shift that’s occurred in my lifetime, and it’s worth examining.
Because they're idiots?
Every major war started in my lifetime (including the "war on drugs") was started by Republicans.
The Democratic party is the party of complacency, I'll grant them that, and we were in wars for several administrations that Republicans started. So it's hard for their donkey brains to remember when and why the wars started and when they ended. A lot of people think that Obama was in office when 9/11 happened. The country is full of idiots.
I think you can't approch it from a party line issue. People want to see it in fact as action for the candidates, and at least right now Biden dropped the ball on Isreal badly. He should have put harsh levers on Isreal to get them out of Gaza quickly, Ukraine is a more complicated problem, but the US should focus more on ending conflicts quickly rather than let them drag on forever. But that takes real policy and leadership.
It's because they aren't. Clinton and Gore were 100% interventionist, and had no issues with preemptive war, some accused Clinton of starting a war to boost his popularity. Kerry was anti war historically, but pragmatic on Iraq, Hillary again with Bill not at all anti war-->
Obama's military adittude was ''a Democrat can't say no to the military'' and allowed whatever the joint chiefs wanted, which is never going to be anti war. And Biden was the same. Harris clearly not anti war either. Trump says he is, and that's more anti war than any Dem in my lifetime. Can he effectively govern for war reduction? No. He's an idiot, and liar. But he's selling it.
Being "pragmatic on Iraq" turned off a lot of the left. Ralph Nader's running mate, Peter Camejo, remarked at the time "Kerry isn't Bush Lite. He's Bush Smart! We do not need a smarter Bush!" Apparently the electorate agreed, because W. Bush went on to win a second term.
In times past, I was fascinated by Hitler and WW2. It was a lifelong obsession that I had since childhood. But ever since the Trump era started it started to wane due to the fact that WW2 and Hitler just didn't seem so distant anymore... the world felt like a repeat of what was happening in those days and looking up facts felt, in part, like learning more to understand what is happening now instead of about history.
But if there is something that I need to point out is that Hitler was a SHIT leader. Germans and Germany ever since the Kaiser era were portrayed as hyperefficient and militaristic, and people then claim the Nazis were the same. They weren't. Nazi bureaucracy was bullshit and most of their economic growth was based on plunder (initially from German Jews and other marginalized groups and later from other countries) and almost purely military build up. Germany actually lagged behind in technological build-up to most countries, despite the stereotypes of the Wunderwaffen of WW2 (Fritz-X bomb, the ME-262, etc), and industrially as any technology that didn't have a direct military benefit was discarded. They didn't even have any proper anti-biotics during the war!
Even agriculture was fucked by the Germans. Despite the romanticization of the German peasantry and the countryside by the Nazis, they could not sustain their population at all. Most German food was imported, and they were preparing their population for harsh wartime rationing even before the war started. They fed their population almost entirely on stolen food from Poland, France, the Netherlands, and Ukraine. Also by killing a lot of people in the death camps they saved on food that way as well.
People stereotype communist countries as having no food when they don't realize that fascist nations just can't feed their own folk. Nazi Germany wasn't alone in having serious food problems. Imperial Japan couldn't feed its own population and would have had widespread hunger if they didn't start plundering China during the war.
Hitler lead Germans and Germany into death and destruction and misery and mayhem. He did nothing good for Germany. None at all. Even towards the end of the war he would have been OK with the German people being genocided since if they were defeated by the barbarian orc-like Soviets and the mongrel Americans they were not the master race he thought they were and they deserved to die. There is a reason why he is remembered as one of the world's greatest monsters.
I see where you're coming from. Perhaps not as obsessed, but I always had a historical interest in the era until it became an alarming parallel to present day news. Most people do not know much about what went down in the pre-war period. They just have knee-jerk reactions to it. "Traditional values" were trending at the time, Nazism was marketed as the modern, cool choice. Education, administration and even scouting and chess clubs were Nazified at the time. I see it with the freaking MAGA hat everywhere nowadays. I just see it and say, fuck this is some Nazi Germany shit. To me now there are two kinds of people, those who see it, and those who don't. People are so precious thinking that Germans went nuts with the mass murder shit and elected this guy, but themselves have been on the exact same track as Nazi Germany for years: idolizing a dangerous man without ever questioning him. Soon they will have no excuse either, only collective guilt. Some of us won't be here to see it though, for one reason or another. I have pointed this out in my other comment: once fascists get hold of the state apparatus, there is no horror we can put past them.
i think it's at least in part because we have always been taught to see Hitler as a monster instead of a person. We dehumanised him and the entire nazi party so much for many it sounds like a myth instead of history, the take away seems simple - just don't be a monster.
The lesson was - some people are born evil
Instead of - anybody can fall the wrong path and find themselves committing atrocities. Even your friends, even your family, even you
i've been saying this for a long time - Hitler wasn't a monster, he was human just like you and me, and that's a hundred times more terryfing
Indeed, dehumanization of the Nazis made most people think they are immune both to similar propaganda and similar atrocities. They think that Hitler advertised the Holocaust to be elected. It was a war time state secret (although there was the "Hitler's Prophecy" but no-one took it at face value).
Hitler regime rose to power with the now familiar rhetoric: traditional values, family, order, capitalism, down with the trans degenerates, beat up leftists they poison the blood of our country.
That is why Trump goes out so easily saying "Hitler mught have said that but in a very different way". He didn't. It was the same fucking way.
Having said that, consider how the "abstractio ad Hitlerum" advertized as a fallacy actually enabled, eventually, Trump to get away with Hitler shit, just by saying it is a fucking fallacy. (I think this is in turn called the "Fallacy fallacy") This timeline is history repeating itself as a farce, exactly as Marx predicted.
I remember in 2016 thinking how similar Trump was to Hitler and rhetoric and everything. I was written off is basically being nothing but hyperbole and physical form unfortunately I wasn't wrong which sucks
Done went from being the guy we'd kill if we had a time machine to the guy we voted for in less than a decade. Pretty impressive trick.
Ya know.... if I thought someone was literally Hitler, the last thing I'm gonna fucking do is help them literally have control of... everything.
It's such an alien thought process that I don't even know where I would begin with discussing politics with such a person.
This is the voter Kamala was supposed to sway with “better messaging”.
No, this is the voter she pissed off Dem voters for...
It didn't work out well if you've already forgotten.
If someone says trump is Hitler but they voted for him anyways...
Then he was already going to vote for trump, and chasing his vote just led to losing traditional Dem voters with literally no gain.
Moving to the right is political suicide, yet we keep doing it because that's how you max donations. And that's all the people running the party care about.
Everyone keeps looking for answers to why trump won. I keep coming back to media directed stupidity
And social media feeds.
How much you wanna bet this guy scrolls facebook a ton? Or listens to railing radio/podcasts on drives? This opinion didn't spawn from a vacuum.
They should be following up and asking him where he got those ideas.
Well, Hitler and the nazis were inspired by the USA...
Reference: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model
“I voted for the guy that I think is like Hitler to end conflicts and keep us out of wars.”
Did he not read the part where Hitler genocided Jews, Europeans, and the disabled?
Did he not read the part in history where Hitler caused a war so large that it wiped out entire European families, literally tens of millions of Europeans?
The white working class in this country is going to get everything they voted for. I hope Trump floods their neighborhoods with immigrants, LEGALLY.
Tell me you are a racist piece of shit without telling me you are a racist piece of shit.
I really believe that most Americans are dumb enough to be racist and just smart enough to know they shouldn't say it. I can't help but read all this apologism for Trump as thinly veiled, "I know he's a weird guy, but thank God someone is finally going to do something about all the people that look different than me".
"the greatest argument against democracy is a conversation with the average voter"
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot...I call BS on Wolfson's reasoning. The bastard is most likely a neo-Nazi shitbag and knew exactly what he wants out Putin's Sock Puppet.
Maybe he just meant all the good qualities of Hitler. Like the ones he used to get away with his evil fucking mass murder for so long.
Say what you will about that Hitler guy - but at least he did do a good thing or two, like killing Hitler!
Yeah that guy's a hero. The OG hero.
How many people can say they killed Hitler?
As a German, this the insane things our parents, grandparents and institutions warned us about. People begrudgingly accepted their lead in the hopes that "although it's an authoritarian, maybe he will take care of our goals". What followed was the cruelty of 1939 to 1945 and no one deserves to live through that, not even the idiots that got us in this mess.
Maybe, even if they hate him. Know he is bad. The one takeway is that they liked Kamala even less. It is combination of desperation and despise. If the Dems don't learn from this, they will repeat the same mistakes over and over. Pick someone likeable
No matter who Democrats pick they will always be painted as unlikeable, losers, and evil by Republicans. If you think picking a "likeable" candidate is the trick then you too have fallen for the endless Republican framing trap.
It's like people really believe America entered WW2 to fight fascism becaus Americans are innately good....
Large amounts of the country said the same shit this guy is. They wanted to either stay out of it or outright join the nazis.
Especially the wealthy. Prescott Bush was believed to be part of the Business Plot that wanted to overthrow the US government in favor of fascism and doing the Axis powers.
They didn't succeed (mostly because of Pearl Harbor) but his son became head of the CIA, VP, and then president. One of his sons also became president, and almost another one.
If we don't remember what history was really like, we're doomed to keep being surprised when the same shit keeps happening.
This is what happens when you systematically dismantle the public education system.
I'm beginning to see why he is a former construction worker.
This guy was fired for being obviously mentally unstable.
Dictators: famous for ending wars. We'll never learn how many wars could have been prevented if only all countries had authoritarian leaders, too bad it's never happened before.
Jackass and proud of it