?Explaining Hitler? author breaks silence: Trump uses ?Mein Kampf playbook? to normalize tyranny
 

Historian Ron Rosenbaum spoke out this week about how President Donald Trump is using Adolf Hitler?s ?playbook? from Mein Kampf for undermining democracy.

In a recent column for Los Angeles Review of Books, the author of Explaining Hitler breaks his silence about the recent U.S. election, and about how the ?normalization? of Trump is strikingly similar to the Nazi Party?s march to power.

?What I want to suggest is an actual comparison with Hitler that deserves thought,? he writes. ?It?s what you might call the secret technique, a kind of rhetorical control that both Hitler and Trump used on their opponents, especially the media.?

According to Rosenbaum, Trump is using the Mien Kampf ?playbook? to throw the media off balance and to normalize actions and statements that would have been unthinkable just months ago.

?It looked like the right-wing parties had been savvy in bringing [Hitler] in and ?normalizing? him, making him a figurehead for their own advancement,? Rosenbaum notes. ?Instead, it was truly the stupidest move made in world politics within the memory of mankind. It took only a few months for the hopes of normalization to be crushed.?

?Hitler?s method was to lie until he got what he wanted, by which point it was too late,? the column continues. ?There is, of course, no comparison with Trump in terms of scale. His biggest policy decisions so far have been to name reprehensible figures to various cabinet posts and to enact dreadful executive orders. But this, too, is a form of destruction. While marchers and the courts have put up a fight after the Muslim ban, each new act, each new lie, accepted by default, seems less outrageous. Let?s call it what it is: defining mendacity down.?

Rosenbaum suggests that the signs were there before Trump took office: ?The way Trump?s outrageous conduct and shamelessly lying mouth seemed so ridiculous we wouldn?t have to take him seriously. Until we did.?

We had heard allegations that Trump kept Hitler?s speeches by his bedside, but somehow we normalized that. We didn?t take him seriously because of all the outrageous, clownish acts and gaffes we thought would cause him to drop out of the race. Except these gaffes were designed to distract. This was his secret strategy, the essence of his success ? you can?t take a stand against Trump because you don?t know where Trump is standing. You can?t find him guilty of evil, you can?t find him at all. And the tactics worked. Trump was not taken seriously, which allowed him to slip by the normal standards for an American candidate. The mountebank won. Again.

Suddenly, after the inconceivable (and, we are now beginning to realize, suspicious) Trump victory, the nation was forced to contend with what it would mean, whether the ?alt-right? was a true threat or a joke to be tolerated. Did it matter that Trump had opened up a sewer pipe of racial hatred? Once again, normalization was the buzzword.

The historian concludes by recalling the final months of the Munich Post ? before it was shut down by Hitler.

?The era of normalization had begun everywhere else, but the Munich Post resisted,? he writes. ?Soon their office was closed. Some of the journalists ended up in Dachau, some ?disappeared.? But they?d won a victory for truth. A victory over normalization.?

?They never stopped fighting the lies, big and small, and left a record of defiance that was heroic and inspirational,? Rosenbaum states. ?They discovered the truth about ?endlösung? [the Nazi plan for the extermination of the Jews] before most could have even imagined it. The truth is always worth knowing. Support your local journalist.?

Jews, Gypsies, Communists
Muslims, Mexicans ... (to be added Chinese?)
All infidels ...

Using hate to get political power is old hat.

Trump is hardly unique in doing this. ISIS is using the same play book too. Ironic ...

I think that guy is giving Trump too much credit...or Hitler for that matter. He's correct about what they each did, and what took place, but their behavior is inherent to their nature as sociopaths -- not some calculated plan. It's just what they do and it comes naturally.

Trump is successful not because he's super smart...it's because he's a natural born slimeball who knows no boundaries. That goes a long way in life.

I agree, but it is well known Trump is an admirer of Hitler, just as he is with Putin, Kim Jong-un, Filipino leader Rodrigo Duterte and every other well known dictator. I don't think the danger Trump presents should be underestimated.

he admires them because he's a bird of the same feather. Not because he's a student of their actions.

It's kind of like the people who admire Trump. They do it because they're pieces of shit too and couldn't recognize a person with integrity and class if he rented space up their ass. It's not their fault...it just makes perfect sense to like an asshole if you're also an asshole who agrees with their asshole views.

i think i explained the same thing already a week ago that they are using rethoric techniques what are well known from hitler and goebbels and what are still well known in the enviroment of scientology and and other mind manipulating sects and they are absolutely the same techniques used by all dictators in the world.

i don´t know if this trump voters are just not educated enough to understand that or if they think they will be invited to heaven.

i really like to understand that because it is SO obvious that i can not believe in a simple mental accident.

So the biased historian uses the 'tyranny' shtick, like i have seen some other hack do on TV once, to describe Trump.

Where is this hitorians comparison of the hundreds of thousands of fascist, racist, violent thugs who are 100% against freedom of speech, want the elected president dead, undermine democracy and prefer a dictatorship?

i don´t want him dead - i just want him in another white house with a lot of cute nurses around him who give him all care he needs.
And I wish he would get well again soon.

ahhhh a fresh beehive of dumb libs, once again flinging the hitler card. :1orglaugh

when the holocaust analogy comes in (because trump supports charter schools) libs are gonna have to up their game. start comparing him to satan!

:1orglaugh

This is quite some historian. He claims the Munich Post newspaper discovered the truth about 'The Final Solution', the extermination of the European Jewry. The Munich Post was shut down by Hitler is 1933 - it is well documented that The Final Solution wasn't conceived until long after the war started, a DECADE later.

Educate yourself.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%BCnchener_Post

This is the fourth great crisis in American history, We had the Revolution. We had the Civil War. We had the Great Depression and World War II. This is the great Fourth Turning in American history, and we?re going to be one thing on the other side.

Major crises happen in about 80- or 100-year cycles, And somewhere over the next 10 or 20 years, we?re going to come through this crisis, and we?re either going to be the country that was bequeathed to us or it?s going to be something that?s completely or totally different.

The Judeo-Christian West is collapsing It?s imploding. And it?s imploding on our watch. And the blowback of that is going to be tremendous.

These are all Steve Bannon past quotes as he is totally convinced of the Fourth Turning thesis...if you don't know what it is...just think Apocalypse...or Google it ..he truly believes this shit

"ahhhh a fresh beehive of dumb libs" :1orglaugh:1orglaugh:thumbsup

sorry also you have to study german history.
the word "endlösung" (final solution) was already a metapher since LONG BEFORE WW ONE !!!

it was created in england as the "jewish question" in 1750. since 1789 in france as "la question juive". in germany the jewish question" appeard first time in 1843 and in 1881 the german radicalist Eugen Dühring called it in an essay "the final solution of the jewish question". so it was existing LONG before hitler was even born and came from england.

Speaking of scientology, did you know L. Ron Hubert commanded a Navy ship during ww2 and was assigned to guard the west coast from subs..

He was removed from command because he shelled Mexico.. He also claimed to have sunk two German Uboats which was later proven to be a lie..

It's sort of amazing these crazy fucks can manage to move themselves into power positions.

Meantime in JoshuaG's basement ...

Donald Trump ran arguably the most successful campaign in history. America chose him to do EXACTLY what he is doing!!!!!

Everything has been within the law. No undermining democracy. And that muzzie travel ban ruling will be overturned shortly.

lol we get it...Trump is worse than Hitler!

Can we move on now?

i did not know but it fits to the person al ron hubbart and scientologiy.
he was a great liar and he learned the techniques how to brainwash people, take all their money and teached them say "thank you" after he took all.

trump is even a bit smarter because he was able to find 10 times more brainwashies in just one country as scientology found in the whole world.

there is really NOTHING to add to this article. i really do not often agree with spiegel-articles 100% but with this one i agree 1000%.

DynaMo, wake up from your brainwashing. The man lost the popular vote by 3 million people. It was hardly the most successful campaign ever. The only reason he won, is because Hillary was worse than him.

This election was between a retard and a crippled. The retard won.

He was running against the GOP, the Democrats, the establishment and the mainstream media and won in a total landslide. He also spent very little money

It was the greatest presidential campaign in history

same hitler did

Remember that America is the Land that Elected a professional wrestler (Jesse Ventura) and a German-born Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) as Governors, a Jewish comedian as Senator (Al Franken), and Ronald Reagan the Alzheimers actor as both Governor and President.

America is dumb as shit sometimes.

Next up: Jay-Z for VP!!