[Politics] Donald Trump, US President

Cotton Socks said:

Zeb, I don't think that anyone is trying to 'down play' the Holocaust or Nazi Germany.
I think it's being used as a 'reference point' of history to demonstrate how quickly things can turn to complete & utter shit when people sleepwalk into the belief of the propaganda.
Trump is spouting the propaganda, history suggests that people will believe it and be on 'his side', we don't have many things to compare Trumps actions to, aside from history.
You are right that there is no comparison to the horror inflicted through the Holocaust, but that is the only potential historical reference in the western world to portray views as to the way people feel things are heading now.

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SouthSaxon said:

I’m sorry, but you are unwittingly making Zeb’s point for him. There are dozens of authoritarian regimes in the world today doing similar, or worse, than the US. Most of them wouldn’t come to mind easily because our news doesn’t cover them, but surely Russia, North Korea, China, Afghanistan aren’t that difficult. Link here to the annual report produced by Freedom House.

Historically, even if we limit ourselves to Western nations, we could reach for Franco’s Spain or Mussolini’s Italy. Salazar’s Portugal is another, non-fascist, dictatorship.

That Nazi Germany feels like the only reference point just highlights the paucity of education on history that we receive.

To our knowledge, the Trump administration has yet to murder any journalists, something Putin has been doing for 20 years or more. So it wouldn’t even be correct to say the US “is as bad as” that regime at this point.

Besides, Zeb has asked multiple times that people stop replying to him on this. We’re past the point when it’s time to respect that.

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Bakero said:

Good points, well made. I don't think Franco or Salazar, nor their regimes, are particularly analogous to Trump though. Mussolini is probably the best comparison if we're picking a 20th century dictator. Populist rise, cult of personality, the one true saviour, national greatness, media savvy, dismantling of institutions etc

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SouthSaxon said:

Perhaps, but personally I don’t find it helpful to pick one. There are points of comparison to be found in lots of places, which offers a broader perspective. They are all unique in their own ways, including Trump.

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SouthSaxon said:

I’m sorry, but you are unwittingly making Zeb’s point for him. There are dozens of authoritarian regimes in the world today doing similar, or worse, than the US. Most of them wouldn’t come to mind easily because our news doesn’t cover them, but surely Russia, North Korea, China, Afghanistan aren’t that difficult. Link here to the annual report produced by Freedom House.

Historically, even if we limit ourselves to Western nations, we could reach for Franco’s Spain or Mussolini’s Italy. Salazar’s Portugal is another, non-fascist, dictatorship.

That Nazi Germany feels like the only reference point just highlights the paucity of education on history that we receive.

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SouthSaxon said:

Perhaps, but personally I don’t find it helpful to pick one. There are points of comparison to be found in lots of places, which offers a broader perspective. They are all unique in their own ways, including Trump.

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Han Solo said:

I'm 100% in agreement with this, but if you want to make many people understand easily, you kind of have to compare it to a dictatorship people have knowledge of.. because of the reason you mention. Which pretty much leaves us with Hitler and Stalin if you want to get the point across to most people.

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Hugo Rune said:

A key driver of the Nazi-MAGA comparison (one which has little merit with the exception of some similarities in the early years of the Nazis) is MAGA itself, or to be very specific, Elon Musk.

His obsession with Nazi sympathising European hard and far right political groups along with the odd seig heil he throws out (which I think is more to do with him attempting to troll people more than advocating extreme Nazi ideology) is sinister at best. He has demonstrated time, and time again, he has no concerns for anyone else. He is happy to cut people's jobs in their thousands, be that when he started up DOGE or when he took over twitter. He is also intent on influencing the US government to halt the land redistribution in South Africa (where 75% of land still belong to the 7% white population).

His lunatic ambition to create a city of 1 million inhabitants on the plant Mars (or perhaps changed to Musk) is chilling. Who won't be welcome in his dystopian delusional fantasy society? Well you can start with trans people.

Currently Trump and his cronies are intent on wild propaganda (and none of it has the disgusting evil intelligence of the Nazi regime) along with deportations. They have also vilified 'immigrants' which is straight out of the fascist playbook. I watch in interest to see if these deportations will turn into unwarranted imprisonment and then murder. I doubt this will happen under Trump but if someone with any intelligence allied to evil ideology takes his reigns, we could be seeing the beginnings of a fascist, MAGA dictatorship state.

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SouthSaxon said:

I understand where you’re coming from, but I think most people have some awareness of other dictatorships, particularly those in their lifetime. Comparing with those two in particular needs to be done with caution and carefully chosen words, as this whole strand of discussion has demonstrated.

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Han Solo said:

It is certainly a balance act.

Ultimately individuals getting upset because they feel they are more victims than the millions of people who now fear that the US government will end up carrying out industrial level slaughter of humans... well, sorry, those individuals can take their massive egos and shove it, tbh.

Just because Zederbi wants to underestimate the severity of the situation so we can focus on feeling sorry for him and giving him attention doesn't mean he'll get what he wants. Tough luck. People are going to express their worries for a WW2 type mass murder and some of us might feel worried about that and the people who could get affected (even if white Swedes or Brits probably aren't the first to go), so we warn and try to inform about this Nazi-like US government.

Because it is nazi-like.
Propaganda minister Elon Musk is a man who is working on the most extensive surveillance system (Stargate) in the world. He is also working on Neurallink, aiming to put some sort of device in peoples heads connecting their brains to his AI-systems. He speaks of decreasing population and increasing the number of robots. He wants to colonize space, and not eager to bring just anyone.

In short, this guy and the US government is very interested in EUGENICS, so that the only people remaining on this planet are the ones who accepted to be his remote controlled slaves. Because that is the logical consequence of what he's working on. That people ignore things like Stargate and Neurallink and have decided that Elon Musk is a failed car manufacturer who also happens to be a webmaster of some dumb website... well, thats very nice for their comfort. It makes life easier if we pretend Elon Musk wants to sell us a car and take us the moon rather than replace our brains with his computer system and 90% of our species with his robots.

But personally, I don't pretend because I don't do emotions when thinking. I don't have a cognitive function that says "feel comforted by this" or "feel worried about that". I look it at as a soulless engineer (also known as a Swede) with noting to lose and nothing to gain; "it is what it is". And to me, from that point of view and naturally with the possibility of being wrong, the potential for a bloodbath of unprecedented level is very very high.

So I feel it is perfectly sensible to compare this lot of eugenics-obsessed maniacs with the eugenics-obssessed maniacs of the past. Trust me, they f***ing love that we sit around and talk about tariffs and Tesla cars because those things distract us from the projects we should be really interested in understanding

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Opinion: Comparing Trump to Hitler is a gross trivialization of the Holocaust

Opinion: Weaponizing the Holocaust and suffering of the Jewish people for modern political debates is not only inaccurate but deeply irresponsible.

eu.citizen-times.com

Zeberdi said:

This post is disgraceful- particular the highlighted bits. It is an unacceptable slur against me as a Jew and the millions of Jews worldwide for whom Nazi Germany has a deep victimisation identity - to accuse them (and me ) of attention seeking and using the Holocaust memory as a means of getting people to feel sorry for us is antisemitic pure and simple and borders on Holocaust denial - to say victims of the Holocaust have “massive egos” and they can “shove it” it demonstrates your contempt for Jewish people - I have reported it.

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Han Solo said:

It is certainly a balance act.

Ultimately individuals getting upset because they feel they are more victims than the millions of people who now fear that the US government will end up carrying out industrial level slaughter of humans... well, sorry, those individuals can take their massive egos and shove it, tbh.

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Han Solo said:

But personally, I don't pretend because I don't do emotions when thinking.

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Han Solo said:

I am making a personal attack on YOUR shite personality.

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