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.
He did nothing good for Germany.
He did kill Hitler tho.
Then he also killed the dude that killed Hitler
igual igual
true
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.
It seems like people as a whole are very generational. Meaning that there’s a generation that struggles, one that succeeds, and one that takes it for granted and fails.
Then the cycle repeats.
Im not talking about strictly boomers to x to z, but in a broad sense.
Yup. I have a similar argument before. If one reads more about Hitler and the Nazis, they are actually not different to any of the standard third world dictators like Idi Amin and Muammar Gaddafi. The difference is that the Nazis were only more powerful because they inherited a working institution-- especially the Prussian-based military-- while third world countries had to start from scratch after decolonisation.
The Nazis like other dictators are very inefficient. I am reading Hannah Arendt’s “Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil”. The book goes through the convoluted bureaucracy and logistics of the Holocaust. Different pen pushers and administrators arguing who should be able to use the trains for their own departmental needs. What struck me the most is that the Nazis wasted so much effort transporting so-called undesirables to concentration camps, when their own soldiers are struggling to get supplies and reinforcements to the frontlines!
More importantly, as you correctly mentioned, Nazi Germany struggled to feed their own people. As a matter of fact, there is strong evidence that Hitler started the war in Europe to stave off the looming economic crisis, which his own economic minister warned him of, thanks to endless government spending particularly with the re-armement. That economic crisis had been warded (temporarily of course) by plundering the resources of their conquered territories.
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.
But what if the country needed a change in leadership after recently being fucked up by this hitler guy, eh?
Unless you want to bring about the end of the world. Seriously, that’s how at least some of these people think. They want to throw a monkey wrench in the works, because they think they’ll be the ones to survive the apocalypse.
I want the end of the world too, but it’s because I don’t wanna survive the apocalypse, we are not the same.
Haha… I’m depressed.
“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.
Read!?
Ha!
The thing to keep in mind about idiocy is that idiots make mistakes, a lot. At the same time, those mistakes are usually small-stakes affairs (it’s hard to make big mistakes with no money and/or resources) and are usually recoverable. The idea that their mistake could affect so many others simply does not happen, because that’s not how things typically work.
Did he not read the part where Hitler genocided Jews, Europeans, and the disabled?
That’s the thing though — Hitler didn’t run on a platform of genociding people, he ran on a platform of economic improvement. Weimar Germany was economically depressed and many average people and families were suffering from unemployment and financial hardship while the rich were relatively unaffected and enjoying themselves. Hitler promised to change that (and in all fairness, he did). The genociding Jews part came much later.
Hitler was in charge of Germany for 11 years (1934-1945) — the war didn’t start until 1938, and the holocaust only began in 1942, so the voters DID end up getting at least 4 years of relative peace and prosperity. Also, keep in mind that Hitler was 45 years old when he became chancellor, meanwhile Trump is 78, meaning even if he manages to finish his second tenure successfully, he’ll very likely simply be too old by the end of it in order to continue, which makes it somewhat unlikely that he’ll attempt to stage another coup in order to remain dictator for life.
Though he could put Vance or another one of his cronies on that platform.
Because Hitler is famous for avoiding global armed conflict.
I mean it’s only because they didn’t give him exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it immediately and without any resistance that we got the war. He was the real oppressed one after all /s /s /s /s
Because I cannot emphasis enough that what I said above is sarcasm.
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.
Yeah, media, social or mass, has guided the people incapable of sound reasoning exactly where they wanted them.
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.
Oh, far from it. This is very much the norm in any construction sector. Everyone is dumb as absolute fuck.
Historical fact: In the distant past, guys like this belonged to a Union, and the union told them how to vote.
The union was led by ruthless people whose power was entirely dependent on the support of the union.
The union leaders kept their people happy by negotiating better prices for their labor, and the happy people did what the leaders said. Their tribe was the union, and the tribe stuck together.
At some point the owner class realized it was easy to redefine what happiness meant for idiots: Lying. A lot. Tricking absolute idiots is easy, so they started whittling away at unions with promises of prosperity a union leader could never fulfil, until we get to today where unions and union membership is lower than it’s ever been.
And idiots like that still vote for who their handler tells them to, only their handler now has zero investment in keeping them happy. Lying to them is sufficient as long as the rest of the tribe reinforces the lies. The tribe is now everyone too stupid to not vote for Hitler, and the tribe sticks together.
The tribe is now everyone too stupid to not vote for Hitler, and the tribe sticks together.
And the tribe is 70+ million strong. Let’s not forget that.
I wonder who Trump voted for.
Oh that’s right, he’s a convicted felon. That would be voter fraud.
Acting like that would be his first fraud. Or the only fraud in this election. Trump is moving pawns behind every state election, and he has 5 Ace’s up his phony sleeve. Its all crooked when Trump is involved
Only if you’re black.
It’s legal in Florida, where Trump voted.
Convicted felons can vote in Florida, but a woman can’t get an abortion after 6 weeks, which is right when a lot of them realize they’re pegrenate. Well isn’t that special.
Voter turnout among Democrats this year was 10 million lower than in 2020, while Republican turnout barely changed. Trump won the popular vote by about 3.5 million. TBF it’s unknown how many Democrats didn’t vote because they were purged off voter rolls, and how many simply refused to participate because Harris didn’t satisfy their moral purity standards. But based on the consistent failure by Republicans to win their election restricting lawsuits, my strong guess is that it’s those 10 million fuckheads who did this to us. Zero tolerance doesn’t work, folks, You don’t walk barefoot across broken glass because you didn’t like the choices of shoes.
Democrats fall apart, Republicans fall in line.
Very succinct. I’m reminded of Michael Moore’s comparison -
democrats: “What should we do about dinner?” “Um, we could go out.” “Do you want to go out?” “I dunno, do you?” “Well, if you do…” “Okay, where should we go?” “I dunno, where do you wanna go?”
republicans: <slams hand loudly on table> “Git in the car, we’re goin’ to the Sizzler!”
It’s also in line with 2012 and 2016 participation levels for Dems. It seems like the GOP have a reliable voting base while dems need a pandemic or a monumental candidate like Obama to bother showing up to the polls.
there’s a lot of racist and misogynistic democrats
Can’t we convince MAGA that trump has been replaced by the deep state or something that makes them fight for a good cause for once?
No, because Dems are stuck on a high horse and burned 1 billion campaigning like its the 1950s. Fff, they could have won the election spending a tenth of that on bots and paying off influencers.
We absolutely need money for a shameless ‘oppositional’ propaganda apparatus.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the RNC was more “with the times” than the DNC on how to campaign in the current media-circus climate. That’s right, they were more progressive when it came to using information technology. This observation burns like the heat of a thousand suns and I hate it, but there it is.
Granted, thanks to the likes of FoxNews and bloviating try-hards on radio and podcasts, they had the inside track here. Still, a billion USD should have leveled the playing field for a short campaign like Harris’.
It’s on purpose. Nobody is this incompetent, this many times in a row, by accident. The Democratic party doesn’t care about us and needs to be replaced.
Exactly this. And when you try to talk about it people look at you like you’re crazy or spouting some insane conspiracy theory.
Dems believe, clearly incorrectly based on recent results, that money wins elections. They decided that if they wanted to compete they’d have to get some of that sweet, sweet donor cash. Those donors aren’t spending money out of the goodness of their hearts, they expect something in return.
So now they are caught in a trap, they can either promote very popular progressive policies and watch the donors dry up or they can do the bidding of the donors and try to convince the voters that they are still somehow promoting the policies they want.
What we are seeing now is the end result of running that latter selection over and over. The millionaires and billionaires donating to the Dems don’t want to fix the endemic problems we face, because the donors handing them checks got their money because of those endemic problems.
When healthcare takes up 1/8th of your GDP, that money goes somewhere, to the people that buy the politicians to make sure that healthcare keeps funneling 1/8th of GDP into their pockets. That’s why the ACA didn’t embrace a single payer or even a public option, it just made it so that everyone had to give the donors their money. Same with rent, those checks go to landlords who buy the politicians.
The real solutions to our problems will never come out of a party capture by the donor class, not because of some tin foil conspiracy but by asking one simple question. Would the people funding this politicians want them to fix this problem I care about? This ask explains why the only place the Dems will take hard stances are on issues that don’t threaten the wealthy. The large umbrella term of identity politics (which is often overused or misapplied, but sometimes it’s accurate) has been a great carve out for the Dems for the last few decades.
Gay marriage doesn’t threaten a landlords wealth, so it’s fine to pick a fight on that topic. But even these have limits. Capitalism is by its very nature exploitative, the only way for the person who has the capital to make profit is for them to pay labor less than the value they generate and capture the difference as profit. So if your identity politics veers too close into empowering a class that’s currently being exploited, shut it down.
It would be great if the lesson they took away was, “money won’t be enough to win, we need to actually fix these problems” but they seem dead set on going “we just weren’t far enough to the right to get those swing voters, we will shift further”
Jackass and proud of it
right on the edge of the paper belt
I mean we will pull out of Ukraine, with Ukraine in ruins and taking it over. Emboldening Russia to conquer more territories.
I read on the news that Poutin threatened to invade 4 more countries. This is how ww2 got started. They just kept appeasing Hitler until they realized just far he would go. Also with every takeover the Germany military machine got a lot stronger. The take over of Czechoslovakia meant he took over all their military arsenal which was enough to arm several divisions.
That’s okay, Europe has your back while you look inwards yet again.
Hey Matt, do you fucking hear yourself when you speak or is it like an ‘adult characters on Peanuts’ situation?
This is the average American voter lol. Trump was like the hack that made all their crazy go GOP. Usually there is enough crazy people for both sides
Totally. Matt Yglesias calls this the “crank realignment.”
https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-crank-realignment-is-bad-for
