It is perhaps a bit too late, but I would like to lay to rest the Trump-Nazi comparisons. In my opinion they are superficially based on
comparing rhetoric and personality traits, and miss the essential
points. At best they are misleading, at worst - they are offensive to those who indeed suffered under dictatorial or totalitarian regimes.
3. Hitler didn't get total power just because he became a chancellor. He also had his people appointed to key ministries, police etc. And it took them many years to dismantle democratic mechanisms. To be a dictator, Trump would have to have a majority in Congress and Senate, loyal supreme court, his people in FBI and CIA, etc. Until recently the Republicans complained that assassination of US citizens, going to war with congressional authorization, and executive action erode US democracy - they have a valid point here. One could also add the NSA total spying program - a necessary tool, if one wanted to eliminate political opponents.
In short, if I had to bet on one of the two candidates becoming a US dictator, I wouldn't bet on Trump. Which, of course, doesn't make him a good candidate.
1. People often confuse
dictatorship with totalitarianism. Dictatorship is about one person
controlling all power branches, whereas totalitarianism is about
re-building society according to a different model - it is about ideas
that surpass a single person. Nazism, fascism and communism are all
totalitarian ideologies which continue to attract people well after
their founders died. Hitler, Lenin, Mao and others took a great deal of effort to summarize their ideologies in their written works, where they openly expressed their disrespect for the "rotten" social democracy and described the methods for dismantling it. Trump has no ideology, it is all about himself. So any
comparisons with Nazism are simply invalid.
2. Hitler
didn't win elections. His party didn't have majority in parliament even
after several election cycles. He came to power through a crack in a
democratic system - he was appointed the chancellor because of a
constitutional crisis, i.e. when government could not be formed
democratically.
3. Hitler didn't get total power just because he became a chancellor. He also had his people appointed to key ministries, police etc. And it took them many years to dismantle democratic mechanisms. To be a dictator, Trump would have to have a majority in Congress and Senate, loyal supreme court, his people in FBI and CIA, etc. Until recently the Republicans complained that assassination of US citizens, going to war with congressional authorization, and executive action erode US democracy - they have a valid point here. One could also add the NSA total spying program - a necessary tool, if one wanted to eliminate political opponents.
In short, if I had to bet on one of the two candidates becoming a US dictator, I wouldn't bet on Trump. Which, of course, doesn't make him a good candidate.
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