I really cannot wait for all the people who were like "Trump is literally Hitler" to talk about how he deserves our sympathy and respect, how he was a good man doing what he thought was right for America, at his funeral while a bunch of people play the crab dance song just outside the gates.
The thing is, if we're going to base our perceptions of what makes a leader "good" only on doing what they thought was right for the country... I have no doubt that Hitler genuinely thought fascism was what was "right" for Germany. I mean, it was monstrously, unspeakably evil, but Trump only acts on what he think will benefit himself, not the country. So in that sense, Trump actually deserves less sympathy and respect than Hitler (who of course deserves none).
Indeed; right in the opening pages of Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds:
In Germany, a similar pattern of complicity between fascists and
capitalists emerged. German workers and farm laborers had won the
right to unionize, the eight-hour day, and unemployment insurance.
But to revive profit levels, heavy industry and big finance wanted
wage cuts for their workers and massive state subsidies and tax cuts
for themselves.
During the 1920s, the Nazi Sturmabteilung or SA, the brownshirted
storm troopers, subsidized by business, were used mostly as
an antilabor paramilitary force whose function was to terrorize
workers and farm laborers. By 1 930, most of the tycoons had concluded
that the Weimar Republic no longer served their needs and
was too accommodating to the working class. They greatly
increased their subsidies to Hitler, propelling the Nazi party onto
the national stage. Business tycoons supplied the Nazis with generous
funds for fleets of motor cars and loudspeakers to saturate the
cities and villages of Germany, along with funds for Nazi party
organizations, youth groups, and paramilitary forces. In the July
1932 campaign, Hitler had sufficient funds to fly to fifty cities in the
last two weeks alone.
...
Along with serving the capitalists, fascist leaders served themselves,
getting in on the money at every opportunity. Their personal
greed and their class loyalties were two sides of the same coin.
Mussolini and his cohorts lived lavishly, cavorting within the higher
circles of wealth and aristocracy. Nazi officials and SS commanders
amassed personal fortunes by plundering conquered territories and
stealing from concentration camp inmates and other political victims.
Huge amounts were made from secretly owned, well-connected
businesses, and from contracting out camp slave labor to
industrial firms like LG. Farben and Krupp.
Hitler is usually portrayed as an ideological fanatic, uninterested
in crass material things. In fact, he accumulated an immense fortune,
much of it in questionable ways. He expropriated art works from the
public domain. He stole enormous sums from Nazi party coffers. He
invented a new concept, the "personality right;' that enabled him to
charge a small fee for every postage stamp with his picture on it, a
venture that made him hundreds of millions of marks.
Edit: ...
Far from being the ascetic, Hitler lived self-indulgently. During
his entire tenure in office he got special rulings from the German tax
office that allowed him to avoid paying income or property taxes. He
had a motor pool of limousines, private apartments, country homes,
a vast staff of servants, and a majestic estate in the Alps. His happiest
times were spent entertaining European royalty, including the Duke
and Duchess of Windsor, who numbered among his enthusiastic
admirers.
Liberals are obsessed with the status quo and the system. I saw them yesterday talking about how Trump dying looks bad for "American democracy" and how they need to beat him with an election. And then they wonder why people are abandoning the Democratic party and looking for something else.
Yes but I'm explicitly arguing that we shouldn't do that. Being "good" is not about intentions, it's about material outcomes. And by that measure both Trump and Hitler do not by any means qualify as "good."
Hear me out - wouldn't it have been better if Hitler was taken down through non-violence? That'd he'd be voted out by his own people? That his own Aryan brothers would shake their heads at him as he walked away crying? Even after conquering all of Europe, wiping out the USSR and doing the genocide on a few races, yadda yadda yadda? Despite all that winning, his own people would still reject him and jail him on abuse of power while in office, reinforcing the rule of law. It would only take, like, a few more million lives, but fascism would really be proven wrong if it completely won, but centrist liberal democrats would get Hitler on a technically nevertheless.
No, because then that would lend credence to the idea that nonviolence is not only desirable but effective. You cannot vote out fascism, it can only be cleansed with blood and fire. Plus most people in Germany would have definitely not "rejected" Hitler at the time by any margin. There's a reason de-Nazification took so long in the East, and failed miserably in the West.
I really cannot wait for all the people who were like "Trump is literally Hitler" to talk about how he deserves our sympathy and respect, how he was a good man doing what he thought was right for America, at his funeral while a bunch of people play the crab dance song just outside the gates.
The thing is, if we're going to base our perceptions of what makes a leader "good" only on doing what they thought was right for the country... I have no doubt that Hitler genuinely thought fascism was what was "right" for Germany. I mean, it was monstrously, unspeakably evil, but Trump only acts on what he think will benefit himself, not the country. So in that sense, Trump actually deserves less sympathy and respect than Hitler (who of course deserves none).
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Indeed; right in the opening pages of Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds:
...
Edit: ...
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Liberals are obsessed with the status quo and the system. I saw them yesterday talking about how Trump dying looks bad for "American democracy" and how they need to beat him with an election. And then they wonder why people are abandoning the Democratic party and looking for something else.
Yes but I'm explicitly arguing that we shouldn't do that. Being "good" is not about intentions, it's about material outcomes. And by that measure both Trump and Hitler do not by any means qualify as "good."
Oh I agree, I was just doing a "by YOUR logic" for the libs.
Hear me out - wouldn't it have been better if Hitler was taken down through non-violence? That'd he'd be voted out by his own people? That his own Aryan brothers would shake their heads at him as he walked away crying? Even after conquering all of Europe, wiping out the USSR and doing the genocide on a few races, yadda yadda yadda? Despite all that winning, his own people would still reject him and jail him on abuse of power while in office, reinforcing the rule of law. It would only take, like, a few more million lives, but fascism would really be proven wrong if it completely won, but centrist liberal democrats would get Hitler on a technically nevertheless.
No, because then that would lend credence to the idea that nonviolence is not only desirable but effective. You cannot vote out fascism, it can only be cleansed with blood and fire. Plus most people in Germany would have definitely not "rejected" Hitler at the time by any margin. There's a reason de-Nazification took so long in the East, and failed miserably in the West.
You'll never convince me that fighting Hitler was good, because I am doing what the Germans call "der Sarkasmus."
Then I looks like I'm "der Tor." My death haiku will be ready at sunset.
half the replies to this tweet are libs saying "I hope he lives", lol