I'm upset, I have 2 great uncles that fought in WW2

[SummerSnow]

they fought against Nazi tyranny and it's spread. How in the world did we fight this over 70 years ago only to have a Nazi currently sitting in the oval office? What happened?

[Freedomofspeech]

1. Fox news.

[Hortensis]

2. Well, maybe chill? :) He's not a Nazi at this time, and calling him

one diminishes the horrible evil of that word. He IS a kind of person who would have voted Nazis into power back then.

Huge difference in reality, though, because this is also not a fascist dictatorship, it's a democracy. Damned good thing for Trump, because if it were this clueless doofus would have been executed long before this and replaced by one of the more competent Nazis around him.

[DesertRat]

4. Well said

[hlthe2b]

5. We are headed in that direction... US is no longer considered a FULL Democracy

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/us-is-no-longer-a-full-democracy-eiu-warns.html

US is no longer a full democracy, EIU warns

The U.S. has been demoted from a full democracy to a flawed democracy for the first time, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

Every year, the firm's Democracy Index provides a snapshot of global democracy by scoring countries on five categories: electoral process and pluralism; civil liberties; the functioning of government; political participation; and political culture. Nations are then classified under four types of governments: full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime and authoritarian regime.

America's score fell to 7.98 last year from 8.05 in 2015, below the 8.00 threshold for a full democracy, the EIU announced in a report on Wednesday. That put the world's largest economy on the same footing as Italy, a country known for its fractious politics.

A flawed democracy is a country with free elections but weighed down by weak governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation, according to the EIU. Other flawed democracies in 2016 included Japan, France, Singapore, South Korea and India, the report said.

[Hortensis]

9. Yes. Of course, every time a person swings

a foot out at the top of a flight of steps he's about to take a really nasty fall. Unless he steps down. There's all the difference in the world between falling and being in a position where one could fall.

[hlthe2b]

12. Vigilance...

"When Fascism came into power, most people were unprepared, both theoretically and practically. They were unable to believe that man could exhibit such propensities for evil, such lust for power, such disregard for the rights of the weak, or such yearning for submission. Only a few had been aware of the rumbling of the volcano preceding the outbreak.”

– Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom

[Hortensis]

15. Yup. More was going on, though. Germany had always

been an authoritarian state. Under the Kaiser it was also a prosperous authoritarian state, until WW1 destroyed that prosperity. Between wars, the victorious nations punished Germany severely economically so that little postwar era was a time of continued great misery for most of the German people. We're talking about scrabbling for food here.

And it was in this context that the victors and others decided this would be a good time to impose on people who'd only ever known autocracy something only a few wanted, some Democracy to go along with their misery.

And it was in this context, with an entire nation remembering well and longing for the good old days under their kaiser that a charismatic strong man came along and promised a return to the days of Germany's prosperity and greatness. And people who knew democracy only as a terrible failure went for it.

Just a little different from here?

All that Americans inherited from the past, were raised with, and have built into our expectations for the future, are the concepts and structure of our liberal western democracy. We've never had a king. Few women are still alive to remember a time when they couldn't vote.

Even those right and left wingers who are drawn by their own natures to fascism, and they are a real danger right now, don't know that they are. They think the authoritarian leaders who appeal to them will guarantee their personal freedoms.

Not the most knowledgeable voters, but note that personal freedom is a huge ideal for almost everyone. Trump and Sanders were both authoritarian-styled voices which appealed to people looking for strong leaders, but their messages were about securing the blessings of liberty for the people. Sanders meant it, and Trump could not tell the truth in America.

[justgamma]

19. Read "They Thought They Were Free"

The Nazi's didn't just rush in and take over. It happened in steps.


They Thought They Were Free Quotes (showing 1-13 of 13)

“As the Nazi emphasis on nonintellectual virtues (patriotism, loyalty, duty, purity, labor, simplicity, “blood,” “folk-ishness”) seeped through Germany, elevating the self-esteem of the “little man,” the academic profession was pushed from the very center to the very periphery of society. Germany was preparing to cut its own head off. By 1933 at least five of my ten friends (and I think six or seven) looked upon “intellectuals” as unreliable and, among these unreliables, upon the academics as the most insidiously situated. Tailor”
― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45

“On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.”
― Milton Sanford Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45


“But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

[SummerSnow]

20. It did happen in steps, just like now

[Hortensis]

21. Yes. That's why I'm so appalled by those

we see here who seem determined to simply declare their personal step of accepting failure up front, as the steps of others continue. The big danger is not the leaning among some conservatives to fascism, which is always with us, but the failure of enough of the majority to just go vote a big no.

I realize that most here making dispirited noise will at least vote, if perhaps not always with commitment to fight creeping fascism, but I wish they would give some consideration to what effect years of their their weak, demoralized, defeatist noise has on others.

Unless we're hermits, and none here are, we all have some kind of multiplier effect on not just the moods of friends and coworkers, but on the national mood, most especially if what we're doing is reinforcing weakness.

COUNTDOWN TO ELECTING A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS: 254 days.

Every day we get closer to putting a stop to this and getting on with what our own weakness lost us in 2016.

[Meowmee]

22. This

People should really stop trying to normalize what is happening here and that millions of people supported a fascist monster.

[Cary]

14. Weimar Germany was a democracy

Hitler seized power legally.

[hlthe2b]

3. Yes... My Father and three uncles did likewise. It is insane what has happened.

These kids, after Parkland, have given me some hope though. Before, I was just grateful I was no longer a very young person, though, of course, I feared for the kids and grandkids of others.

[ananda]

6. My dad fought in WWII.

He was a fairly reasonable conservative until
he married his second wife and went off the
rails because her racism and bigotry aided
and abetted his, while my mom always kept
it somewhat in check.

He understood WWII history too and the role
of Stalin and the Russians.

I just wish he had died before my mom did,
but he didn't and just went Fox news crazy
in the end.

[hlthe2b]

10. I miss my parents every day, who have been gone for nearly two decades...but

I tell my sister every day that I'm glad my Father never saw Fox news. He did turn a bit more staunch conservative in his later years and was influenced by what would now be the Fox crowd at work and in social settings, but it never got to the really horrific racist, misogynistic, nationalistic, hate-filled selfish level of what has become so common place among conservatives and especially Trumpistas today.

Maybe he would have seen through Fox and disdained it. I like to think so, but...

[dlk]

7. Ronald Reagan's Ending of the Fairness Doctrine Enabled the Right Wing Propaganda Machine

It was part of the Republican plan. We are living with the consequences.

[pandr32]

16. We need a version of that brought back

One that would include all media news (radio, television, print, internet).

[watoos]

8. My dad chased Paton all over Europe.

Yes we defeated the German army, but we didn't defeat the Nazi/fascists. The leaders of fascism came to America.
People should read "The Rise of the 4th Reich," by Jim Marrs, it will make the hair on your neck stand up.

The Bush family and others were instrumental in keeping fascism alive.

[keithbvadu2]

11. Trump "emboldened" the Nazis. America fought a war against the Nazis and supposedly won.

Trump "emboldened" the Nazis

America fought a war against the Nazis and supposedly won.

Yet here they are marching to "take back America".

" Michael Von Kotch, a Pennsylvania resident who called himself a Nazi, said the rally made him "proud to be white."

He said that he's long held white supremacist views and that Trump's election has "emboldened" him and the members of his own Nazi group. "

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/fights-in-advance-of-saturday-protest-in-charlottesville/2017/08/12/155fb636-7f13-11e7-83c7-5bd5460f0d7e_story.html?utm_term=.b54a0162fe07

[sinkingfeeling]

13. I had 2 uncle's killed in WWII. Think this is true.

[MarianJack]

17. My father and five uncles fought in WW2.

My father and four of my uncles came home.

It's very comforting to know that the Nazis who killed my Uncle Al at Normandy were "fine People!"

PEACE!

[Ilsa]

24. Reading that is like an ice pick in my heart, and

I don't even know you or your family. Trump is so disgusting, he can't feel it, and he dismisses history.

[MarianJack]

28. Thank you, Ilsa.

PEACE!

[MoonRiver]

18. My father, mother, uncle and aunt all served in WWII.

My uncle was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery. I'm so horrified that this country has sunk so low, but we did go through something very similar, probably worse actually, during the Vietnam War.

[Meowmee]

23. Totally agree

It’s very frightening but not a complete surprise to me. I always knew this country could head in this direction due to fascist, racists/ bigots and crooks who voted for that monster and this government. There is no excuse for it and there never will be. What was a shock was the Russian involvement and hijakcing of the election.

[Skittles]

25. my grandfather was one of the last guys picked up at Dunkirk

he would be DISGUSTED with today's American republican party

[onecaliberal]

26. As did my father. Im sure hes rollong in his grave.

[sprinkleeninow]

29. I posted this previously.

My dad and his two brothers served WWII.
Dad, Navy. Uncles, Army and Air Force.
Dad saw action in Phillipines when his auxiliary ship got hit with secondary fire.

He landed in the water saying his last prayer of repentance. He made it, but others didn't. He witnessed fellow seamen decapitated and horrendous injuries.

And this, excuse me, slob in the oval office and enabling cohorts are damaging this nation in unconscionable ways.

My dad dropped dead in front of my mom and me one Sunday morning. I was 13. I'll never forget. Aortic aneurysm. 45 years old. I think what he went thru was a factor of his early end.

[DFW]

30. My dad and my wife's dad fought on opposite sides in World War II

And NEITHER of them would have wanted to have anything to do with Trump.

[marybourg]

31. My DH fought in WWII, in the segregated Navy.

It was de-segregated while he was in it. He's in an assisted living group home now, with most of his mental facilities intact, watching this crap on CNN all day long. He sticks with 1 channel because he's lost the use of his hands and can't manage a remote.

In the common room, the other residents watch F__ for a good part of the day.

[raven mad]

32. So did my dad and 3 uncles, and -

mom and her sisters were repairing airplanes and driving trucks.

sTrumpet wouldn't know a hero if one bit him.

[Cha]

33. trump is a wannabe fascist, SummerSnow.. Still

heinous.

Fascism is a form of government which is a type of one-party dictatorship. Fascists are against democracy. They work for a totalitarian one-party state. ... Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government..

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism