For those baffled as to how the leader of a failed coup can be politically viable enough to still become a dictator,

[unblock]

well, actually, I'm baffled too.

But it wouldn't be unprecedented. Hitler tried and failed in 1923 and went to prison. And yet, a decade later, he was a dictator.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Hall_Putsch

We have lots of reason for optimism this election cycle, but lots of work to do both before and after November.

I'm enjoying the recent series of Republican fails and Biden leading in the polls. But, as someone here said, campaign like you're 20 point behind....

[PortTack]

1. ☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️

[LiberalFighter]

2. Hitler wasn't dealing with a democracy.

[msongs]

7. hitler went thru multiple elections never quite getting enuff votes. he was appointed chancellor cuz it

was felt doing that he could be controlled. many people forget everything he did to obtain actual power was legal before he attained the power

[bucolic_frolic]

3. Exactly, the problem with polls is they can only change

And there is reversion to the mean. If you're way ahead there's no place to go but down (some).

[TexasDem69]

4. He can still run

And might still win because he hasn’t been convicted of anything. And more than 50 million (think about that number) Americans believe January 6 was not an insurrection and Trump did nothing wrong in relation.

[TheKentuckian]

5. Being too parsimonious with the rope tends toward such a path.

Lincoln fucked up the same way, allowing the Confederacy to win the peace.

[unblock]

6. The peace was lost well after Lincoln's assassination

It's generally blamed on the Tilden-Hayes compromise in 1876. Hayes won the presidency in exchange for ending reconstruction.

[Hugin]

8. A big difference is...

Hitler carried out the night of the long knives AFTER he'd cinched power. TSF kinda did that backwards.

[unblock]

9. That was the second go round. The first time was a botched effort much like Donnie's coup

[moondust]

10. Just over a century ago.

"Beer Hall Putsch" on November 8 and 9, 1923

Germany looks back at Adolf Hitler's coup attempt

~
Perfect conditions for Hitler's putsch

Hitler did not take over Germany that day, but the failure succeeded in emboldening him. During his short time in prison, he began writing "Mein Kampf," an autobiography that laid out his fascist vision. The book became a rallying cry for his burgeoning party, which shifted tactics from trying to seize power illegally to taking it legitimately from within. In the years following the putsch effort, the Nazis gained support at the ballot box across the country.

The coup attempt came at a time of crushing instability in Germany. The central Weimar government was weak. Officials were assassinated and state authority was threatened by violent forces on the left and right. Hyperinflation ravaged the economy and unemployment was widespread, especially among war veterans who knew how to fight.

Germany's capitulation to Allied forces in World War I was a fresh memory and a national humiliation. The Treaty of Versailles, which compelled Germany to pay war reparations, was salt in that wound and added pressure on the country's prospects.

It was a powder keg that Hitler and his Nazis were able to light. Though hardly the only domestic threat that Weimar faced, their coup attempt and subsequent rise to power was no accident of history.
~

[lindysalsagal]

11. Yes, but that was after a failed world war. We're in much better shape.