On May 8th, 1945, the Third Reich surrendered. Our local paper recalled an amazing event. Parallels?

[DFW]

34. No, they never go away. But they do go into hibernation when the climate is hostile to them

A climate hostile to neo-Nazis is one under which a great majority of people can lead a decent life, but don't get complacent. A radical right has an easy road to power if people are either very unsatisfied or so complacent, they let anything happen, listen to anyone who is able to convince them that the bogey man is coming to take their comfortable lives from them. The Republican Party holds the lifetime achievement award in that category.

Hitler came to power during a time of real hardship, and Reagan came to power in a time of relative hardship. Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush (I and II) and Trump all came to power during relatively good times by convincing large numbers of people that somehow, someone was coming to take their lives away from them. First, it was "kommanists." Then it was "Willie Horton." Then it was the "libbruls." Now, it's Mexicans and towel-heads. The fact is that Truman, Johnson, Clinton and Obama left the country in pretty good shape (Vietnam notwithstanding), despite the fact that Clinton and Obama were confronted with a lot of economic damage control to contend with.

Actually, JFK/LBJ barely squeaked in, because Eisenhower didn't do such a horrible job--it's just that Nixon was such an odious figure. He had to have some serious work done on him to beat Humphrey in 1968, and even then, he needed his "Dirty Tricks Team" to pull it off. Nixon was so unsure of himself, he had his Watergate burglars doing dirty work that was totally unnecessary for his re-election in 1972, for which he was already a shoo-in. Instead of acting as extra insurance, they became his eventual undoing, leading him to engage in corruption so blatant that resignation was his only option when it was exposed.

Times have changed, of course. Republican corruption under Trump has far surpassed Nixon's, Reagan's and even Cheney's. Instead of feeling shame when it is exposed, they don't even bother to conceal it. Quite the opposite: they wear it proudly as a badge of achievement.

Only during Obama's time in office did the American radical right not go underground. McTurtle and his obsession with making Obama a one-term president, and then denying him every appointment he could, even the Supreme Court, as revenge for having been convincingly elected twice. Maybe THIS time, since Trump was SO bad and SO corrupt, they will take cover again for a while.

Either that, or they will somehow find a way to steal this election as well, and with it, seal the fate of the great American experiment to the point where January 20, 2017 will be listed in the history books as the end of it.