One of the things that doomed Weimar Germany

[thucythucy]

46. This is indeed a huge difference.

Also--and we sometimes forget this--nothing quite like Hitler and the Nazis had ever been seen before. That is, a charismatic authoritarian using the newly invented mass media--radio, movies, newsreels--as well as street violence, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism--to seize power and then consolidate that power to a point even Roman emperors would have envied.

It was all unprecedented (just as was Stalin's Terror)--nothing like it had ever happened before, certainly not within living memory.

We on the other hand have the example of what went so fatally wrong in Germany.

Let's hope our democratic traditions--such as they are--and the lessons of history are enough to prevent another, similar catastrophe.