Reply #19: I think you're reading that wrong

[sui generis]

that's not an apologist statement. It's a statement of fact - just because Hitler was also a profoundly flawed human and ultimately "evil", doesn't take away from the facts surrounding his ascendancy. Hitler didn't wake up and say "I think I'll be evil today". He really believed in a master race and by dehumanizing anyone who didn't belong he secured power and justified his means, in his own mind.

Hitler rose to power by promising a better life to the German people - whether or not he really intended that is moot of course. He did it by blaming an external enemy and an easily identifiable internal enemy for the problems that poor starving Germans perceived in their life. It was just a tiny little push to incite the mob there, for fairly complex economic reasons, to get them to villify jews (non christians) and immigrants (sound familiar?) and to take the next steps of "removing them" from Germany. People are not innately monsters. They are innately myopic, and driven by fear, and Hitler recognized how to manipulate that.

Cali nothing in this statement is apologist for Hitler. We shouldn't try to lead the mob to get a monster who isn't there.