Why We Need To Make the Hitler Comparisons and repeal Godwin's Law

"[Ian] Kershaw combined two ideas that underpin his approach to Nazi history. First, the sociologist Max Weber's notion of charismatic leadership – the cult of personality which grew up around Hitler, the belief that he was imbued with almost superhuman powers and should never be questioned. And second, the phrase most associated with Kershaw: "working towards the Führer", the idea that though Hitler was not dictating every aspect of policy the entire bureaucratic apparatus devoted itself to trying to interpret his wishes. "People second-guessed what he wanted," Kershaw explains. "He didn't need to command everything. People interpret 'getting rid of the Jews' in different ways, and cumulatively that then pushes along the dynamic of the persecution without Hitler having to say 'do this, do that, do the other’.””

~From Ian Kershaw: A Life In Writing, in the Guardian

“…There is growing concern in the White House about what skeletons may emerge as investigators comb through a coterie of aides, past and present, who would have done virtually anything to win favor with Trump,” or they’re preparing to mount a defense of all those contacts between Trump’s inner circle and the Russians based on the inexperience, or stupidity, as one anonymous source put it, of “the motley, freewheeling crew of lieutenants and loyalists who have long populated his entourage.”

~McKay Coppins in The Atlantic

The vagueness and contradictoriness of Trump’s ideation combined with the ruthlessness and eager inhumanity of his henchmen make the Hitler comparison increasingly necessary.

Godwin’s Law is more a theory of how things happen than a ban or a prohibition against invoking Hitler. We should not ban the Hitler comparison for one obvious reason: Hitler was himself not “Hitler” until he was able to be, until he was licensed to be by election and empowered to be by the Enabling Act of 1933 and until he was further empowered and weaponized by the devotion of his thousands of henchmen eagerly “working toward the fuhrer”.

Trump has shown an aggressive tendency to defy rules and violate norms, and the more he is criticized for doing so (but suffers no consequences) the more aggressive his violations become and the more devout his following becomes. It is a minority now but as he evades censure and removal it may grow. Impunity is very attractive, especially to the powerless, and Americans feel very powerless in this economy. Trump’s “joke” about shooting someone on 5th Ave was a trial balloon, a test. It was foreshadowing. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf; Trump tweets and blurts his intentions. When he is thwarted he says he was joking. As soon as he can, though, he violates the norm again and increases his license to violate further norms. Trump’s comical barroom blowhard persona has already begun to evolve into a mask of hate.

How Trump Uses Lies To Win

"By requiring subordinates to speak untruths, a leader can undercut their independent standing, including their standing with the public, with the media and with other members of the administration. That makes those individuals grow more dependent on the leader and less likely to mount independent rebellions against the structure of command. Promoting such chains of lies is a classic tactic when a leader distrusts his subordinates and expects to continue to distrust them in the future.”

(In Hitler’s Germany this was called “working toward the fuhrer.”)

Read the whole story at Bloomberg

"Our brains are particularly ill-equipped to deal with lies when they come not singly but in a constant stream, and Trump, we know, lies constantly, about matters as serious as the election results and as trivial as the tiles at Mar-a-Lago. (According to his butler, Anthony Senecal, Trump once said the tiles in a nursery at the West Palm Beach club had been made by Walt Disney himself; when Senecal protested, Trump had a single response: “Who cares?”) When we are overwhelmed with false, or potentially false, statements, our brains pretty quickly become so overworked that we stop trying to sift through everything. It’s called cognitive load—our limited cognitive resources are overburdened. It doesn’t matter how implausible the statements are; throw out enough of them, and people will inevitably absorb some. Eventually, without quite realizing it, our brains just give up trying to figure out what is true."

Read the entire story at Politico

“Yes, Donald Trump’s politics are incoherent. But those who surround him know just what they want, and his lack of clarity enhances their power. To understand what is coming, we need to understand who they are. I know all too well, because I have spent the past 15 years fighting them.

"Over this time, I have watched as tobacco, coal, oil, chemicals and biotech companies have poured billions of dollars into an international misinformation machine composed of thinktanks, bloggers and fake citizens’ groups. Its purpose is to portray the interests of billionaires as the interests of the common people, to wage war against trade unions and beat down attempts to regulate business and tax the very rich. Now the people who helped run this machine are shaping the government."

Read George Monbiot's essay in The Guardian

"Trump’s rise to power has followed a similar trajectory to that of quacks who peddle panaceas to the desperate—a bizarre and heartbreaking world I’ve long studied. Just like them, Trump will fail to deliver. But his supporters will find a way to exonerate him."

Read about Trump's psychological game at SLATE

“...the worst thing he could do -- and I see this as a real danger -- would be to politicize the agencies that produce government economic data, to put people in place that will skew the numbers in his favor. If that happens, the data will be useless, and we’ll essentially be flying blind when it comes to the true state of the economy."

Read at CBS about how Trump plans to corrupt our information stream

"Newt Gingrich wants to fire federal employees who voted for Clinton "There won’t be any real cooperation until we change federal law so we can fire them”"

At Salon

“Trump says he will pick which journalists will cover him."

From ReutersTV

"Anyone - citizen or journalist - who is surprised by false claims from the new inhabitant of the Oval Office hasn't been paying attention. That was reinforced when Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told "Meet the Press" Sunday that Spicer had been providing "alternative facts" to what the media had reported, making it clear we've gone full Orwell."

From the Chicago Tribune

"This is how he’s going to chip away at our understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s real and what’s not. This is even stronger, more powerful gas lighting — making us question our own instincts and even start doing things because we want to fit in with “everyone else” who from what we know, seem to think this is all fine. Trump wants a cheering section at all his press conferences and if you don’t realize that those are not the reporters clapping, it will seriously fuck with you."

Read the entire piece at MEDIUM

"How did Dylann Roof go from being someone who was not raised in a racist home to someone so steeped in white supremacist propaganda that he murdered nine African Americans during a Bible study? The answer lies, at least in part, in the way that fragile minds can be shaped by the algorithm that powers Google Search."

How Dylann Roof was brainwashed by right wing media into a person who'd kill nine churchgoers he had prayed with

"I’m not bragging, it’s a fact, you the audience deserve to know this. Infowars is the main operating system of the rebirth of the American republic, and is a key blueprint worldwide in nation-states launching a new renaissance. I’ve been told that by the president, I’ve been told that by Nigel Farage, on and off air, I have been told that by the top generals, you name it.” ~Alex Jones, the voice of the paranoid Right, host of InfoWars

MediaMatters has the video

"Years of fear mongering, paranoia, and conspiracy theories on Fox News and talk radio paved the way for a Trump presidency. It’s up to journalists to stop that fear from continuing to hijack American politics.” ~MediaMatters

“When you’re a right wing media outlet and you want people to pay attention, what do you do? You scare the shit out of them.” ~MediaMatters

A useful video explains how the right wing has gaslit half of America from MediaMatters

"While no one knows what the new leaders will actually do, there are signs that are disturbing. We have seen the bald assertion of "alternative facts." We have heard the blatant attacks on science. Familiar signposts of our democracy –truth, civility, working together – have been obscured or swept aside.” ~Gov. Jerry Brown of California

MotherJones on Jerry Brown's promise to fight lies with the truth