They blamed them for pre-existing social problems. I feel the important context was that the government had to be significantly dysfunctional for the Nazi party to even exist.
I know that CECOT is not nearly as bad as concentration camps, but at the same time it's not like Trump refrains from sending people off to camps, based on loose accusations.
What I'm trying to say, or I guess repeat after you, is that fascism doesn't have to be Hitlerian to be fascism. Or in other words, at this point it's too late anyways.
We absolutely should start comparing and measuring now, because at the point where the comparisons match 100%, too much damage will have been done.
If I was religious I'd probably pray for the US, as I'm not I'm just shaking my head in astonishment.
Trump isn't sending his political opponents to camps (yet), is my point. If you're a citizen currently in US, you can, to paraphrase the old Soviet joke, stand next to the White House and shout "Trump is an asshole", and you won't find yourself on a deportation flight tomorrow. OTOH Nazis started creating concentration camps specifically for communists and dissident journalists less than a month after their electoral victory.
I think that focusing on broad comparisons is not the best idea precisely because it's way too easy to deconstruct, and "X is literally Hitler" is such an overused political trope that most people stop listening right away regardless of how much truth there is to it. It's better to focus on the specific negative actions.
> The Nazis had strong support. But Hitler was appointed.
Well, yeah, PM’s (and the Chancellor in the German system at the time, and now, is a PM) are almost invariably appointed by the head of state after either a general election—or sometimes between them if an incumbent resigns or a vacancy occurs by other means—as the leader of the majority party (if any), the leader of the majority coalition (if there's no majority party but there is a majority coalition), or sometimes (and whether this is allowed and whether it makes a sooner next election than would otherwise be required varies) some minority party leader based on some combination of size of minority, support and opposition from other parties, and discretion of the head of state.
And, yes, Hitler was first appointed as the last and weakest kind, but that's still effectively winning the tiebreaker set out for an ambiguous electoral result, since it could only happen because no other party or coalition could form a legislative majority.
> They blamed them for pre-existing social problems.
Is immigration a new hot topic in the US?
I mean, a few years ago the US government started wasting money building a wall on the US-Mexico border whose only purpose was propaganda and dog whistling.
And is it really necessary to point out the obvious parallels between the Nazi's "vital state" propaganda and Trump's "Canada as 51st state" and "Greenland is ours" rhetoric?
If they talk like Nazis and they goose-step like Nazis, what are they? I would ask if you'd start being concerned when they started rounding up random people off the streets, but apparently that's still not enough.
They blamed them for pre-existing social problems. I feel the important context was that the government had to be significantly dysfunctional for the Nazi party to even exist.