You can’t say we weren’t warned

You can’t say we weren’t warned. Hitler warned us, but like the Germans before us, we didn’t listen. Now, we have been repeating Germany’s mistakes.

Read this reprint from a post titled “Astounding similarities: Hitler in America. It’s happening now.” It posted way back in September 2016, when Trump was still running for office.

A host of earlier biographers have advanced theories about Hitler’s rise, and the dynamic between the man and his times.

Some have focused on the social and political conditions in post-World War I Germany, which Hitler expertly exploited — a yearning for a return to German greatness; unemployment and economic distress; and longstanding ethnic prejudices and fears of “foreignization.”

Hmmm . . . “Make America great again,” anti-Muslim, build a wall. Now, who is that?

Hitler as a politician who rose to power through demagoguery, showmanship and nativist appeals to the masses.

Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.”

What about this: do demagoguery, showmanship, and nativist appeals sound familiar? And which egomaniacal politician describes everything about himself as “incredible.”

A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”

Which politician not only lies the most of any in recent memory but repeatedly denies the incontrovertible evidence of lies?

And this:

Hitler was an effective orator and actor, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences.

Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies.

Which politician is a professional TV actor? Who boasts about massive rallies with thousands of cheering people? Which politician breeds hatred of minorities? And this:

He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers.

Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.

Which politician yells “Get ’em outa here” when heckled? Which politician promises to enforce “law and order”? And this:

Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was typically vague about his actual plans.

He often harked back to a golden age for the country, the better “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker.

Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.”

Which politician repeatedly tells us we are losing to the Chinese, the Mexicans, and the terrorists- losing, losing, losing- but is vague about plans (sometimes claiming they are “secret.”?) And this:

Because the understanding of the masses “is feeble,” Hitler said, effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be “persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”

Seen any political slogans printed on hats and constantly repeated in speeches to remind the “feeble” masses? And this:

Hitler’s rise was not inevitable. There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed.

(But) in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the elites.

(There was) the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up.

“Why not give the National Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem pretty gutsy to me.”

Does resentment of elites (aka “the establishment”) ring a bell? What about the need for change, to “shake things up”? And this:

(Hitler’s) conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him.

Know of any politicians whose own party continues to try to moderate them? Was there speculation about politicians not really being serious about running for President? And this:

Hitler, it became obvious, could not be tamed.

The independent press was banned or suppressed and books deemed “un-German” were burned.

Think. Which American politician wants to sue the press for unflattering articles? Germans believed, “It cannot happen here.” But, as the author asks . . .

What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace Hitler and his doctrine of hatred?

How did this “most unlikely pretender to high state office” achieve absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror?

It happened in Germany. Actually, it has happened in many countries. People fundamentally are the same, everywhere, and everywhere they can be led like sheep to the slaughter by Hitlerian leaders.

Yes, it can happen here. It, in fact, is happening here, right in front of our noses. Don’t believe, even for one second, that we are immune.

Were it not for a few heroes who resisted Trump, we would have lost America’s democracy. Even now, there are Hitler, uh, Trump believers who would sacrifice America for a charlatan.

“Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” George Santayana

Learn.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Monetary Sovereignty

Twitter: @rodgermitchell Search #monetarysovereignty
Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.

The most important problems in economics involve:

1. Monetary Sovereignty describes money creation and destruction.
2. Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socioeconomic ranking and to come nearer those “above.” The socioeconomic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”

Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics. Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps: Ten Steps To Prosperity:

1. Eliminate FICA
2. Federally funded Medicare — parts A, B & D, plus long-term care — for everyone
3. Social Security for all
4. Free education (including post-grad) for everyone
5. Salary for attending school
6. Eliminate federal taxes on business
7. Increase the standard income tax deduction, annually. 
8. Tax the very rich (the “.1%”) more, with higher progressive tax rates on all forms of income.
9. Federal ownership of all banks
10. Increase federal spending on the myriad initiatives that benefit America’s 99.9% 

The Ten Steps will grow the economy and narrow the income/wealth/power Gap between the rich and the rest.

MONETARY SOVEREIGNTY