Census How to fix the USA

Much like Hitler was the dark nationalist soul that had been resting at the heart of Germany since 1871 (and flowing back to the Prussian state), Trump is the dark soul of America. Each state has as deep routed darkness that can arise when the country is under great stress, some worse than others.

Trump is a distinctly American evil despot. Putin is distinctly Russian. Hitler was distinctly German. Mussolini was distinctly Italian.

 

Sigh. You guys know Godwin'ing up a thread is the first act of fools, right?

Trump exists because he is a mirror of America. The disgust many people worldwide have at American excess is now starting to hit Americans by way of their disgust at Trump. Self-awareness may follow but AFS1983's arms-length'ing of Trump is basically good proof of this.

 

Didn't i just say he is a mirror of America? No, I think the use of Hitler is a silly thing to analogise, but I didn't bring it into the conversation.

 

To compare evil-lightweights like Trump and Putin vs. Hitler who caused an industrial managed genocide killing 7m+ people and a World War including the massacre of civillians in Eastern Europe to get land for the future german super race with another numerous millions of dead people is a bit odd. I doubt that Putin or Trump have a handwritten manifest on their desk (that they wrote in their 20ies) that they follow now and which contains stuff like genocide or extinction.

 

Yeah you completely missed the point I was making. Trump cannot be handwaved away as an anomaly, but rather is an inherent result of the American culture.

 

He only lost the popular vote because of California. Factoring in all 49 states minus California, Trump won the popular vote as well. The only reason he didn't win the popular vote nationally is because California is such an outlier.

Trump and his brand are inherent to American culture and politics. You ask why he never appeared on the scene until now, but really all he is is the ethos and true aim of the GOP laid bare without the genteel veneer. It's why he won the Republican nomination and why the Republican establishment have been bending over backward to accommodate him ever since he won the presidency--their aims align. The difference is just that Trump is much more overt about it.

 

Yes, that for sure. However this is unfortunately not only a US phenomenon at the moment. On the one hand moral high-ground freaks and on the other hand demagogue populists.

 

Well, you know that I was just joking...?

 

You were? Not cool Adrian. Not cool.

 

Right, which begs the question of why you indulged Alpha Red's stupid exercise to try and say "well, Hitler must be the proto-German, by that logic!"

 

Because Hitler was a reflection of the inherent problems within German society, brought out by the extreme stress the society was under.

Granted Hitler was the worst Germany could produce given the relative stress the society was under, but I don't think Trump is the worst that the US could produce. Both reflect the dark heart of their respective nations. Thankfully the German one was excised through the annihilation of the German state.

 

OK but the difference is Hitler had mapped out this plan, and actually had a plan. He used the nationalist sentiment resulting from punitive controls under Versailles to facilitate his rise and get the German people on board with his vision.

Trump is just a loud, anti-intellectual, boorish, crass, uncultured, overbearing, pompous, ignorant, arrogant swine whose entitlement mentality said there's no reason, such as a chronic lack of qualification, why something ought not be his. That is so emblematic of Americans that it's almost hard to believe at times.

 

You just described the difference between Americans and Germans, which proves my point. Both have used the prevailing sentiments within a country to their own advantage.

 

It continues to gall that you carry that username but think so close to the surface.

 

I don't see how it's more complicated then I'm stating.

Hitler used German sense of racial anxiety, sense of fallen honour and longing for folk culture and myth in a context of economic depression, threat of culture destroying communism and humiliation. He was inherently the dark soul of Germany.

Trump used the American anxiety over non-white immigration, the perceived condescension of intellectuals, and the myth than all businessmen started out poor and were self made in the context of the old industrial heartland disappearing and anxiety over the looming non-white majority America.

Both are a reflection of the dark heart of their nation, while both using the current situation to their advantage.

Putin and Erdoğan are the same.

 

Except the issue with all those people is that they had purpose and a vision. Trump is an inevitable biproduct of a system; by being the manifestation of the American dream in a person, he is a living critique of a system that's been rotten since 1776 but too rich to notice.

Erdogan, Orban, Putin et al - they all had a desire for power. Trump had a wounded ego and wanted to prove a point. Like a dog chasing a car, he was utterly ill-equipped for catching it and mildly terrified that he'd bitten off more than he can chew. Due to crippling insecurities, of course, he can't admit this so he doubles down on the rhetoric.

Whereas the other authoritarian numpties bent society to their will, by exploiting divisions and controlling the arms of state, Trump stumbled into his predicament as a living cautionary tale against the fallacy that all men are created equal.

 

Its precisely because of his MO that I think he's uniquely American. Of course the American authoritarian wouldn't have a plan, would be focused on ego and money and completely unable to complete the job or task.

 

When Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election, I immediately thought of the movie The American President and the scene where Michael Douglas' character, the sitting American President who's up for re-election, finally responds to his opposition for the office of president in the speech quoted below as it highlights Trump's strategy to win the election:

From the 1995 movie, The American President, POTUS Andrew Shepherd:

This speech as always resonated with me, mostly because of the line about making people afraid and pointing the finger of blame are the path to winning an election.