They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

Re:They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955) by AnimalMuppet on Friday November 13, 2020 @12:16PM (#25084592)

The left had something similar in 2016, in Bernie Sanders. The differences were that he didn't have the locker room talk (that I know of), and he didn't have the dictatorial tendencies (that I know of). But he was an insurgent from outside the party (he wasn't a Democrat, though he may have joined the party in 2016 for his run). In the same way, Trump wasn't really a Republican. (He did join the party, but somewhat recently.) Yes, I realize that this is degenerating into No True Scotsman, but both were outsiders who tried to hijack the parties. Trump succeeded, Bernie failed because the Democratic Party manipulated things and the Republican Party let things happen.

The groundwork has been laid, on both sides. And the Democrats got raked over the coals for tilting the scales against Bernie, so they might not do it next time.

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Re:They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955) by pontus on Friday November 13, 2020 @01:12PM (#25085455)

I guess while he was an outsider I'm not sure that he would have proven to be authoritarian in the way Trump is. I'm mostly worried about our democracy and not necessarily so much about policies.

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Re:They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955) by AnimalMuppet on Friday November 13, 2020 @01:15PM (#25085496)

I agree; I specifically said that I had no basis for claiming that he was authoritarian. The rest is quite similar, though - the outside insurgency and the populism. So the playbook is there for it to happen on the left as well as on the right.

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Re:They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955) by krapp on Friday November 13, 2020 @12:21PM (#25084695)

To be fair, the Republican Party only let things happen after they tried really hard to get rid of Trump themselves.

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