No problem, Heath. I agree with your points and I agree there are comparisons to be made between how Hitler rose to power and how people that work for Trump want to use some of those same ideas.
I see things this way though, while the people that voted for Trump were poorly informed and worked up by a lot of lies and bad ideas...I can understand why they voted for Trump. So, I would prefer not to compare them in any way to Nazis. I do not at all feel the same way about elected Republicans though because they know exactly how wrong what they are doing is, how destructive it is, and how dangerous it is...yet they continue to go down this path...or they continue to hide while Trump, Barr, Pompeo and McConnell go down it.
The points in my post pertain to the voters and I do believe we can't really do a clean comparison between them and how the Germans felt about Hitler. While there are aspects of how human beings feel and react that are similar over time, I think a big difference between Germans back then and American Trump voters now is the Germans back then wanted a government...Trump voters appear not to want a government AT ALL.
At least this appears to be what they desire as what Trump is openly doing, he is not hiding it in any way, is he is systematically destroying all aspects of our government and emphasizing his power as...well...a dictator, that in his own words can do "anything" he wants.
We can ask whatever Trump supporters that post here if this is what they want but Pat seems unwilling to respond to anything other than music questions and Marc has checked out. But really, who cares what they think because I don't think they even really know what they think.
Why would anybody want this though? The president of Finland sat next to an enraged Trump the other day and warned Trump to try to keep this democracy intact. He said that because Trump has quite obviously been laboring to destroy our democracy. The whole world knows that. I believe even Trump supporters know it but they want Trump to destroy our government so...they are with him on that.
And the thing is while Trump is stupid, crazy, and obviously working against the United States in any and every way he can...even more dangerous than him is Bill Barr because Barr is not a moron, knows exactly what he is doing, is decimating the Justice department, and he understands exactly what he needs to do to bring down our democracy.
Barr wants this to happen and he will seek to try to make it difficult to fight in court which is rapidly becoming the venue for the last stand of our democracy, our constitution, our way of life. So far Trump has been losing his argument that he is a dictator in court...but Barr is working hard to get his thumb on the scale.
This is no joke and this is exactly what a constitutional crisis looks like. The argument presented by the Trump administration yesterday is the other branches of government have no power, there are no checks and balances, he is the only one that decides what happens, and he is permitted to do ANYTHING he wants. No laws or rules apply to the president according to Bill Barr.
Is this absurd? Yup. We now get to test if we have a system that works.
Anybody that defends what this president is doing, what Bill Barr is doing, what Mike Pompeo is doing...well...they are completely on the opposite side of the US Constitution. These guys have stated in the open there is no more "We the People..." with that letter they sent out yesterday.
Do I think a guy like Pat Brown understands that? No, but Bill Barr does. Lindsey Graham does. Mike Pompeo does. Mitch McConnell does. And they have made the choice to get behind that even as Trump abandons our allies in Syria to do the bidding of Putin.
We are in a full on crisis, elected Republicans are pretty much all in hiding except Romney, Sasse, and now Susan Collins...and of course the small team of morons that are still agreeing to come out and defend Trump.
We are in it now and according to polling even white male Republican voters understand this...at least the ones with a college education.
This is where and how things can turn. I don't think anybody with a brain wants a country that is ruled by fear. That is not the United States. This is how Trump is exorcising his power...through fear. He is not interested in working with Republicans...he wants them to fear him. He wants all Americans to fear him. He is saying in the open, "Bow down to me or I will do harm to you."
When did that become the United States that a guy like Pat Brown wanted to live in?
