Trump's Media Pals Are Busy Creating a Left-Wing 'Threat' to Balance Out the Awful Racist Right-Wing Hordes That Threaten Civil Society

In these dark days, an intergenerational warning is in order: Antifa folks, be wary. They are coming for you.

Some of us have seen this movie before. In my generation, when I was a teenage member of MSU’s SDS in the late 1960s, I remember the guy who was always yelling, “Kill the pigs,” and encouraging us to burn down the ROTC building on campus. In later years, I heard from old SDS colleagues that when they sued the police, they learned that the outspoken guy was a police officer and his friends were informants.

For my dad’s generation, the right-wing takeover of a protest movement happened in Germany generations ago, so most Americans don’t even recognize Marinus van der Lubbe’s name. But the Germans remember well that fateful day 84 years ago: Feb. 27, 1933. And many of them are looking at the confrontations in our streets and worrying.

It started when the government, struggling with questions of its own legitimacy and the instability of its leader, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. Historians are still debating whether the “terrorist” was a mentally incompetent young man maneuvered into place to take the fall for the crime, or was an actual communist ideologue (of limited intellectual means and probably schizophrenic; that seems to be one thing most agree on).

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the people claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.

He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language, reflecting his background of hanging out with disreputable sorts, and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media.

He desperately wanted to be appreciated and loved by the “old money” crowd, but he also hated them because they had never accepted him and, deep down inside, he knew they never would.

Read more here.

Comments

BoxCar's picture
BoxCar 5 years 40 weeks ago
#1

Tom is saying "History Repeats Itself"> While I understand similarites between Hitler & Trump, there's one thing Hitler had said that Trump CAN'T say or do>

No English subtitles of Hitler speeches because he SPOKE TRUTHs that put blame for rise to power on shoulders of WW1 Allied Victors War Reparation pay'ts

Hitler said " U saw your GrandParents COMMIT SUICIDE when their life savings were wiped out by reparations & a destroyed economy put upon Germany by the Versailles Treaty> Put me in power & we'll march the Allies back into the railroad car in Paris and RESIGN the Treaty to do away w/the war reparations> We'll make the ALLIE's GrandParents COMMIT SUICIDE just like ours did"

Don't hear much about that one do ya'? What's Trump going to say? "America was wrong for rebuilding Europe wa Marshal Plan?" He'd be laughed off the stage

Riverplunge's picture
Riverplunge 5 years 40 weeks ago
#2

This is not the first time they villivfied (democrats) either us or the programs we tried to pass or stood for. Different day, same garbage talking.

Outback 5 years 40 weeks ago
#3

Excellent! And for anyone doubting the stunning parallels between the Germany of the '20's and '30's and the USA, circa 1980 to present, get it straignt from the "horse's mouth". You can buy "Mein Kampf" at Amazon right now for under $2 if you have a Kindle. A "must read"!

jpm19064@gmail.com's picture
jpm19064@gmail.com 5 years 40 weeks ago
#4

While there have been some others who have highlighted comparisions of Trump to Hitler, the detail of this article helps make the chances of such events happening here much clearer. I actually posted this article to my Facebook page.
Thanks Tom for some scholarship and detail.

randolphgarrison1@gmail.com's picture
randolphgarriso... 5 years 40 weeks ago
#5

Personally, right or wrong, I perceive to many similarities to the historical accounts of Hitlers rise to power. We are almost past the point where a revolution would be able to remove him from office. Ity is getting to the point it will take a world war.

It will be interesting to see the 1%er's paying for the military people, munitions and arms.

2950-10K's picture
2950-10K 5 years 40 weeks ago
#6

Where are we now, 46th in global press freedom rankings? This is why so many can no longer discern between right and wrong, truth and lies, real news and fake news, which is precisely what the Fascists intend...keep the rabble confused and take full advantage of the simple minded on election day.

You'd think there would be a clear distinction between a group of peaceful protestors confronting a group of gun toting antisemites/racists, but in 2017 "Merica" foxaganda and the Bannons out there have blurred common sense to a point where it feels like night of the living dead.

I don't see how all of this is going to end without a lot of pain and tumult now....no easy way out. Last November the vast majority needed to demand the election be declared invalid. Kobach should have been jailed for election fraud engineering and Trump and company jailed for treason. Why didn't this happen? Our country has sadly lost it's moral compass/common sense....thanks to very effective fascist propaganda.

How many elections have the Dems given up the White House to the loser ???

changeX's picture
changeX 5 years 40 weeks ago
#7

Most important!

Click "here" at "Read more here." (from above) to read the full post at alternet.org.

When "w" was in we used to say "next time things could be much worse."

I do not hear anyone saying that now, maybe becaue .....

jibaro01's picture
jibaro01 5 years 40 weeks ago
#8

It's always the same but people never learn.

That same thing is done in Puerto Rico every time there is a protest. You can put money on the fact that the most outspoken, noisiest and more violent members of the protest, belong to the opposition. It's the way that the powers that be keep people away from protest movements. Those people are there to generate fear and to destroy any credibility the movement might have.

That is "divide and conquer" in practice and it's a very succesful practice, mainly because people never learn.

Dianereynolds's picture
Dianereynolds 5 years 40 weeks ago
#9

Perhaps it is time to retire those 50 year old leftie/socialist memories of shouting trite slogans and throwing rocks at cops from ten rows back at a “peaceful protest” and realize there is nothing anti-fascists about antifa, and anyone who can watch their actions across the country as of late and still go with that narrative is a blind fool.

Support of their terrorist actions is waning from even the most liberal media outlets. These black masked little brats that think they are accomplishing something by showing up at a previously permitted demonstration and beating people with bats or using a hairspray and a lighter as a torch to set someone on fire will sooner or later get one of these petulant little bastards killed.

Or option two,

Keep up your stubborn support for their criminal actions and help sweep the Democrat party further into the dustbin of history. All they are doing is creating campaign ads for the Republicans. Take a cue from your heroes on MSNBC.

Time to figure out that if nobody gave any coverage to ANY of these so called movements, they would go away by themselves.

deepspace's picture
deepspace 5 years 40 weeks ago
#10

Despite right-wingers' lame efforts to rewrite history, let the extensive and exhausting public record show that the core, mainstream movement in America gaining the biggest head of steam against the inherent violence on vivid display by white supremacists, white nationalists, and white Christianists -- a sad collection of hypocrites emboldened by Trump the Liar's aggressive, gratuitous rhetoric and backward policies (with the tacit approval of the entire Republican Party leadership, the spineless acquiescence of their rank-and-file politicians, and the hidden bigotry and racism of their blind followers) -- is a nonviolent movement of resistance.

Any fringe outsiders who happen to show up and commit physical acts of violence at any of these peaceful protests are either reactionary, overly zealous "rightist" thugs or other similarly misguided "leftist" fools who would respond in kind. Both are feckin eejits cut from the same feckin cloth!

To be rightfully angry and disgusted by the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and political violence of a corporate-controlled state run by oligarchs -- the heart of fascism -- is to be repelled by all violence on all sides, from international relationships to street-level confrontations. On a moral level, a personal commitment to nonviolent action is the only "side" to be on. It is also the only effective way to resist a system that thrives on violence.

Gsaw's picture
Gsaw 5 years 39 weeks ago
#11

Immigration broken many years. Congress did not fix; too bad. They stay. Possession is 80% of the law.

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