Why People Follow a Trump (or a Hitler)
How Trump is like P. T. Barnum… “The Greatest Show on Earth” to some people (From The Daily Show with Trevor Noah)
Frank Yeomans discusses the primitive appeal of splitting – “We’re good they’re bad” – and what happens when a malignant narcissist is the leader of a group. Both Trump and Hitler are mentioned.
I Asked German Experts Why Germans Followed Hitler
How Trump’s Supporters Resemble Hilter’s
In recent months, Donald Trump has sometimes been labeled a fascist, but a group of sixteen historians knowledgeable about fascism considered that question, and most of them have concluded that he is not.
Per the above article; “Much of Trump’s appeal, just as with Hitler’s, was that he was perceived as someone different than the traditional politicians, as someone who would take bold actions and speak up for ordinary people”.
- “In the summer of 1932, in the midst of the Great Depression, the German unemployment rate was about 30 percent.
- Although Hitler did not, like Donald Trump, wear a cap that featured a slogan about making his country great again, much of his appeal was that he would do so. And German voters in 1932 had much more reason than U. S. voters in 2016 to believe that their country had fallen from greatness—their WWI defeat; the imposition of a peace treaty (the Treaty of Versailles) that imposed a loss of territory, economic reparations, and disarmament upon them; a terrible inflation in 1923 that wiped out many savings; and the effects of the Great Depression.
- The growing German fear of “foreign” elements was different than the later fear of many Trump supporters concerned about foreign terrorists and illegal immigrants. To the Germans, the growing strength of German communists, whom many linked to Moscow, and some to Jews, was a major threat. As compared to Trump’s white nationalist supporters and those resenting the decline of white male dominance, Hitler’s trumpeting of the superiority of the pure white German Aryans appealed to many resenting the wealth and influence of some German Jews, plus the evil foreign WWI victors who had imposed the Versailles Treaty upon them.
- German voters in 1932, still in the Depression and still owing reparations (though now suspended), had more reason to believe their government had failed them than U.S. voters did in 2016.
- Just as many voters were dissatisfied with Nazi rival political parties in Germany in 1932, so too were many U. S. voters critical of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.
- Much of Trump’s appeal, just as with Hitler’s, was that he was perceived as someone different than the traditional politicians, as someone who would take bold actions and speak up for ordinary people”.
Hits: 508
