So it turns out Trump doesn't need a Reichstag fire at all.

[thucythucy]

For two years--ever since the KGOP seized the executive branch--I've worried that some crisis or event along the lines of 9-11 would give Trump an excuse to declare a "national emergency" and begin the wholesale destruction of our constitutional democracy as it's been understood to exist for the past two centuries. I even thought Trump was capable of fomenting such a crisis himself, much as the Nazis set fire to their own Parliament building to provide an excuse for the Enabling Act that gave Hitler absolute power in Germany.

But Trump and his minions (or perhaps I should say his Russian handlers) didn't even bother. They pointed to the Reichstag, standing there intact for all to see--and simply declared it to be on fire. And his cult shouts "Oh my God! Look at the flames! Dear Leader, protect us!"

A bogus national emergency will set us on a course to become an absolutely bogus constitutional democracy.

Bear in mind that until German democracy was destroyed, Hitler and the Nazis never received more than 38% of the popular vote. His support was actually declining when he was appointed Chancellor. But being a minority didn't stop the Nazis from wresting absolute control of the government, and we all know what followed from that.

I have never been more frightened for the future of this nation--and the world--than I am this morning.

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Selective Populism via TV and social media.

and co-opting religion.

[kentuck]

2. He takes more power than is given...

He has abused the power given him.

[thucythucy]

4. And Mitch McConnell is now "missing in action."

If Trump declares his "national emergency" I think McConnell will go down in history as America's Von Papen--the man who thought he could control Hitler by allowing him to assume executive power. The German right justified naming Hitler chancellor by saying "WE are hiring HIM." McConnell no doubt had some similar thought about Trump.

And all because McConnell didn't want Hillary appointing Supreme Court justices, which is the least toxic excuse I can think of for his cowardly surrender of democratic principles and the responsibilities of his oath and office.

Thank goodness we at least have the House. Whether this will be enough, only time will tell.

[KPN]

5. Mitch isn't MIA. He's actively aiding Don Feuhrer.

[thucythucy]

9. I'm afraid you're right about this.

Probably I'm grasping at straws, but I'm hoping McConnell might at last wake up and see what a place he's carving for himself in history.

But probably that's a forlorn hope...

[Texin]

11. Absolutely! He's coaching William Barr on how to evade the Dems' request for meetings

prior to the Senate judicial committee hearings.

[maddiemom]

16. It's a toss up as to which "Deplorable" I despise more: Trump or McConnell.

On further thought, Mitch has been doing damage at a slower pace (no pun intended), but over a much longer period of time. His behavior when President Obama was in office was reprehensible. I don't know of another administration where a Senate leader has proudly and publicly vowed to sabotage everything the elected POTUS tried to do while in office and made this his priority (making Obama a one term president).

[KPN]

19. It is a toss up isn't it? I say castrate them both.

[BlueJac]

3. Very uncomfortable times!

Sleepless nights.

[GetRidOfThem]

12. I could not sleep last night...

I was so worried about Agent Orange and what might happen next.

If this is at all a consoling point:

The Weimar Republic was a weak structure from the beginning, and Germany had no experience with democracy, nor was it ingrained in the culture. We have had over 200 years experience here. Though things look bleak, and we are going through a very tough time, and I am losing sleep over this, we are not in the same condition as my country of origin was in the 1920s in the aftermath of WW1.

We may need to put in place some constitutional amendments when this is over, get rid of the electoral college, for example, but we may not be at the end yet...

[pandr32]

15. Agent Orange is a good name for him

Lots of us are getting sick.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

28. that's Russian Agent Orange

Let's not forget who installed that thing.

[thucythucy]

24. You're probably right.

At least I hope so.

Certainly German society in the 1920s and early 1930s was under far more stress than anything we face today. The loss of a world war with millions of dead, and more millions permanently physically and mentally disabled, hyper-inflation followed by depression, foreign occupation (of the Rhineland and the Ruhr by the French and Belgians), an aborted communist revolution...

But here in the US we haven't seen anything like that, not even close, and yet we have Trump in power, with the fanatical support of a good third of our population. Makes me tremble to think what might happen to this country if we ever faced the devastation and displacements faced by Germans in 1933.

And yes, abolish the Electoral College, and grant statehood to Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

Best wishes to you and yours, and thank you for the reassurance.

[sharedvalues]

27. The additional destabilization today is rightwing propaganda media and facebook

reportedly it has been said “if Hitler had TV he would have won.”

It is the rightwing propaganda media- Fox, Limbaugh; Murdoch’s UK and Australian properties- that are leading to the rise toward autocracy.

Goebbels didn’t have Facebook or Fox or Limbaugh gh.

[bdamomma]

6. I just hope

this jerk gets what's coming to him and Russia. He has damaged so many lives, and we have children and mothers taken away from each other among other horrendous things he has done. But I believe Stephen Miller needs to brought into the spotlight.

[KPN]

7. You are not alone.

[thucythucy]

8. Thank you.

My one consolation is that we have so many brave progressives willing to fight this.

Best wishes.

[KPN]

10. Same to you and all of us.

[PeeJ52]

14. but the tRumpers have the guns...

It's the police who have been allowed to keep their unions through the years of Republican rule. We're screwed...

[erronis]

20. Interesting, that. Police unions, and social welfare for the military.

But the proles are left to fend for themselves.

[PeeJ52]

13. I agree...

All it takes is a demonstration and someone getting killed like at Kent State. All it takes is a policeman or guardsman being killed or injured by a Hispanic or "foreigner". It wouldn't take much to have things escalate. Just an argument or two between a tRumper and anti-tRumper, and of course the tRumpers have guns. It could go bad real quick and marshal law declared in a heartbeat. I may never get the chance to move to Canada....

[maddiemom]

18. The very reason that I can't see the 2016 election declared null and void.

Installing the rightful, popular vote winner in place of Trump would provoke a frightening reaction from his loyal and deluded "base." One step at a time: just start with getting rid of the orange menace and dealing with Pence.

[malchickiwick]

17. Germany had only a decade or so of experience as a Republic; we have 240 years.

It's not that I don't share your views that they are trying to use the playbook, but comparing the Weimar Republic to the USA is a massive stretch, and I, for one, believe our institutions, nearly two and a half centuries old, will withstand the storm.

Go Article III!!

[thucythucy]

21. I agree

and draw some reassurance from the fact that democratic institutions in the US have far deeper roots than those of Weimar.

On the other hand, prior to the Third Reich Germany had a fairly progressive history. Even under the Kaiser, the Social Democrats were the largest party in the Reichstag. There were hundreds of daily newspapers serving a highly literate population. Germany was the first nation to institute Social Security (about forty years before the US) and other social safety net features. And Weimar, as brief a time as it had, was at the forefront of women's rights and labor rights. The LGBT scene in Berlin was legendary.

Yes, the analogy between the US and Weimar is a stretch--thankfully. Still, it's disheartening to see how quickly Trump has been able to erode and erase so much of the best in this nation.

[brooklynite]

22. Who took Hitler to Court after the Reichstag fire?

The two situations are NOT comparable.

[thucythucy]

26. It's not so much that the situations are comparable,

but that it's taken so much less to turn a third of this country into bigoted dupes.

There is no national crisis at the southern border. Border crossings are DOWN and have been going down for years. Immigrants by and large are not ravaging our country and slaughtering our citizens in the streets. At least there actually was a Reichstag fire, and given the experience of the attempt at a violent communist revolution in 1919, the idea that the fire was the signal for a general Red uprising--while also nonsensical in 1933--was something many Germans, remembering the street fighting of 1919-1921--found at least somewhat plausible.

Our body politic seems so much more gullible. That's what I find both disturbing and, as an American, a source of some shame.

[Nitram]

23. The Wall fight won't give the president the power to "wrestle absolute control of the government."

It will result in Trump stealing money from the military budget to pay for the Wall, and further alienate conservatives. This is a showdown that Trump cannot win in the long run.

[thucythucy]

25. The latest on CNN is that he wants to take money from disaster relief

for Puerto Rico, money put aside in the military budget for supplies and transport of supplies to that devastated and suffering island.

Conservatives, some anyway, would love absolutely love that. To paraphrase one Trumpster quoted in the New York Times, he'd be back to "hurting the right people."

But I put great faith in Speaker Pelosi. And the news that Cohen is going to testify is also hopefully a good and needed development.

[Nitram]

29. That's right. To support his new idea that the border "situation" is a "disaster", he's planning to

use FEMA fund at the expense of victims of real disasters. WTF!

[1democracy]

30. Once he get's a taste of real absolute power...

who can or will stop him?

If the courts try, he'll just declare another emergency!

We'll all know it's a lie, just like any thinking person knows there is no crisis at the border... but we will be totally without rights to speak, assemble, communicate.

Who knew it would be so easy to destroy democracy?

[1democracy]

31. P.S. How long would it have taken Germany itself to disempower Hitler

...if there hadn't been a war to lose?