Lessons of History and Trying To Avoid the Same Mistakes

[CowboyTed]

https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16

With all the arguments over whether MAGA Republicans are fascists, I reread William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” to see how much the rise of Hitler and the rise of MAGA smell similar. Conclusion: They do. This thread lists 10 ways. Please take a look.

1. A big lie about treachery is used to foment resentment. Nazis: We didn’t really lose World War I. It was a “stab in the back” by Jews and other "November criminals." MAGA: We didn’t really lose the 2020 election. It was a “steal” by politicians and Blacks in big cities.




2. There’s an obsession with purity of the culture. Nazis: “Racial mixture” was a threat to Aryan culture, Hitler wrote. MAGA: “Great replacement theory” says immigrants threaten white culture.



3. Chaos is something to be exploited, not addressed. Nazis: Economic distress is a great political opportunity. MAGA: Economic distress is a great political opportunity.



4. The super-rich bankroll the right-wing seizure of power. Nazis: Thanks to I.G. Farben, Deutsche Bank, Thyssen, Krupp, etc. MAGA: Thanks to the Mercers, Uihleins, DeVos, Thiel, etc.



5. Some people think the fascist threat is overblown. Nazis: While Hitler posed a major threat, some said he "ceased to be a political danger.” (2 weeks later, he was chancellor.) MAGA: While Trump poses a major threat, many people think it’s “just politics,” no worries.


6. There’s a cult of personality. Nazis: The German army made a pledge of loyalty to Hitler personally. MAGA: Trump’s supporters bill him as “the most moral president” in U.S. history.



7. Christianity is used to legitimize the movement. Nazis: “The party stands for positive Christianity.” MAGA: Trump is described as the “Chosen One” protecting American Christianity.





8. Books are the enemy. Nazis: Any book that “acts subversively on our future” must be burned. MAGA: “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” says a Virginia school board member.




9. An independent news media is the enemy. Nazis: Any newspaper that “offends the honor and dignity of Germany” must be banned. MAGA: The press is the “enemy of the people.”



10. Educators are pressured to be politically compliant. Nazis: Teachers took an oath to “be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler.” MAGA: Florida’s DeSantis accuses teachers of “indoctrination” and pressures them to avoid references to America’s racist history and LGBTQ people.



I'm not saying that MAGA will end up as horrifically as Nazism. I am saying that America 2022 feels too much like Germany 1932, and I don't want to take the risk of watching MAGA cultism play out. We have to stop it now.



Why did Twitter put a “sensitive” warning on this thread? Who knows? My only theory is that it has a “hateful symbol”—a swastika on the cover of Shirer’s book about Nazism.

A very reasoned case...

Now a number of MAGAs are going to go DEFCON 1...

Don't expect them to actually engage in a discussion or any nuance like that...

What will get is :

• Insults
• Whataboutism
• Memes
• Ridicule
• Gaslighting
• Some will agree and say NAZIs weren't that bad
• Some will agree and say it is a start and NAZIs had the right idea..

 

[CrusaderFrank]

https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16

With all the arguments over whether MAGA Republicans are fascists, I reread William Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” to see how much the rise of Hitler and the rise of MAGA smell similar. Conclusion: They do. This thread lists 10 ways. Please take a look.

1. A big lie about treachery is used to foment resentment. Nazis: We didn’t really lose World War I. It was a “stab in the back” by Jews and other "November criminals." MAGA: We didn’t really lose the 2020 election. It was a “steal” by politicians and Blacks in big cities.




2. There’s an obsession with purity of the culture. Nazis: “Racial mixture” was a threat to Aryan culture, Hitler wrote. MAGA: “Great replacement theory” says immigrants threaten white culture.



3. Chaos is something to be exploited, not addressed. Nazis: Economic distress is a great political opportunity. MAGA: Economic distress is a great political opportunity.



4. The super-rich bankroll the right-wing seizure of power. Nazis: Thanks to I.G. Farben, Deutsche Bank, Thyssen, Krupp, etc. MAGA: Thanks to the Mercers, Uihleins, DeVos, Thiel, etc.



5. Some people think the fascist threat is overblown. Nazis: While Hitler posed a major threat, some said he "ceased to be a political danger.” (2 weeks later, he was chancellor.) MAGA: While Trump poses a major threat, many people think it’s “just politics,” no worries.


6. There’s a cult of personality. Nazis: The German army made a pledge of loyalty to Hitler personally. MAGA: Trump’s supporters bill him as “the most moral president” in U.S. history.



7. Christianity is used to legitimize the movement. Nazis: “The party stands for positive Christianity.” MAGA: Trump is described as the “Chosen One” protecting American Christianity.





8. Books are the enemy. Nazis: Any book that “acts subversively on our future” must be burned. MAGA: “I think we should throw those books in a fire,” says a Virginia school board member.




9. An independent news media is the enemy. Nazis: Any newspaper that “offends the honor and dignity of Germany” must be banned. MAGA: The press is the “enemy of the people.”



10. Educators are pressured to be politically compliant. Nazis: Teachers took an oath to “be loyal and obedient to Adolf Hitler.” MAGA: Florida’s DeSantis accuses teachers of “indoctrination” and pressures them to avoid references to America’s racist history and LGBTQ people.



I'm not saying that MAGA will end up as horrifically as Nazism. I am saying that America 2022 feels too much like Germany 1932, and I don't want to take the risk of watching MAGA cultism play out. We have to stop it now.



Why did Twitter put a “sensitive” warning on this thread? Who knows? My only theory is that it has a “hateful symbol”—a swastika on the cover of Shirer’s book about Nazism.

Have you ever considered taking up a hobby? Gardening?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

A very reasoned case...

Now a number of MAGAs are going to go DEFCON 1...

Don't expect them to actually engage in a discussion or any nuance like that...

What will get is :

• Insults
• Whataboutism
• Memes
• Ridicule
• Gaslighting
• Some will agree and say NAZIs weren't that bad
• Some will agree and say it is a start and NAZIs had the right idea..

^ Very Fake News

 

[Sixties Fan]

Have you ever considered taking up a hobby? Gardening?

Do any of you ever learn history, or the constitution of the country you live in, or its laws?

Do you ever wonder why so many Republicans are ending up in prison for sedition, or attacking others who do not look like yourselves?

No, of course not. Much too difficult for a cultist to get out of a cult. But there is hope.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Tesla broke U.S. labor law by silencing workers, official rules

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www.reuters.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

New study shows why GOP wants to stop youth voting

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[Sixties Fan]

RNC chair insists fake Biden video isn't fake

President Joe Biden officially announced his run for a second term Tuesday, and released a campaign video highlighting the importance of personal freedoms. The Republican National Committee countered with its own anti-Biden advertisement that featured...

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[Sixties Fan]

‘Bible bigots’ are angry about reaping their just rewards

Buckle in, everyone, because this story is a ride. It consists of a very current post on the ultra-right-wing Gab social media app, about an arrest that took place one year ago.

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[Sixties Fan]

Cow pies fly as Devin Nunes loses yet another lawsuit over his family's dairy farm

Former U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes loses more lawsuits than he does bath sponges in Donald Trump’s spumescent corpus. So while the latest news may be just another day at the office for Devin, it’s still worth celebrating. To wit: A federal judge has issued a...

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[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

Nations generally don't learn their history, and most humans don't either, and make similar mistakes.

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

We’ve talked about the North Carolina gerrymandering case, also called the independent state legislature theory case, that the Supreme Court is considering this term and how the Court’s continued jurisdiction was compromised when the North Carolina Supreme Court suddenly reopened proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear only final decisions from lower courts in a case like this. So after the North Carolina Supreme Court decided to rehear the case, they asked the parties to brief whether they could still decide it. No ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court yet, but today the North Carolina court entered a decision in its reopened proceedings.

​

Their ruling was no surprise, in the sense that there was no reason to reopen the case unless they were going to reverse the earlier decision. Let me set the scene for you.

In a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court case, Rucho v. Common Cause, the Court ruled it would not consider whether the election maps drawn by a state were an illegal political gerrymander. It held that partisan gerrymandering claims present political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts. After Rucho, federal courts can only consider whether electoral maps are an illegal racial gerrymander.

But even though the Supreme Court has ruled that federal law doesn’t reach political gerrymanders, some states’ constitutions prohibit them. In those states, challenges to partisan gerrymanders can still proceed. That happened in Alaska, where last week the state Supreme Court ruled that a partisan gerrymander violated the state constitution. And in North Carolina.

Today the North Carolina court reversed its earlier ruling that new maps drawn after the 2020 census violated the state’s constitution because they amounted to a political gerrymander. What led the court to this new result?The law didn’t change. The facts didn’t change. Only the political makeup of North Carolina’s Supreme Court changed, and now they’ve authorized an extreme partisan gerrymander that previously violated the state’s constitution.

If Republicans in North Carolina don’t like this provision in their state constitution, there’s a mechanism for changing it: amend the state constitution. But changing rulings without regard for precedent just because the personalities that make up a court have changed is contrary to the rule of law. And it damages public confidence in the rule of law.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder issued a statement, setting forth clearly what’s at stake. He points out that as bad as what happened in North Carolina is, it’s not just North Carolina. There is the larger question of whether Republicans, concerned that their ability to win fair elections in much of the country is a thing of the past, will engage in political gamesmanship to hold onto power:

“This shameful, delegitimizing decision to allow the unjust, blatant manipulation of North Carolina’s voting districts was not a function of legal principle, it was a function of political personnel and partisan opportunism. Neither the map nor the law have changed since last year’s landmark rulings—only the makeup of the majority of the North Carolina Supreme Court has changed. History will not be kind to this court’s majority, which will now forever be stained for irreparably harming the legitimacy and reputation of North Carolina’s highest tribunal. The eyes of the nation will now turn to the North Carolina legislature to see what further harm Republicans will do to undermine democracy in the state.

“Make no mistake, this moment is the result of a concerted effort by too many in the Republican Party to bend—even break—the rules of our democracy in order to unfairly gain and then hold onto power. They fear they can’t win in a fair electoral system. Republicans have said themselves that state supreme court elections are ‘the next big political frontier.’ By planting partisan ideologues instead of fair-minded justices on the courts, they are weakening the independence of state judicial branches across the country in order to roll back rights and force unpopular policies—including abortion and democracy destruction—onto the people. We cannot allow them to succeed.”

Trump was the epitome of an approach that valued winning at all costs. But just as Republicans had been employing fake narratives about voting fraud that Trump picked up, albeit not to the extremes he went to, to justify vote-suppressing measures, even in Trump’s absence, other efforts to manipulate elections are still afoot. Finding ways to legitimize gerrymanders that prevent people from electing the representatives they want because of the way the districts they live in are drawn is one of them. The North Carolina court today also gave two more wins to anti-voting measures, permitting a restrictive voter ID act to go into effect and limiting the restoration of voting right to people who have finished serving a sentence after a criminal conviction.

The question to ask is, what are these politicians afraid of? The answer, obviously, is voters. Because they know they can’t win a fair race.

The North Carolina Supreme Court Signs Off on a Political Gerrymander

We’ve talked about the North Carolina gerrymandering case, also called the independent state legislature theory case, that the Supreme Court is considering this term and how the Court’s continued jurisdiction was compromised when the North Carolina Supreme Court suddenly reopened proceedings...

joycevance.substack.com

 

[John Edgar Slow Horses]

The theory of an independent state legislature is only a theory.

I doubt SCOTUS will uphold the case.

 

[Sixties Fan]

The theory of an independent state legislature is only a theory.

I doubt SCOTUS will uphold the case.

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