Taibbi: We may not have that many outright Nazis... but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers

[phantom power]

The way you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things. We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers, and once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up.

People like Chris Christie and Paul LePage and Jeff Sessions surely know what Donald Trump is all about. Under normal circumstances, they wouldn't be debasing themselves by endorsing him. After all, they didn't, at least not until he became the practically inevitable nominee.

These are just half-smart politicians who think they see the writing on the wall and are making a move sooner rather than later, so they can nail down better jobs later on, or maybe just a line of communication. Christie, who if you haven't heard yet was once a federal prosecutor, is probably gunning for the attorney general job. And LePage practically came out and said he was looking for a post after his endorsement, explaining that he believed Trump would make a great president "if he puts together a good team." Hint hint!

...

These people will rationalize their support by telling themselves that they can do more to keep this Trump thing from going off the rails by influencing it from within, but in reality it doesn't work like that. Godwin's law notwithstanding, once you kiss the ring, you're a non-factor, a good German. And you won't say anything the next time some whooping fanatic belts an "ISIS suspect" at a rally.

All along, Beltway pundits have insisted that Trump could never win because there just aren't enough people in America who are that stupid. What those people missed is that there are always plenty of otherwise sane people who tend to fold and hop in line at the first show of strength.

Christie was the first of the major politicians, and there will be more. The next step will probably be a series of defections in the media and among the corporate donor class. They won't be fanatics. But like Christie on stage on Super Tuesday, they'll keep their mouths shut. And that will be enough.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/why-trumps-endorsements-should-scare-your-pants-off-20160311

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. And Drumpf is pulling in the imbeciles who love ridicule.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Yes, no content but lots of posturing, ridicule and repetition. Classic pitch for RWA followers

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027678529

He mentioned ISIS several times. About ten. But not exactly how to stop ISIS. Just comments like, "We're gonna get ISIS," and "ISIS is going down." Blanket statements. He did say that for America to win again (any sort of winning, not just against ISIS) we have to go outside of the law and he isn't afraid to do it. And that's unsettling for several reasons. But I'm just reporting the facts. And that was all he said on policy. Completely void of content or substance. Just statements that would get the crowd cheering.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

17. Yes, telling the imbeciles (RWA followers) the BS they want to hear

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017287799

[Wellstone ruled]

2. Most Germans did not support the NATZI's,

it was the fear and retaliation from the Party Goons that kept them from uprising and replacing them. And yes,Trump panders to the wannabe bully type and it is working.

[phantom power]

4. I want to believe that even Americans still remember enough about Hitler's rise...

to see what's going on here. Or, at least enough to keep Trump out of the White House.

On the other hand, anybody who ever watched Jay Leno's "Jay-walking" episodes will realize we can't really assume that's true.


I also keep hoping that maybe the MSM will step out of character and say something real about what's going on here, but there again, it's equally likely they'll stick to their "both-sides" modus operandi, either deliberately or just from 30 years of habit at this point.

[Wellstone ruled]

6. Today's Rethug Party is the

culmination of years of morphing into a Fascist organization similar to Italy of the Thirties. Trump has tapped the ugly under belly of a Nation were the Media is controlled by Oligarchs with their agenda of single Corporatism rule,which is being reinforced via false propaganda of a failing Nation.

This thing with Trump is a calculation and we have not seen the real ugly yet. He will use any and ever false equivalency available until a life is lost. Fox and GE/NBC/MSNBC are feeding this just for Ad dollar profits.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. President Obama's Brutal Assessment of the Rise of Donald Trump

President Obama's Brutal Assessment of the Rise of Donald Trump

“How can you be shocked?” he asked to laughter from the crowd, according to a transcript. “This is the guy, remember, who was sure that I was born in Kenya — who just wouldn’t let it go. And all this same Republican establishment, they weren’t saying nothing. As long as it was directed at me, they were fine with it. They thought it was a hoot, wanted to get his endorsement. And then now, suddenly, we’re shocked that there’s gambling going on in this establishment.”

How the Republican Party created Donald Trump

[skepticscott]

10. I would argue that only a tiny fraction of Americans

remember or are aware of the details of Hitler's rise. And that the media is the last group we should look to to educate them.

[Wellstone ruled]

33. And those of us left know the real story and not some

made up so called list. Another thing,many of those who are left,forgot their roots and joined the Rethugs. They seem to think,I got my screw you,so sad.

[tblue37]

25. Leno's bit is gone, but Kimmel's "Lie Witness News" is similarly revealing. nt

[jtuck004]

12. "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." Attributed to Jay Goul

Most supported him quite strongly and frankly, before the war ended.

There are a lot of pictures of Germans smiling before the Russians, and us, blew them up. There is no evidence that there was much reluctance to adopt his policies, btw, except among his enemies and the people he was murdering..

Germany was desperately poor, and he turned it around. He grabbed ahold of their insecurity and brought them confidence and strength. He had millions and millions of screaming, happy supporters.Parents brought their children and competed to get into their care. Note: Those party goons started as the people. To think otherwise is to mis-read history.

What the people really didn't like was the pre-war poverty, and Hitler brought them prosperity. Nearly everything in writing and in pictures points to them being quite happy with their little economic miracle, and the safety that homogeneity promised them.

More than one WWII vet came back with stories about shooting the townspeople after the war was declared over for being obnoxious assholes, defending what happened as the camps were liberated. I suspect where some of the "we never knew" crap came from was people not wanting to be hanged or shot after.

My neighbor, who, among other things fought at the Battle of the Bulge, laughed about it. Said most were absolutely behind him, until it came apart.

Nobody wants to believe people are like this, that they would turn into such pathetic examples of how low people can go on their own. But they are, and they do, sometimes just for the return of being able to hold their head up.

Which is precisely why the real estate swindler is having such success.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. Trump's best business deal:

[backscatter712]

28. I see a couple of common dynamics between now and the early 1930's...

One, you have the economic insecurity. At least right now, we have a saving grace - the economy's doing OK right now. Thanks to Obama, it's bounced back from the Great Recession, but there's still a lot of people who are unemployed or underemployed, and there's resentment because of that.

So what happens if the economy shits itself again? And it very well might, because Congress did not have the will to make real fixes to the fundamental problems that make our economy vulnerable to these crashes. Germany, around 1927, was bouncing back from the chaos right after WWII, the Nazis were a tiny fringe party, and things were on the upswing for the regular German. Then 1929 hit, Wall Street shit itself, the Great Depression came to Germany, and the Nazis grew with a vengeance, until they took power in 1933. If we have another economic crash in the next couple years, it could spell disaster today.

The other dynamic is the myth of the backstabbing, which is a staple of authoritarian takeovers. In Germany, the story was that those eeeeeeevil Jews infiltrating the German government surrendered to the Allies at Versailles at the close of WWI, and Germany, and regular Germans, got screwed. They got humiliated, had to cede territory, pay very expensive reparations, and the regular German got it the worst. The myth was that Germany could have chosen to keep fighting and win, if it weren't for those backstabbing Jews and their preemptive surrender.

Today, we have the myth of the backstabbing black President Obama, who was apparently born in Kenya, who's selling out our country to ISIS, hollowing out our military, and taking down our defenses. Thankfully, this myth isn't sticking nearly as well as the stab-in-the-back at Versailles myth did in Weimar Germany, but you see it any time the right wing is howling about Obama's birth certificate, or showing pictures of Obama wearing Middle-Eastern or African garb. We may be seeing more of these backstab stories in the future...

[underpants]

3. pyramid-lover and knife-combat enthusiast Ben Carson

[lastlib]

13. "...to Sarah Palin (whose endorsement speech...."

"...seemed at times like a public service ad about the dangers of household inhalants)"

.

[Snarkoleptic]

5. I agree, while the number of outright Nazi's at Drumpf rallies may be low, there is no shortage of

those who identify with the Nazi mindset and proudly display the Nazi salute. I count at least two in this clip.
I can only imagine how prevalant these displays would be if there were not cameras in their faces.

Then there are these gems from the cancelled rally in Chicago on Friday-

[phantom power]

8. I think Taibbi's talking about people who don't even identify with the mindset, but...

who will hitch their boxcar to Trump's train anyway, because he's winning and, well, they're boot-lickers who want a VIP seat at the feeding trough if he wins.

Most endorsement-related politics is like this, even for non-insane politicians and political parties. There's a real motivation to endorse the candidate you think is most likely to win, because if you endorse candidate-X, and X loses, then candidate-Y (who actually won) isn't going to forget that. You're going to be at a disadvantage compared to all the people who endorsed candidate-Y.

Paradoxically, the more insane a candidate is, the higher that motivation might be. Sure, you're endorsing the insane guy, but he's exactly the guy who you might be genuinely afraid to piss of, if he wins.

[backscatter712]

7. They are cowards. Stephen Colbert mocked them mercilessly playing the buffoon on his old show.

[Fast Walker 52]

9. NAILED IT.

Thanks for posting!

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Right Wing Authoritarian Followers:

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism

According to research by Altemeyer, right-wing authoritarians tend to exhibit cognitive errors and symptoms of faulty reasoning. Specifically, they are more likely to make incorrect inferences from evidence and to hold contradictory ideas that result from [font size = "+1"]compartmentalized thinking.[/font] They are also more [font size = "+1"]likely to uncritically accept insufficient evidence that supports their beliefs,[/font] and they are less likely to acknowledge their own limitations.[15] Whether right-wing authoritarians are less intelligent than average is disputed, with Stenner arguing that variables such as high verbal ability (indicative of high cognitive capacity) have a very substantial ameliorative effect in diminishing authoritarian tendencies.[1] Measured against other factors of personality, authoritarians generally score lower on openness to experience and slightly higher on conscientiousness.[24][25][26]

Altemeyer suggested that authoritarian politicians are more likely to be in the Conservative or Reform party in Canada, or the Republican Party in the United States. They generally have a conservative economic philosophy, are highly nationalistic, oppose abortion, support capital punishment, oppose gun control legislation, and do not value social equality.[15] The RWA scale reliably correlates with political party affiliation, reactions to Watergate, pro-capitalist attitudes, religious orthodoxy, and acceptance of covert governmental activities such as illegal wiretaps.[15] Although authoritarianism is correlated with conservative political ideology, not all authoritarians are conservative, and not all conservatives are authoritarian. It is also worth noting that many authoritarians have no interest in politics.

Authoritarians are generally more favorable to punishment and control than personal freedom and diversity. For example, they are more willing to suspend constitutional guarantees of liberty such as the Bill of Rights. They are more likely to advocate strict, punitive sentences for criminals,[27] and report that punishing such people is satisfying for them. They tend to be ethnocentric and prejudiced against racial and ethnic minorities[28] and homosexuals.[29] However, Stenner argues that authoritarians will support programs intended to increase opportunities for minority groups, such as affirmative action, if they believe such programs will lead to greater societal uniformity.[1]

In roleplaying situations, authoritarians tend to seek dominance over others by being competitive and destructive instead of cooperative. In a study by Altemeyer, 68 authoritarians played a three-hour simulation of the Earth's future entitled the Global change game. Unlike a comparison game played by individuals with low RWA scores, which resulted in world peace and widespread international cooperation, the simulation by authoritarians became highly militarized and eventually entered the stage of nuclear war. By the end of the high RWA game, the entire population of the earth was declared dead.[15]

-- Wikipedia (emphasis added)

[JFKDem62]

14. Trump is the soul of the GOP. They can deny this all they want.

But like it or not he a good representation of his party.
Of course many will jump on the bandwagon.

[HereSince1628]

20. I'd say the soul of the GOP party was sold over a decade ago.

Around the time when Cheney rather than James Baker emerged as the smart guy at the top.

And high level aides turned to using spit to hold their hair in place.

[JFKDem62]

31. Yes it is a party that sold out a long time ago.

They made a pact with the devil and the bill is now due.

[heaven05]

16. part of me is very happy

this clown has been able to show THE WORLD, via his speeches and supporters, what ugliness lies just beneath the facade of liberty and freedom loving america. His campaign has put to rest the notion that the RW is not a party of racist animals bent on destroying decent people, especially those of color and destroying the ideal of democracy that we have been experimenting with and replacing it with what his supporters want, full blown racist supremacy of the white race under the cover of full blown fascism.

[kairos12]

18. They all are jumping in the tRumpster Fire.

[Bad Dog]

21. Racism isn't a yes no issue.

It's a spectrum, at one end you have out and out jackbooted scum who'd be quite happy to bring back lynching. At the other end there's people who probably don't even consider themselves racist but they feel uncomfortable talking to someone from a different ethnicity and wouldn't want to live next door to someone who wasn't like them. Trump appeals to all of them, even those who like to pretend they're not.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. You got it. RWA followers are very prone to binary thinking.

So they don't see Trump's racism ... or their own.

[Bad Dog]

27. Which is why they don't challenge it.

Trump says something about Mexicans or Moslems or some other group that conforms to lazy stereotypes and their reinforces own prejudices so they just accept it. That way they can go on thinking they're nice people.

[mountain grammy]

24. I keep thinking it won't happen. Trump himself will end it.

Don't know where or why, I just think he will. The problem of his supporters will remain. They are emboldened now and very scary with really dumb ideas.
I think Bill Maher said, the zombies are in the mall.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

26. Only in one of three paths

1) Trump loses the nomination by a delegate count to Cruz and Cruz is nominated at the convention (before being disqualified as being naturalized at birth not natural born). Then Trump would slink home.

2) Trump loses a floor fight at the convention, despite having a majority of delegates or a plurality. Then Trump would run independently.

3) Hair DrumpFührer wins the nomination at the convention. He would fight the election.

[Uncle Joe]

29. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, phantom power.

[Thunderbeast]

30. We need to pay attention to the Judiciary!

While the racist/fasciest campaign is playing out in the political realm, an on-going war on the courts is also moving forward. It started with the refusal to confirm Federal judges, making the courts slow and in-effective. The refusal to confirm the Scalia seat is the culmination of this strategy. Scarier is the conflict playing out in Kansas (our nation's Petrie dish for the tea party model) where the partisan legislature is actively defunding the courts and threatening judicial impeachment for those that resist legislative and executive policies that violate the constitution.

This is a scary analog to Hitler's playbook. By consolidating power he turned a parliamentary republic into a dictatorship while dissidents were eliminated.

[ancianita]

32. Political cowardice and street fighting men cannot be the basis of any "better deal"

for Americans.

It's important to monitor how political cowardice works to incite a whole population to be validated thugs who get their fight club on.

Thanks for the post!

[FlatBaroque]

34. Glad he mentions Chris Christie, who I believe

is the the most despicable and odious man in American politics, a true bootlicker and authoritarian sociopath.

[KelleyKramer]

35. Well said

Thanks for posting

[beam me up scottie]

36. Matt nails it as usual.

I just heard Trump is going to win in Florida, what the hell? I know I shouldn't ask this after Dubya was reelected but how can so many people be so stupid?