Okay, let me ask you something. What exactly do you think it is the Weimar Republic could have done that they weren't already doing? That is, after all, the predominant logic being expressed here and elsewhere; the Weimar Republic simply didn't "do enough" or "didn't try", and that if efforts to suppress the Nazi party had been borne out to some hypothetical and unstated arbitrary extent, the Nazi party simply would never have risen to power.Gethsemani said:
Identify it. What could the Weimar Republic have done? Not rhetorical; identify what policy positions the Weimar Republic could have taken that weren't pursued, least of all to the extent you think might have kept the Nazis out of power.
The party was banned. People joined and turned out anyways.
Leaders were thrown in jail. They were out in months. Some of them were in and out of jail repeatedly.
Headquarters were raided and assets liquidated. Multiple times; some as late as March, 1932 [http://www.rarenewspapers.com/view/651512]. They still assembled and planned in private, and printed in the underground.
When you say the Weimar Republic "didn't do enough", I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
They might have suspended due process and started summarily executing known and suspected Nazis in the street? They might have declared martial law with the army and money they didn't have thanks to the Treaty of Versailles? Perhaps they might have pulled it off by legalizing vigilante and paramilitary justice? They might have confiscated and destroyed the property of known or suspected Nazis? Smashed printing presses and burned books?
I mean, all of the above is what worked for the Nazis. Perhaps you mean to say "they should have done what the Nazis did, before the Nazis had the chance to do it to anyone else"? That's what it boils down to, and I'd like to see someone advocating this point of view exercise an iota of honesty for a change and admit it. But you're not, because you don't have the fortitude to admit the only way you see to stop totalitarianism is to become totalitarian.
So, at this point it really behooves me to discuss the relevancy of this to now vis-a-vis potential responses by the American government. After all, this is about what the Weimar government might have done, versus what it did do and what it was capable of doing, and how this might inform us to how the federal and state governments might act now. Other than the fact Trump's President and at this rate will be until 2024, we have a Republican Senate, Republican-stacked SCOTUS, and over half the states in the country have Republican governors and state legislatures, anyhow. And since you seem to be quite learned about the socioeconomic state of the Weimar government during the '20s and early '30s, I believe I can more than make my point with a single, non-hypothetical question.
What's the current state of the US debt ceiling?
And I can show you three weeks ago, a Comcast employee waged a one-man war against an obnoxious, comedian-wannabe, jackass in an attempt to get him deplatformed for his dubious behavior and political statements. Not only did Maza fail to achieve his goal [https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/3k3jj5/youtubes-bungled-crackdown-on-steven-crowder-only-made-him-stronger], his efforts backfired so catastrophically that not only is Crowder bigger than ever, but the people who bore the collateral damage were progressive and history Youtubers [https://www.newsweek.com/vox-adpocalypse-twitter-youtube-steven-crowder-1442652].altnameJag said:
That is, if you accept Maza as a good-faith actor whose goal was simply to deplatform right-wing extremists. In which case, he's merely stupid. Clearly I do not, because I recognize Vox is a Comcast subsidiary, and take note that which each successive "adpocalypse" algorithmic and recommendation preference, and accordingly ad revenue, shifts away from smaller and independent creators (left and right) and towards highly-consolidated, multi-national, oligopolist corporate media. Which means he's stupid enough to be a useful idiot, and a useful idiot he is.
And, before you invariably begin vomiting Republican talking points about free markets, the right to contract, and how corporations can do whatever they like, while ignoring the obvious cognitive dissonance inherent in that position, I'd ask you to consider if Hollywood blacklists during the Lavender scare were censorious. I'm more than happy to bring that fight in a thread about LGBTQ rights, and you don't want to go there.
No. Propaganda -- well, effective propaganda -- is half truth distorted to fit a narrative and persuade listeners. That's what made the Nazis so fucking good at it. What you don't do, and what the Weimar Republic did do, is empower the propaganda by feeding delusions of oppression and victimhood. Nazis and neo-Nazis need controversy, violence, and censorship like fish need water.
Don't give it to them. Right-wing extremism -- actual right-wing extremism, not what glorified salespersons on idiot boxes like to pretend is right-wing extremism in order to sell your attention span to advertisers -- in this country was completely flatlined between Skokie and Ruby Ridge for a reason, and that reason was because we let them speak.
