I agree that Hitler and Nazi comparisons get overused, but I also think it’s worth noting that there are several different “Hitlers.” Like, there’s the Hitler in 39 I believe, who tempered his anti-Semitic language at times because he still had concerns about international opinion then (though of course he’d already written Mein Keimpf). It’s important to note that, to me, it feels like the Nazi horror rolled out by degrees, and that often when we talk about him it’s with the hindsight of everything that comes after. But Hitler when he’s rising to power (I’ve read the Evan’s book as well) looks eerily similar at times to what’s happening in our country today. The way some people are willing to overlook the base pandering of the Republican Party to xenophobia and racism because of an “economic situation.” The way Hitler manufactured a “crisis” with the Reichtstag fire to get emergency powers, and told a lie about how the German army was “stabbed in the back” and lost World War 1, and the way he fed on popular resentments and economic woes. And, I believe the Nazis only won 40% of the vote, and also had their own paramilitary group (the brown shirts) which the Republicans have today.

Idk. I’m a pretty amateur historian who likes to read a lot, but I guess what I’m saying is that I think it makes sense to draw the parallels between what’s happening now and Hitler and the Nazis early on, because the horror that was unleashed after happened after certain safeguards started to be removed, when certain things became permissible and certain men attained power, if that makes sense.

And, one of the reasons why I’m so angry (and why studying history has made me so jaded) is because I feel like you start seeing things on a timeline of like potentiality and what’s to come. It’s perfectly possible that the people you see screaming at rallies and worshipping Trump, given the right circumstances, would be capable of the types of evils the Nazi system perpetrated (also see Rwanda). Of course, the opposite could be true, there could be people who are super into Trump that would resist evil when and if it’s ever brought about - one of the difficulties of human nature I think is that we never really know who we are until a situation or circumstance arises in which action is called for. But it is scary how far fringe beliefs once thought unacceptable by the mainstream party has filtered into Republicans discourse. Hell, even Barry Goldwater, that Republican icon, distanced himself from the John Birch Society when he was running against Johnson. But yeah, I don’t think it’s overblown at all -

Another edit: also, another mark of a fascist and dictator is that they’ll use vague language that they leave to their underlines to interpret and carry out their will. It’s telling that Hitler never actually specifically ordered or oversaw the installation of the Final Solution. Instead (and correct me if I’m wrong I’m going off memory here) I believe he said abstract things like “Jews are scum” etc etc and that his underlings interpreted his words to act in a certain way, which is absolutely something that Trump does in his language (shields from accountability, “I never specifically said that,” though his language gives permission to his followers)