After Hitler came to power, invaded multiple countries and started murdering millions.
It’s easy to look back and say, “well, if we had just taken Hitler out none of that would have happened” but at the time - before the war - that was less clear. Many in Germany enthusiastically supported him and it’s helpful to be reminded of why: The Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI was highly punitive. The German people felt rather justified for WWI and reacted with anger to the treaty - it’s widely acknowledged as a significant contributing factor in WWII in that it opened the door to the kind of grievance Hitler was selling. By the time more people understood his aims and means it was too late and there was no alternative to war.
Now you might say well then, that just means we should have removed the Trump threat by any means necessary. I’m very sympathetic to that idea but I have a hard time accepting that for one simple reason: the lessons of WWI and II show that grievance is central to the authoritarian narrative. Direct confrontation that feeds that grievance only inflames it. A better course of action for the Democrats would have been to acknowledge the pain of wealth disparity all Americans feel and acknowledge our common goals. Instead we lent credence to the grievance and opened the door for Trump to capitalize on it.
After Hitler came to power, invaded multiple countries and started murdering millions.
It’s easy to look back and say, “well, if we had just taken Hitler out none of that would have happened” but at the time - before the war - that was less clear. Many in Germany enthusiastically supported him and it’s helpful to be reminded of why: The Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI was highly punitive. The German people felt rather justified for WWI and reacted with anger to the treaty - it’s widely acknowledged as a significant contributing factor in WWII in that it opened the door to the kind of grievance Hitler was selling. By the time more people understood his aims and means it was too late and there was no alternative to war.
Now you might say well then, that just means we should have removed the Trump threat by any means necessary. I’m very sympathetic to that idea but I have a hard time accepting that for one simple reason: the lessons of WWI and II show that grievance is central to the authoritarian narrative. Direct confrontation that feeds that grievance only inflames it. A better course of action for the Democrats would have been to acknowledge the pain of wealth disparity all Americans feel and acknowledge our common goals. Instead we lent credence to the grievance and opened the door for Trump to capitalize on it.