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buildarocketboys · 3 years

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Books read 2020: Reviews (1-20)

Decided to write a little review/overview for all the books I’ve read this year. Mostly just for personal record but please feel free to message me about any of these books!

1. Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly (Jan 6th – Jan 13th) 8 days 400 pages

I loved this whole trilogy, but this might have been my favourite of all three. I loved the setting (the main reason, apart from the queer characters, why I wanted to read this book) which is a fantasy setting based on the dying days of Berlin during the Weimar Republic. Loved this setting (especially the cabaret/music hall part) and it’s the only book that really features it. I also enjoy (or…find compelling, enjoy might not quite be right since there’s some very ‘yowch’ descriptions regarding torture/being beaten up) the story/plot most in this one, I was on the edge of my seat wanting to know what happened next…

2. Maurice by E.M. Forster (Nov 17th – Jan 21st) 256 pages

This is the only kind of cheat I have in here, because yes I did start reading it in November 2019, but I read the vast majority of it in 2020. I’d wanted to read it for ages because it’s such a gay classic and there were many sections (sentences, paragraphs) that I related to heavily, not even always as a queer person, but in that way that the best books get at the heart of something about the human experience in a way that’s intensely relatable to the reader. I think I found the romance elements kind of anticlimactic overall but maybe that’s kind of the point? It’s a happy ending, but in a very quiet way. (I think, it has been nearly a year since I read it!)

3. East, West by Salman Rushdie (Jan 17th – Jan 24th) 8 days 224 pages

I started reading this to compare it with its Spanish translation for my Postcolonialism in Translation essay lol. Some pretty interesting stories in here, also pretty sure this is the only collection of short stories I read this year, so it has that distinction. Not super my thing but acted as an enjoyable reading break in the local park while I was slogging my way through essays (and God do I miss that life now).

4. Affinity by Sarah Waters (Jan 24th – Jan 31st) 8 days 352 pages

This was the first of three Sarah Waters books I read this year. I have now read all of her work, and I enjoyed this one a lot – very much a ghost story. It wasn’t my favourite, but definitely sits nicely in the middle.

5. The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (Jan 31st – Feb 5th) REREAD 6 days 500 pages

Reread this while on a trip to York, when stuff like that was still possible. As good as ever. I love Time Traveler’s Wife not for the romance (which is…interesting, but personally I don’t find it exactly enjoyable and the characters aren’t particularly likable or relatable for me) but for the prose and the structure. The back-and-forth structure of the book (travelling through time, Henry – and Clare – at different points in their life) makes for a breathtakingly constructed plot and I love it more every time. Some of the prose and stuff the characters talk about are kind of pretentious but I’m kind of pretentious myself (I discovered Rilke through TTW) and a lot of it has stuck in my brain, to the point that 10 months later I keep thinking about it and kind of want to read it yet again.

6. Armistice by Lara Elena Donnelly (Feb 5th – Feb 9th) 5 days 400 pages

I really enjoyed this sequel, I loved exploring the rest of the world, I loved the interaction between characters who either hadn’t met before, hadn’t seen each other in years (there’s a time jump between Amberlough and Armistice) and brand new characters (who were mostly equally as compelling/lovable). A worthy sequel.

7. Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat by Bee Wilson (Feb 13th – Feb 24th) 12 days 327 pages

My thing (at least non-fiction-wise) this year has been books about food and food history, and this is the first of those on this list. It was pretty good, very interesting. I have trouble retaining information from non-fiction books so I only remember it in the broadest strokes (and remember reading it in the Hygge café in Sheffield which was really cool and I hope it’s survived the pandemic) but it was a really eye-opening look into different appliances/tools/processes/spaces used throughout history and in different parts of the world when it comes to food and cooking.

8. Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner (Feb 25th – Mar 11th) 16 days 352 pages

I read this in the period just before everything started shutting down and the day I finished it (incidentally my girlfriend’s birthday) was more or less the start of the lockdown for us, so that’s my prevailing memory of this book. It was a very good, enlightening look into bi politics and what we (I, as a white gentile especially) could do better. But again, I don’t remember it in great detail because I was more preoccupied with what was happening around it.

9. Solitaire by Alice Oseman (Mar 14th – Mar 16th) 3 days 392 pages

This was pretty good but I definitely read most YA (well, reality-based YA) as an easy, quick read that doesn’t challenge me too much, so I don’t have too much to say about it. It was nice to read about the Heartstopper characters

10. What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera (Mar 17th – Mar 20th) 4 days 437 pages

Again, early lockdown YA so basically brain popcorn for me. That’s not a bad thing though.

11. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Mar 20th – Mar 30th) 11 days 512 pages

This was my least favourite of the Sarah Waters books I read this year, and probably not coincidentally, the only book of hers without explicit queer characters. But still a pretty good scary story.

12. Amnesty by Lara Elena Donnelly (Apr 1st – April 6th) 6 days 384 pages

The last in the trilogy. I still liked it very much, but not as much as the first two books. I think endings to a trilogy are hard to get right. I feel like there was too much focus on one character and his predicament (and while I enjoyed his ending and happily ever after with probably m favourite character of the series), I wasn’t as compelled by this one as I was by the other two.

13. Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (Apr 6th – Apr 15th) 10 days 513 pages

My first Stephen King! I actually really enjoyed this, especially the scary fantasy dream world thing. It wasn’t too scary for me (I am a big scaredy cat who’s just dipping my toe into horror novels since I figure reading horror is moderately less scary than watching it) and just overall pretty good.

14. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (Apr 16th – Apr 20th) 5 days 209 pages

Loved this! The meandering almost poetry of it, the epic enemies to lovers, the weird admixture of sci fi and larger than life fantasy concepts (and beings!). Will definitely return to this one again.

15. Five Hundred Mile Walkies by Mark Wallington (Apr 21st – Apr 25th) REREAD 5 days 224 pages

I read this as a young teenager and found it hilarious. It was one of my dad’s books (he might even have recommended it to me, although I did have a habit of reading anything and everything that was in the bookcase – Memoirs of a Geisha at about 13, anyone?) and I laughed out loud practically every page. The gist of it is that Mark takes his sister’s (or sister’s ex??) dog, Boogie and goes to walk the entire 500 miles of the South West coast path. I loved this anyway because I loved the South West (especially Cornwall) and love seeing it through someone else’s eyes. So I reread it and I still enjoyed it, but didn’t find it as rip roaringly hilarious as I used to. Guess your sense of humour changes as you grow up, who knew?

16. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café by Fannie Flagg (Apr 27th – May 10th) 14 days 416 pages

I’ll be honest, I struggled with this one. I’m not sure if it was the setting (historically, geographically, linguistically) that put me off or the way it was written or what. I enjoyed the story but it just wasn’t really my thing.

17. The Night Watch by Sarah Waters (May 11th – May 17th) 7 days 528 pages

My final Sarah Waters book (until she writes more! *fingers crossed*) and definitely my favourite of the ones I read this year. Set during the Blitz in London, it’s pretty much straight up historical fiction, and I enjoyed it very much. I think part of it was I related heavily to the characters going through this dramatic time in history, because, you know, pandemic! There were certain passages that really connected with me/felt like an echo of today in a way that was sort of comforting, I guess.

18. Doctor Who: The Maze of Doom by David Solomons (May 18th – May 19th) 2 days 272 pages

A fun, quick and easy Doctor Who romp. Not much to say about this one.

19. Room by Emma Donoghue (May 19th – May 20th) 2 days 321 pages

Possibly the opposite of the previous. If you know anything about Room (the book or the film, which I actually watched years ago) then you know the subject matter is pretty dark and harrowing. Because it’s told through the eyes of a child however, I found it pretty easy (in terms of speed rather than subject matter) to get through and read it in about 24 hours. It’s super compelling too.

20. The Psychology of Time Travel by Kate Mascarenhas (June 6th – June 11th) 6 days 372 pages

This, as far as I remember, was just a random one that I managed to pick up (metaphorically since I read this as an ebook) but it was pretty good. Possibly my favourite random discovery of the year, an interesting look on time travel and its consequences, based around the discovery/invention of time travel by four women scientists in the 1960s (I think) and how it affects the rest of their lives.

#bookblr #books #read 2020 #book review

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anonymoustalks · 4 years

Conversation

The left has become absorbed by identity politics and is obsessed with race.. it scares me that they will create more racists than before they started

(6-17-20) You both like politics.

You: heyaa

Stranger: Hi

Stranger: How are you

You: anything you're interested in?

You: I am fine

Stranger: I'm interested in hearing opinions on things

You: oh, me too ^^

You: what kind of things?

Stranger: Politics is divisive, but in order to get a better understanding I wish to listen to both sides

You: awesome, I think that's great ^^

Stranger: :) thank you

You: do you have issues you care about most?

Stranger: The current fall of western society

You: fall of western society huh

You: can you elaborate more?

Stranger: Over the past few years we have seen western society devolve. Where once we were fairly united and we stood strong, we have become more divided and with the introduction of identity politics, that has just worsened till we have gotten to where we are now. China is currently pushing her borders, and yet with the US in flames and the uk following suit (along with France for that matter), noone challenges it

You: mhm *nodsnods*

Stranger: To speak out against the lunacy is to be called a racist and a bigot, not that that's anything new of course but those who are calling for these things seem to not really understand the importance and significance of their actions. I see this as akin to the 1920s Weimar Republic. They are pushing for things they don't want

You: you type a lot haha

Stranger: Sorry i am choosing my words carefully

You: mhm it's fine

You: so you think strong foreign policy is very important?

Stranger: I do. I am from South Africa, though I live in the uk. For those who live outside the us and Europe, we see the importance of Baro and the us on a geopolitical scale. China owns the east of Africa, if not central as well. The us has been the top dog preventing them and Russia from doing much for years, though that's going to change in the coming years

Stranger: NATO not baro* bloody autocorrect

You: oh okay I was wondering what that was haha

Stranger: If I may ask, where are you from?

You: the us actually

Stranger: I thought you might be given the time :) it's half 1 am here

You: yeah it's late!

You: so in your view, western countries need to have more of a spine?

You: is that basically what you're saying?

Stranger: Always. But history has a cycle.

Stranger: Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times

You: very fair

You: speaking of cycles, I think something that is floating around these days

You: is whether it's sort of like the beginning of the end of american hegemony

You: sort of like UK's empire gradually had its sunset

Stranger: This is what I am concerned with. All empires have their time in the sun, and all shall fade. I had hoped I would be dead before it happened. I made a prediction several years ago that should trump win in 2020 again, there will be civil war. I am unsure on my prediction of civil war, but I can see that he will win. Should there not be war, I give it another 2 presidencies before yourselves will fall, and ww3 breaks out

You: hmm the us is steamy right now, but idk about civil war

Stranger: It's been brewing for a while now by my estimation

You: that said I would not be surprised about China continuing to be more aggressive

You: that stuff with India yesterday?

You: ^^

Stranger: Without strong willed opposition, they will always push more overtly. They have done so in the shadows for years now

Stranger: And that's just one example

Stranger: They have intruded on Thailand air space as well

You: I don't think either democrats or republicans are very foreign-policy aggressive right now though

You: idk if your concern will be that much better with biden

You: clinton was a little hawkish but she lost 2016

Stranger: It would be much worse with Biden, or anyone from the left EXCEPT Tulsi Gabbard

You: oh you sounded like you didn't want trump to win lol

Stranger: I don't like him. But honestly, he's the best option out of what has been shown. Bernie is a socialist, Hillary is a warmonger, Biden will probably be a puppet. Who can stand? Hillary could be strong, but you would go to war. For all his faults, Trump has avoided war and conflict. He brought North Korea to the discussion table.

You: okay ^^

Stranger: I may not like him but he is effective, and has been a boon to you economy though as someone who works in finance, the next crash is due soon

You: fair enough although I think a lot of places are hurt by the coronavirus economy anyways

Stranger: Yeah.. the lockdowns are odd.. why quarantine those who are healthy? We have always quarantined those who were I'll first, and then those who go out and riot get a free pass? It's a bit confusing, and is a little bit of double think. Rules don't apply to you if you have the correct opinions it would seem

You: idk the US never really had forced quarantines

You: everything here was just you were supposed to do it

Stranger: The uk did, apologies

Stranger: Well not heavily enforced near me

You: we had college students going to beaches even though the quarantine was happening

You: because young ppl think they are invincible

You: and dumb ^^

Stranger: Hahaha yeah you aren't wrong in that

Stranger: But I have waffled on, may I hear your opinions on what we have discussed?

You: mhm, I disagree but it's cool yo~

Stranger: No that's great, it shows that we can discuss and hopefully come to compromise

Stranger: Thank you for being chill and relaxed

You: mhm I'm basically a hippie though so I don't usually take strong stances on international intervention

Stranger: That's fair and understandable. I used to agree with that as well for many years

You: I kind of think it's a little bit of a selfish position to take (the peace one)

You: in the sense that I don't want to deal with other people's problems

You: so in a sense it's kinda selfish

Stranger: It is and it isn't :)

Stranger: It's a moral good and a difficult thing. Peace only exists as reprieve from war. Humanity is a war like species, and peace only ever exists between them. And I applaud your pacifism

You: idk I'm not sure if it's always something to applaud

You: I think in a sense it's a kind of inaction

Stranger: A good thought experiment for you then, look at ww2

You: yup

You: I'm familiar with isolationism in history and its ramifications

Stranger: The us was neutral officially for years, and because they took no strong stance, the Nazis rose to power. Admittedly it was partly the fault of all the allies and ww1 but that's a digression.

Stranger: But war was thrust upon them officially by what happened. The peaceful stance can be taken from you, but that is not a bad thing in my opinion

You: yup

Stranger: What would you do if you could, at that time?

You: at that time?

You: hmm

You: it's not a question I've thought very much about

Stranger: I thought on that myself

You: and what did you conclude?

Stranger: My answer was intervention. Stop the Anschluss, the Munich agreement, the extremely harsh measures of the treaty at the end of ww1

You: oh yeah that was a terrible treaty

You: I kind of imagined myself as an average person though haha

Stranger: But I understand the reasoning at the time for allowing all those things to go through

Stranger: I am too

You: you would have protested your government signing that treaty?

Stranger: That's why thay generation was called the greatest generation. We the average man stood up and took up arms, because they believed what was right.

Stranger: It is difficult to say that if I lived in that time I would. Of it was today, 100%

You: mhm... war is frightening

Stranger: We cannot judge the past with the same moral standing we have today

You: of course

Stranger: And yes, war really is a horrible thing

Stranger: If peace was an option, I would go for it. Often times though, we have no control over that

You: mhm there is suffering in a lot of places, and violence that arises from suffering and hatred

Stranger: Look at the Nazis and the hatred of the Jews. That was extremely common all across Europe, the uk and the us. Many leaders in politics and business liked the Nazis initially. But just because something is common, does not make it right

You: I actually never understood antisemitism

Stranger: You are quite wise, and I agree with you. But the sad thing is, there will always be suffering

You: or why people hate(d) jewish people

Stranger: The scary thing is, many of those in BLM look up to a man called Farrakhan (forgive me on the spelling) who is a huge antisemite. Like he openly calls for violence against them. He gets away with it, because he is black. Why he hates them I don't know. They are hated I think, because they are the oldest abrahamic religion and the oldest monothesist one as well, from which both Islam and Christianity draw their teachings from initially

You: I just don't understand why they are hated

You: often by christians too

Stranger: Me neither, I find it abhorrent. They have been persecuted for thousands of years

You: yeah idk I just don't understand why

Stranger: I have yet to find out why. I know in Islam they hate them as it is dictated within their scriptures, though the exact wording I am unsure on. Christians I would think it's because they don't believe that Jesus was the son of God

You: I guess so

Stranger: But I may be entirely wrong

Stranger: Which I probably am

You: idk I don't know anything so I have no clue

Stranger: Hence why I like and want discussion :) we learn more through communication

Stranger: We become better the more we communicate

You: is there a reason why you dislike blm so much?

Stranger: I stand against identitarianism

You: so basically all those "pride" movements?

Stranger: I come from a racist country that segregated everyone and everything based on the colour of everyone's skin and I was hated for being the colour of my skin just for being born. I cannot condone movements that wish to implement the same things, as it will lead to suffering and hatred.

Stranger: I have nothing against being proud of your race, though I think the idea is a bit stupid. I have an issue with everything needing to divided up based on the colour of ones skin, I choose to judge someone on the basis of their character. I'm not perfect and there are times where I have been prejudiced but it is something I am consious of and wish to not do

You: mhm okay

You: I'm not sure if blm wants things to be divided up based on race though

You: I thought they were mostly against police brutality

Stranger: Some very much so are. Though I will concede that not all of them are, and I should tar everyone with the same brush. But as a counter to that, look at CHAZ in Seattle, they have segregated farms though calling them that is hilarious

You: I thought chaz is just a city block?

Stranger: On the police brutality, I agree with them and that reform must happen. Abolishing police is not a good idea. More funding is required, better training and better internal policies and structures to vette and review the officers is needed. Abolishing them will lead to anarchy. You are correct that Chaz is, but it is a microcosm showing the very things I stand against. I am against racism of all kinds, segregation is a form of racism. The us had a history where they did it too and agreed that it was wrong

You: mhm

You: I just wasn't familiar with blm as pro-segregation

You: that said, most blm activists are just really young

Stranger: They have been co-opted by those who are. And many activists are young white kids

You: I don't think mainstream democrats take them very seriously

Stranger: I'm not so certain. But I hope I am wrong

You: idk I mean these days who knows what kind media we each read

You: so I'm sure I'm in a bubble too

Stranger: They may see these things as a good and helpful idea, but the road to hell is often paved with good intentions

Stranger: Of course, and I hope I'm wrong. I recommend a variety of news sources, especially independent ones. A great one is a guy named Tim Pool on YouTube. He is a left leaning centrist guy who is upfront with his leanings. But he gives the news as it is

You: mhm I try to avoid youtube news

You: although idk if it's truly reliable to always go through bbc or ap or others

You: they are just mainstream

Stranger: BBC is very biased in my opinion. Tim used to work on mainstream media but he left. I would call him credible, he looks at news sources and verifies them. He's very milk toast and fence sits allot the problem with news is that all sides want to spin things the way they want it

You: mhm okay

You: is there any kind of mainstream media that you like?

Stranger: I don't trust any of them when it comes to almost anything except weather and sport scores. I will listen to what is said from various sources before coming to my own conclusions. I have lost all faith in the media since 2016

You: I see, I guess it ends up being hard to find something to trust

Stranger: Unfortunately it is. My reasons for it was both the elections in the us for 2016 and the brexit vote here in the uk. I was very similar to you then, very much so a hippie and very left leaning. I disagreed with Trump and Brexit, but I lost. But the way the media and society within the left handled themselves and the situation, that put me off completely and pushed me to become more conservative than what I was

You: interesting, although I'm not exactly following what made you more interested in conservative things

Stranger: The constant denigration of those who you disagree with. The treatment hat those people got, most of whom are the working class, upon the backs of which society is upheld. They are not racist or evil. They have a different opinion and different values. How does making a choice in a democracy make someone evil when neither side is perfect?

Stranger: The left preaches tolerance, except that it doesnt in reality

You: mhm yeah I don't like that

You: I don't think it is effective either

Stranger: All it does is polarize people

Stranger: And drive them further away from reaching g a compromise

You: right

Stranger: Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with Brexit, but as a democracy we made a decision. So now we need to exact that decision. I would have voted for trump despite my disdain for him

Stranger: Enact not exact*

You: I think there are a lot of people who think similarly as you do ^^

Stranger: There really are

Stranger: The left has become absorbed by identity politics and is obsessed with race.. it scares me that they will create more racists than before they started

Stranger: Constantly calling your opposition racist and evil will force them into being it

You: mhm I think there are some things to distinguish between social media left-wing people and people in everyday life I think

You: the vitriol is always much more amplified online than people are irl

Stranger: Oh agreed! Twitter is not real life, but it has started to bleed over

You: I live in a fairly liberal state, although I don't really think I have ever seen twitter irl

You: although I do think there is probably self-censorship occuring

You: in the sense that people are afraid of what their neighbors will think

Stranger: There is allot of that

Stranger: Anything you say will be used against you. Even if it's not that controversial

Stranger: People have lost their jobs for an opinion not done at work

You: that said, I don't think that's per say the "left's" fault though -- I just think that public opinion has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years

Stranger: Or how about the man who lost his job because his wife said something controversial

Stranger: I agree with you

Stranger: I really do

Stranger: Allot of this I do think could have been stopped years ago

You: I don't really like the lynch firing of people

You: that companies do for their public image

You: because the truth doesn't matter

You: it's just public image

Stranger: They do so because they are scared of the mob

You: but at the same time, I think public image is a thing because majority opinion really has shifted in the past two decades

You: opinions on homosexuality have swung dramatically in the US

You: ten years ago it was totally okay in public to be anti-homosexual

Stranger: Obama was against gay marriage until it was politically important for him to win the next election

You: but public opinion I think has swung really fast

You: yeah

You: I think he swapped at the first poll that showed >50% of americans supported it

Stranger: Yep! I find it hilarious that that was the case

You: yes but I think conservatives find this kind of fast change extremely uncomforting

You: I can understand that sentiment

You: also isn't it getting kinda late for you? ^^

Stranger: Conservatives are by their very nature are conservative. Change is neither malevolent nor benevolent, but we cannot look at change as universally good. Not can we disregard tradition

Stranger: It's 3 am and I can still keep going, I'm enjoying this conversation :)

You: I need to do the dishes eventually lol

Stranger: If you wish to leave you can by all means :) I won't hate you for it

You: I'm fine either way tbh

You: are you working right now? if you have work tomorrow you should prob go to bed

Stranger: It's up to you :) I can go for ages though my coherence Kay descend

Stranger: I'm sadly unemployed at the moment having lost my job earlier this year

You: coronavirus?

Stranger: Sadly yes

You: that's unfortunate, I'm sorry

Stranger: Not your fault :) so don't stress

You: so aside from Russia and China and the decline of western things, is there anything else that you stress about lol?

Stranger: The drive of censorship

Stranger: I have serious issue with censory

You: mhm

Stranger: And yourself?

You: mhm I dunno really

Stranger: That's good, though I would urge you to become concerned with censorship

You: mhm maybe

You: for me it's sort of a contextual concern I think

You: in the sense that it depends on your vantage point

Stranger: Opinions, art and books doesn't matter. Today it is their voice, tomorrow it is my voice. The day after it becomes your voice. Censorship takes away their rights to speak, and your rights to listen

You: mhm, what I mean is that my family immigrated from China

You: so my reference point of censorship is literal government censorship

You: in comparison the "political correctness" thing just doesn't seem as big to me imo

You: because 90% of it to me is sort of like a person's relationship with the neighbor basically

You: the US government doesn't censor what you can publish essentially

Stranger: That's fair enough, but this is where it starts. Things take time, and if anyone gives in (such as they have in several cases) that builds. In time that becomes the norm, there after what gets censored will not be at the choice of the people but of those who are in power

You: perhaps, although I kind of have faith in the 1st ammendment and the US supreme court

You: we barely have libel laws or defamation laws in the US because of the 1st ammendment

Stranger: I have seen calls to change and amend it. In the uk we have no freedom of speech, people have been arrested for jokes, what's been said on Twitter, etc. There are those who say that it's ok to censor this and that because e they are problematic or it would be good for everyone. But that is how it starts. The US has so much freedom

You: ahh... yeah I feel like it is different in the uk

Stranger: The uk doesn't care for free speech. It's very worrying and there are calls for even more censorship here.

You: mhm that sounds worrisome

Stranger: I guess I project it across to all western countries, and that is something we have seen recently

You: I don't think the US will lose the 1st amendment anytime soon, it's not politically realistiic

Stranger: Look at Amazon censoring books and movies being removed etc, this is how this begins. If it is allowed now, how can we stop it in the future

You: idk the status of free speech in other countries

You: actually this is a very interesting topic

Stranger: The us is one of the only countries that has it

You: do you think freedom of speech should be protected in private spaces?

Stranger: Codified in law that is

You: because technically freedom of speech for us is supposed to be only related to public government relationships

Stranger: I believe it should always be be protected

You: specifically "congress will make no law restricting freedom of speech" (paraphrased)

You: so you believe that private companies should not control what is said on their premises?

You: I mean it's fine if you believe that, it's actually just a bit further than what the current status quo is

Stranger: Yes. They are not above the law. Society may shun them, but they should not become involved. Outright calls for violence are against the law and that should be honoured, outside of that no they should not impose on pthers

You: hmm in the US this is where things get super complicated

You: because conservatives are also the ones who want content restricted/said in their religious schools too

Stranger: I've noticed.. and that has an effect on the rest of the world

You: basically "freedom of religion" and "freedom of speech" being on the same political side here makes things very weird

Stranger: And yeah I am aware of that as well, though the pendulum seems to have swung to the other side now. And it will swing back to the other side again

You: kind of like "My store should have the freedom of religion to deny my patrons of being homosexual in my store" kinda thing

Stranger: Yeah it is hard but there is more to the opposite side than just the one thing

You: it's a weird convoluted thing when both are conservative issues

Stranger: That's a difficult one, but I would say that should be discussed and debated but the highest courts. I cannot say from a legal sense one way or the other, morally I can say that it's hard to decide. I think that everyone should get a choice but I am uncertain

Stranger: By not but*

You: mhm that's fine ^^

You: I just think it's very interesting because most laws here, they govern the relationship between between the government and the people

You: so our freedom of speech laws do not apply to amazon censoring books because they are a private company

Stranger: Which is the difficult thing

Stranger: They are protected by being a private company

Stranger: As it's not just them

You: maybe ^^ we have a free market though, so things that cannot be published on amazon will find an outlet elsewhere

You: provided there is a demand for it

You: that said, it also has some gray area with morality laws

Stranger: That is true but monopoloes make things harder to find

You: kind of like youtube banning pornographic content

Stranger: Yeah I can understand that morally, legally I don't know but I would assume that there is some laws regarding that

You: I mean I'm just used to many various sites having bans of various sorts

Stranger: The uk has some

Stranger: Yeah, but there are protections for them being platforms not publishers

You: I don't think there is any law forcing youtube to ban pornographic content; it's just a branding choice by the company

Stranger: If they are publishers, those protections don't apply

You: like I think they want to be seen as family-friendly

Stranger: Fair enough, would have thought there might be

You: porn sites are not illegal in the US lol

Stranger: Not family friendly, advertisement friendly

You: lol true

Stranger: Sorry I don't know enough to be able to say :) I'm happy to admit that

You: mhm aside from political correctness, I guess I just don't personally see a big problem with censorship in the US

You: although I think I have a different belief than you that I think it's okay for private companies to choose what they want to publish

You: even if the ban content

You: these companies still need to compete

Stranger: Them doing so is fine, but if they wish to be protected as platforms they cannot act as a publisher. I think that's the Crux of their protections

Stranger: It is something that has been going for a while though

Stranger: And I think Trump will have it in his campaign for reelection this year

You: okay ^^

Stranger: But I don't know, he has been interested in censorship and has said he is against it in the past

You: I think people mean different things by censorship

You: but that's just imo

You: there are almost no western countries that experience censorship by their governments

You: so people mean things like censorship at their workplace

You: although imo that's kind of less censorship and more on the political correctness spectrum

Stranger: True. That is very true. But if you don't stop censorship openly, then should it come from government you don't already know you can stand against it

You: but to me, that "political correctness" isn't anything new either; it's as old as time

You: like did we always worry about saying something that would offend our boss?

You: ^^

You: it's always been there

You: I just think people are uncomfortable because bosses have changed in the last few decades

Stranger: It's not just their work place. The new "town square" is has become online. Your freedoms online are not protected despite it being codified in law

Stranger: And you aren't wrong, and coming from China or at least your family, you bring an interesting perspective

You: I feel like in the US we have very little digital legislation

You: the US of is head of hear

You: *there

Stranger: The world needs a digital bill of rights, to protect us all and our data. But we won't get it

You: but I don't think we have anything guaranteeing that speech on the Internet is free by any regard

Stranger: I would argue we do

You: hm? which law?

You: I like most websites have ToS's and rules banning X Y or Z on their site

Stranger: Freedom of speech and expression

You: oh I mean in terms of law

Stranger: That is what I meant, so that we are free to speak and express ourselves. I also believe that our data should be private and cannot be sold and that should be protected. There are other things that I have heard but it's difficult to remember all those that were proposed

You: ahh

You: yeah we don't have those laws right now

Stranger: Today stuff is okay but you are not protected

You: although the EU has some privacy ones that we don't have in the US

Stranger: The EU doesn't care mostly

Stranger: Some laws only protect some information, I'm talking about all of our information

You: ^^

Stranger: Everything we post and do is tracked, monitored and sold

Stranger: We revel in it, "I was talking about cats/dogs and all of a sudden I got adds for cat/dog products"

Stranger: We hear that often

You: yup

Stranger: Also, with regards to our rights and things, who holds these companies accountable?

Stranger: Take google for example

Stranger: They have been caught tampering with the elections

You: well, again, we have basically no laws about this in the US so there is no accountability

Stranger: They openly censor news and opinions

Stranger: They are a monopoly

You: although some europrean countries have lawsuits whatever with them

You: yup they totally are

You: where are anti-trust laws lol?

Stranger: That's what I think Trump will be looking at, I would if I was in his shoes

Stranger: But they were given special protections

Stranger: Those need to be taken away, the large companies need to be broken up but governments are incompetent

Stranger: I don't trust them to do it well

You: mhm it actually reminds me of south korea actually

Stranger: I mean there are a few senators in the states that I think have the moral fortitude to do so, but I don't know

You: countries are loathe to break up companies that they're proud of basically

Stranger: Yep

You: like samsung in south korea lol?

Stranger: They wouldn't break them up

Stranger: It would do serious damage to the economy and blah blah blah

You: their revenue was like 20% of the entire country's gdp

Stranger: Yep it's a difficult argument

Stranger: And I can understand why you wouldnt

Stranger: That 20% could drop to below 1%

You: anyhow it is getting kind of late

You: it was nice talking to you

You: and you should sleep ^^

Stranger: Likewise! :) I needed to move my sleep schedule for a 24 hour race on the weekend anyway, sp thank you for occuping my time and mind :)

You: goodnight!

Stranger: I'm glad to have met another willing to talk, take care my good friend

You have disconnected.

#omegle #identity politics #blm #foreign policy #trump #china #anti-semitism #tech #internet privacy #censorship #first ammendment #freedom of speech #political correctness #politics

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christophertheodore-net · 6 years

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New York Review of Books (NYR)

Lessons from Hitler’s Rise by Christopher R. Browning Hitler: Ascent 1889–1939 - by Volker Ullrich, translated from the German by Jefferson Chase

When the original German edition of Volker Ullrich’s new biography, Hitler: Ascent 1889–1939, was published in 2013, the current political situation in the United States was not remotely conceivable. The reception of a book often transcends the author’s intentions and the circumstances in which it was written, of course, but rarely so dramatically as in this case. In early 2017 it is impossible for an American to read the newly published English translation of this book outside the shadow cast by our new president.

To begin I would stipulate emphatically that Trump is not Hitler and the American Republic in the early twenty-first century is not Weimar. There are many stark differences between both the men and the historical conditions in which they ascended to power. Nonetheless there are sufficient areas of similarity in some regards to make the book chilling and insightful reading about not just the past but also the present.

Ullrich establishes that Hitler’s early life was not quite as impoverished or oppressive as he later portrayed it in Mein Kampf. Even after first his father and then his mother died, he lived on various orphan pensions and small inheritances. During periods when these resources were insufficient, Hitler did indeed lead an impoverished existence in men’s hostels, scraping out a bare subsistence by selling his paintings, and even briefly experiencing homelessness. More important was the fact that by the age of twenty-five—lacking education, career training, or job experience—he was still a man completely adrift, without any support network of family or friends, and without any future prospects. Nothing could be more different from Trump’s life of privilege, prestigious and expensive private schools, and hefty financial support from his father to enter the business world.

For Hitler, World War I was a decisive formative experience. He volunteered for the Bavarian army, endured fierce frontline combat in the fall of 1914, and then miraculously survived four years as a courier between regimental headquarters and the trenches. For Hitler the war meant structure, comradeship, and a sense of higher purpose in place of drift, loneliness, and hopelessness; and he embraced it totally. For many veterans who survived the war, it was a tragic and senseless experience never to be repeated. For Hitler the only tragedy was that Germany lost, and the war was to be refought as soon as it was strong enough to win. For Trump the Vietnam War was a minor inconvenience for which he received four deferments for education followed by a medical exemption because of bone spurs, and his self-proclaimed heroic equivalent was avoiding venereal disease despite a vigorous campaign of limitless promiscuity. In war as in childhood, Hitler and Trump could not have had more different experiences.

Ullrich takes a very commonsense approach to Hitler’s sex life, eschewing sensational allegations of highly closeted homosexuality, sexual perversion that caused him to project his self-loathing onto the Jews, asexuality commensurate with his incapacity for normal human relations, or abnormal genitalia that either psychologically or physically impeded normal sex. He surmises that Hitler (having refused to join his comrades on trips to brothels during the war) remained a virgin until at least the immediate aftermath of World War I, and remained intensely private about his relations with women thereafter.

The discreet and undemanding Eva Braun (twenty-two years his junior), consistently hidden from the public, proved to be the perfect match in facilitating Hitler’s desire to maintain the image that his total devotion to the cause transcended any mere physical needs or desires. Once again, the contrast with Trump—parading a sequence of three glamorous wives and boasting about the extent of his sexual conquests, his ability to engage in sexual assault with impunity because of his celebrity, as well as the size of his manhood—could not be starker.

In a March 1936 speech to workers at a Krupp factory in Essen, Hitler proclaimed: “I am probably the only statesman in the world who does not have a bank account. I have no stocks or shares in any company. I don’t draw any dividends.” Just as Hitler cultivated the image of transcending any physical need for the companionship of women, he also cultivated the pose of an ascetic man beyond materialistic needs. In reality he had a large Munich apartment and an expanded and refurbished mountain villa at Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps, and he loved his Mercedes cars. His royalties from Mein Kampf and access to secret slush funds meant that he would never go wanting.

But these modest luxuries were not flaunted in the face of less-well-off Germans. Usefully for Hitler, the limitless greed and corruption of many of his followers, from the ostentatious Hermann Göring down to the local “little Hitlers” who utilized their newfound power to shamelessly enrich themselves, sharpened the contrast with his public asceticism. This appearance of simple living helped keep the image of the Führer untarnished, while the high living of party leaders and functionaries remained the focal point of popular resentment.

Once again in contrast, virtually no businessman flaunted his wealth and gold-plated name as blatantly as Donald Trump, and his entry into politics only increased the audience for this flaunting. Once elected he openly refused any of the traditional limits on conflict of interest through divestiture of his assets into a blind trust, and has filled his cabinet with fellow billionaires. The emoluments clause of the Constitution, hitherto untested due to commonly accepted axioms of American political culture, may remain so (given the Republican stranglehold on the House of Representatives through at least 2018 and very likely beyond), as Americans experience corruption, kleptocracy, and “bully capitalism” on an unprecedented scale.

If Hitler and Trump are utterly different in their childhoods and wartime experiences on the one hand and attitudes toward women and wealth on the other, the historical circumstances in which they made their political ascents exhibit partial similarities. Within the space of a single generation, German society suffered a series of extraordinary crises: four years of total war that culminated in an unexpected defeat; political revolution that replaced a semiparliamentary/semiautocratic monarchy with a democratic republic; hyperinflation that destroyed middle-class savings and mocked bourgeois values of thrift and deferred gratification while rewarding wild speculation; and finally the Great Depression, in which the unemployment rate at its worst exceeded a staggering 30 percent.

For many Germans these disasters were unnecessarily aggravated by three widespread but false perceptions: that the war had been lost because of a “stab in the back” on the home front rather than the poor decisions and reckless gambles of the military leadership; that the Versailles Treaty was a huge, undeserved, and unprecedented injustice; and that not just Communists but moderate Social Democrats, feckless liberals, and Jews—having delivered Germany to defeat and the “chains” of Versailles—threatened Germany with “Jewish Bolshevism.” According to Ullrich, it was this toxic brew that Hitler imbibed in postwar Munich, much more than his experiences in pre-war Vienna (his portrayal in Mein Kampf notwithstanding), that turned him from a complete nonentity into a rabidly anti-Semitic ideologue and radical politician.

The experience of Americans in recent years has not been one of sequential, nationwide disasters but of uneven suffering. After two protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a barely avoided total economic meltdown in 2008–2009, many Americans have enjoyed a return to comfort, security, and even prosperity, while wealth has continued to concentrate at the top. But for the sector of the population that provides the vast bulk of the recruits to our professional army, the endlessly repeated tours of duty, the inconclusive outcomes of the wars they fought, and the escalating chaos in and threat of terror from the Middle East are disheartening and demoralizing. For industrial workers and miners whose jobs have been lost to automation, globalization, and growing environmental consciousness, the post-2008 economic stagnation has meant an inescapable descent into underemployment, drastically lowered living standards, and little prospect of recovering their lost status and income.

For the first time, the life expectancy of middle-aged white Americans without a college education has significantly shortened, above all because of “diseases of despair,” especially alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide. For social conservatives whose predominately white and Christian milieu and deference to male dominance were both taken for granted and perceived as inherent in shaping American identity, the demographic rise and political activism of nonwhite minorities, the emergence of women’s rights, and the transformation of societal attitudes toward homosexuality, especially among the younger generation, have been surprising and to many dismaying. The division of society into what the ill-fated John Edwards once called the “two Americas” has intensified. One optimistically sees America as functional and progressing, while the other pessimistically sees America as dysfunctional and declining.

However unequal in severity the situations in the two countries were, large numbers of Germans and Americans perceived multiple crises of political gridlock, economic failure, humiliation abroad, and cultural-moral decay at home. Both Hitler and Trump proclaimed their countries to be “losers,” offered themselves as the sole solution to these crises, and pledged a return to the glories of an imagined golden past. Hitler promised a great “renewal” in Germany, Trump to “make America great again.” Both men defied old norms and invented unprecedented ways of waging their political campaigns. Both men developed a charismatic relationship with their “base” that centered on large rallies. Both emphasized their “outsider” status and railed against the establishment, privileged elites, and corrupt special interests. Both voiced grievances against enemies (Hitler’s “November criminals” and “Jewish Bolsheviks,” Trump’s “Mexican rapists,” “radical Islamic terror,” and the “dishonest” press). And both men benefited from being seriously underestimated by experts and rivals.

However, while both men created coalitions of discontent, their constituencies were quite different. The first groups to be taken over by Nazi majorities were student organizations on university campuses. In their electoral breakthrough in 1930, the Nazis won the vast majority of first-time voters, especially the youth vote. Above all, the Nazis vacuumed up the voters of other middle-class parties, and women of different social backgrounds voted in roughly the same proportions for the Nazis as men.

The two groups among whom the Nazis were relatively unsuccessful were Germany’s religious-block voters (in this case Catholics voting for their own Center Party) and blue-collar industrial workers (who more often shifted their votes from the declining moderate Social Democrats to the more radical Communists rather than to the Nazis). Still, the Nazis drew votes much more broadly across German society than any of their rival class- and sectarian-based parties and could boast with some justification to be the only true “people’s party” in the country.

In the end the Nazis built a strong base and won a decisive plurality in Germany’s multiparty system. The party reached 37 percent in the July 1932 elections and declined to 33 percent in November in the last two free elections, before it peaked at 44 percent in the manipulated election of March 1933.

Unlike Hitler, who won voters away from other parties to the Nazis, Trump did not build up his own party organization but captured the Republican Party through the primaries and caucuses. Despite this “hostile takeover” and Trump’s personal flaws, traditional Republicans (including women, whose defection had been wrongly predicted) solidly supported him in the general election, as did evangelicals. In contrast, the Democrats failed both to maintain Obama’s level of voter mobilization among African-Americans and youth and to hold onto blue-collar white male voters in the Great Lakes industrial states (especially in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania) who had voted for Obama in the two previous presidential elections, but had already deserted the Democratic Party in the previous three state elections. Trump’s 46 percent of the vote in a basically two-party race barely exceeded Hitler’s maximum of 44 percent in a multiparty race, but it was strategically distributed and thus sufficient for an electoral college victory despite Hillary Clinton’s receiving nearly three million more votes nationwide.

While Trump attained the presidency through a constitutionally legitimate electoral college victory, Hitler was unable to obtain the chancellorship through electoral triumph and a parliamentary majority. Rather he came to power through a deal brokered by Germany’s nationalist and authoritarian conservative elites and President Paul von Hindenburg. Having mobilized the large popular base that the old elites could not, Hitler was indispensable to their plans to replace the increasingly defunct Weimar democracy with authoritarian rule.

As Ullrich admirably demonstrates, it was not the inexorable rise of the Nazis but rather the first signs of their decline in the November 1932 elections (exhausted, bankrupt, and demoralized from constant campaigning without ultimate victory) that led conservative elites to accept Hitler’s demand for the chancellorship, before his stubborn holdout could ruin his own party and leave the conservatives to face the left without popular support. Many of Hitler’s and the conservatives’ goals overlapped: ending Weimar’s parliamentary democracy; rearming; throwing off the Versailles Treaty and restoring the borders of 1914; crushing the “Marxists” (i.e., Social Democrats and labor unions as well as Communists); and de-emancipating Germany’s Jews. The fundamental assumption of these conservative elites was, of course, that they would control Hitler and use him to realize their agenda, not vice versa.

Trump the populist and the traditional Republicans have likewise made a deal to work together, in part to realize those goals they share: tax “reform” with special emphasis on cuts for the well-off; deregulating business and banking; curtailing environmental protections while denying man-made climate change; appointing a Scalia-like justice to the Supreme Court; repealing Obamacare; increasing military spending; increasing the deportation of undocumented immigrants and “sealing the border”; shifting resources from public to charter schools; expanding the rights of individuals or businesses to discriminate against unprotected groups in the name of religious freedom; ending the right to abortion; and on the state level intensifying voter suppression.

It is highly unlikely, however, that Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and other Republican legislators share Trump’s enthusiasm for a trillion-dollar infrastructure package; his pledge not to cut Social Security and Medicare; the replacement of broad, regional free trade agreements with narrow, bilateral trade treaties; and some economic conjuring trick to reopen closed coal mines, steel mills, and factories. Presumably some of these Trump promises will be set aside (as already appears to be happening to his promise of a health plan that covers more people with better care at less cost, though not sufficiently to the satisfaction of hard-core conservatives), and further conflict looms ahead.

If both Hitler and Trump made deals with conservative political partners on the basis of partially overlapping goals and those partners’ wishful thinking, it is simply not possible for Trump to consolidate absolute power and dispense with his allies with either the speed or totality that Hitler did. One of the most chilling sections of Ullrich’s biography deals with the construction of the Nazi dictatorship. Through emergency decrees of President Hindenburg (not subject to judicial review), freedom of the press, speech, and assembly were suspended within the first week. Due process of law and the autonomy of state governments were gone within the first month, as the government was empowered to intern people indefinitely in concentration camps without charges, trial, or sentence, and to replace non-Nazi state governments with Nazi commissioners. By the sixth week, the Communist Party had been outlawed and the entire constitution had been set aside in favor of Hitler (rather than Hindenburg) ruling through decree.

In the third month equality before the law was abrogated with the first anti-Jewish decrees and the purging of the civil service, and in the fourth month the labor unions and the Social Democratic Party were abolished. The remaining political parties disbanded themselves in month five. In June 1934 Hitler carried out the “Blood Purge.” Among its victims were former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and his wife as well as hundreds of others on Hitler’s enemies list. Former vice chancellor Franz von Papen, who had brokered the deal that brought Hitler to power, was dispatched as ambassador to Austria. It was as if Hillary and Bill Clinton were gunned down in their doorway, and Mike Pence sent off as ambassador to Canada.

Partly because Trump does not have an independent party and paramilitary militia totally committed to him personally and partly because American democracy is in no way as atrophied as was the Weimar Republic, such a whirlwind creation of dictatorship is not a possibility in 2017. Courts continue to exercise judicial review and uphold due process, governors in states like California and Washington are not being deposed and replaced, the exercise of free speech, press, and assembly under the Bill of Rights is still intact, and opposition parties are not being outlawed. Equally important, large numbers of people are frequently and visibly exercising their rights of assembly and speech, and the news media have not sought to ingratiate themselves with the new regime, thereby earning the administration’s reprimand that they are both the real “opposition” and the “enemy of the people.” Whatever the authoritarian tendencies of Trump and some of those around him, they have encountered limits that Hitler did not.

Two factors that Ullrich consistently emphasizes are Hitler’s ideological core on the one hand and the fact that he made no attempt to hide it on the other. On the contrary, knowledge of it was available to anyone who cared enough to look. If Hitler’s first postwar biographer, Alan Bullock, treated him as a tyrant seeking power for its own sake, Ullrich embraces the research of the late 1960s, especially by Eberhard Jäckel,*who laid out how, over the course of the 1920s, Hitler’s worldview crystallized around race as the driving force of history. He believed the Jews constituted the greatest threat to Germany’s racial purity and fighting spirit, and thus to its capacity to wage the eternal struggle for “living space” needed to sustain and expand Germany’s population and vanquish its rivals.

Ullrich also accepts later research that demonstrates that this worldview did not constitute a premeditated program or blueprint, but provided the parameters and guidelines for how Nazi racial, foreign, and military policy evolved and radicalized over the twelve years of the Third Reich. Ascent ends in March 1939, with the occupation of Prague as Hitler’s last bloodless victory. But it is clear to Ullrich that no one should have been surprised that Hitler’s ideologically driven career was destined to culminate in war and genocide.

With Trump, of course, we have neither historical perspective nor discernible ideological core. The overwhelming impression is that his ego and need for adulation, as well as his inability to discern simple reality and tell the truth when his ego is threatened, are his driving forces, not ideology. Among his appointees, however, is the Breitbart faction of Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who embrace a vision of what Bannon euphemistically calls “economic nationalism.” It combines white supremacy; the Leninist “deconstruction” of the New Deal/cold war administrative state; Islamophobia (especially in seeing a titanic and irreconcilable clash of civilizations between Islam and the West); the dismantling of the current international order (UN, EU, NATO, NAFTA, etc.) in favor of a return to unfettered and self-assertive, ethnically homogeneous nation-states; affinity with Putin’s Russia and other ultra-nationalist and increasingly authoritarian movements in Europe; and apocalyptic historical thinking about the end of the current era (a roughly eighty-year cycle that began in the 1930s) and the emergence of a new one in the very near future.

Trump shares these views sufficiently to have made Bannon the chief strategist of his administration, and his easy resort to racist rhetoric—the birther myth, Mexicans as rapists and criminals, the Muslim ban, Lindbergh’s “America First” slogan—makes clear that he is perfectly comfortable stoking racism. But it is not clear if any of this ideological package would have priority over his central agenda of self-aggrandizement. The future direction of the Trump administration depends in no small part on the extent to which the Bannon-Miller faction prevails over the collection of traditionalists, military officers, and billionaires whom Trump has also appointed to important positions.

Ullrich also shows that the phenomenal rise in Hitler’s popularity—his ability to win over the majority of the majority who did not vote for him—crucially resulted from the dual achievement of a string of bloodless foreign policy victories on the one hand and economic recovery (especially the return to full employment) on the other. Full employment was accomplished above all by rearmament through huge deficit spending and enormous trade deficits that resulted from bilateral trade deals. They created an economic house of cards in which the frenetic pace of preparing for a major war planned for 1942–1943 required the gamble of seizing Austrian and Czech resources while avoiding war in 1938–1939. The infrastructure program of building autobahns had a very minor, mostly cosmetic, part in economic recovery.

Trump too has staked his political future on economic promises of 4 percent growth; the reopening of coal mines, steel mills, and factories in regions of economic blight; and the replacement or renegotiation of free trade agreements (that were based on the assumption of mutual benefit) with bilateral trade deals in which America wins and the other side loses. In this regard the goal of his bilateral trade agreements is exactly the opposite of Hitler’s, i.e., he seeks trade surpluses, while Hitler paid for crash rearmament in part through trade deficits that would allegedly be paid off later or preferably canceled through conquest. Trump is tied to a political party that traditionally has favored free trade and abhors deficit spending for any purposes other than providing tax cuts for the wealthy, increasing the military budget, and justifying cuts to the welfare safety net.

It is unclear how Trump’s populist promises on health care, Social Security and Medicare, infrastructure rebuilding, and recovery of blighted industries can be accomplished, particularly in an environment of potential trade war, higher cost of living due to import taxes and diminished competition, possible decline in now relatively prosperous, cutting-edge export industries, and agrobusiness that needs both export markets and cheap immigrant labor. Tax cuts, deregulation, and reckless disregard for the environment are the Republican panaceas for the economy. Will they provide even a temporary boost (before the balloon bursts and the bill comes due as it did for George W. Bush in 2007–2008) sufficient to help Trump escape the economic and political cul de sac into which he has maneuvered himself? Here too the future direction of the Trump administration is unclear.

Hitler and National Socialism should not be seen as the normal historical template for authoritarian rule, risky foreign policy, and persecution of minorities, for they constitute an extreme case of totalitarian dictatorship, limitless aggression, and genocide. They should not be lightly invoked or trivialized through facile comparison. Nonetheless, even if there are many significant differences between Hitler and Trump and their respective historical circumstances, what conclusions can the reader of Volker Ullrich’s new biography reach that offer insight into our current situation?

First, there is a high price to pay for consistently underestimating a charismatic political outsider just because one finds by one’s own standards and assumptions (in my case those of a liberal academic) his character flawed, his ideas repulsive, and his appeal incomprehensible. And that is important not only for the period of his improbable rise to power but even more so once he has attained it. Second, putting economically desperate people back to work by any means will purchase a leader considerable forgiveness for whatever other shortcomings emerge and at least passive support for any other goals he pursues. As James Carville advised the 1992 Clinton campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Third, the assumption that conservative, traditionalist allies—however indispensable initially—will hold such upstart leaders in check is dangerously wishful thinking. If conservatives cannot gain power on their own without the partnership and popular support of such upstarts, their subsequent capacity to control these upstarts is dubious at best.

Fourth, the best line of defense of a democracy must be at the first point of attack. Weimar parliamentary government had been supplanted by presidentially appointed chancellors ruling through the emergency decree powers of an antidemocratic president since 1930. In 1933 Hitler simply used this post-democratic stopgap system to install a totalitarian dictatorship with incredible speed and without serious opposition. If we can still effectively protect American democracy from dictatorship, then certainly one lesson from the study of the demise of Weimar and the ascent of Hitler is how important it is to do it early.

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christheodore · 6 years

Text

New York Review of Books (NYR)

Lessons from Hitler’s Rise by Christopher R. Browning Hitler: Ascent 1889–1939 - by Volker Ullrich, translated from the German by Jefferson Chase

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