Word matters. So is Donald Trump a Nazi?

[syringis]

It is from Adam Wagner, a British human right lawyer.

Link to tweet

1) So is Donald Trump a Nazi?

2/ There has been a lot of talk since Trump was elected, and especially since the child detention centres, along lines that he is a fascist, a Nazi, or close enough to both to make it worth drawing the comparison. Is defensible?

3/ First, Trump isn’t a Nazi. Nazis don’t exist any more - they are in the innermost circle of hell reserved for history’s worst people. Trump is supportive - at least not unsupportive - of the Alt Right, a far right/libertarian hybrid. But they’re not Nazis and neither is he.

4/ So is he a fascist? I don’t think so. Trump shows disdain for democratic institutions but he is an elected leader - by millinos. He seems frustrated by the rule of law and democratic process but he is far, thankfully, from rejecting democracy or advocating a one-party state.


5/ I’m not discounting that in another time Trump would have been a fascist. I think he probably would. But definitions matter. We need to keep a laser focus on what we criticise Trump and his movement for. Because misplaced comparisons can do damage.

6/ You lose the trust with the millions of people who don’t strongly object to Trump but are uneasy with his policies - you set your argument up to fail by making a comparison that can easily be rebutted. And those people then say: I’m not listening as you are over-egging.

7/ But. The discussion doesn't ends there. That’s where it begins. Here’s my main point. Societies can’t just be divided into “free” and “unfree” any more than a human can be described as “healthy” or “unhealthy”. Like a body, a state is a hugely complex, interlocking system

8/ That means that certain parts can be working well whilst others are not. It means that pathologies can be localised to one system, but they can also be - at any given time - spreading. And like an body, a social pathology can predate the symptoms by months or even years.

9/ In some 20th century states every aspect was corrupted to make mass killing and oppression possible. The leader, but also parliament (a fig leaf), judiciary (loyal to the leader not justice) and the perverse incentives for individuals to act contrary to their consciences

10/ That level of pathology is common to societies run by fascists, communists, Nazis. Name is unimportant. But you can pull the common themes together and see how societies progress towards un-freedom and even genocide.

11/ I helped make a film featuring survivors of three different genocide. Their experiences had much in common - discrimination, dehumanisation, neighbour being turned against neighbour, splitting society into tribes and racial hierarchies
12/ Don’t forget that democracy and liberalism isn’t the natural state of human society - they are historical aberration. Most societies, in most of recorded history, have been oppressive, unfair and unequal.

13/ So Trump. He’s no Nazi or Fascist. But he - and his movement - do things which corrode liberal democracy. How can we tell? Human rights. The European Convention was designed by people who understood the pathologies which led to totalitarian states

14/ Like Hersch Lauterpacht, who lost his family in the Holocaust, and David Maxwell Fyfe, who prosecuted at the Nuremberg War Crime trials. They helped create a simple list of rights needed for a free society: fair trial, no torture, freedom of speech…

16/ Human rights laws are a blueprint for a free society - but they are also an early warning system. And breaches of human rights are therefore a useful way of assessing how pathological the behaviour of a leader or government is to the political system they are running.

17/ *That’s* why we should worry about Trump. He is rhetorically and by policies against ideas of human rights standards. He withdrew US from UN Human Rights Council. He rejects international institutions which are the framework for international human rights standards

18/ His anti-Muslim polcies are discriminatory - draws distinctions between “us” and Islam, so building tribal consciousness which leads to bad places. Speaks of “infestation” - language familiar to Goebbels (Jews are “rats”) and Hutus in Rwanda who called Tutsis “cockroaches”

19/ Trump supports torture of terror suspects and practices which have been outlawed in international human rights law for 40 years.

Link to tweet

 … … His child separation policy would never have survived a human rights challenge and was rightly seen as crossing a line

20/ So Trump isn’t a Nazi or a fascist. But there are warning signs which we cannot - must not - ignore. Human rights can be a litmus test to see the difference between policies and practices we dislike and ones are genuinely corrosive of democracy and may lead to darker places.

[Journeyman]

1. Thank you . . .

enlightening post.

[syringis]

2. Hi Journeyman

Yes it is interesting. It is important to use the right words.

Trump may be not a Nazi or a Fascist (it's not the same) according to the definitions, but he is as scary and (dangerous) than Hitler or Mussolini.

[Javaman]

13. if he ain't a nazi, he certainly rhymes with it. nt

[dalton99a]

3. Heck, the asshole has been calling everyone every name in the book

[msongs]

4. he is a nazi sympathizer. his behaviors are like those of the early naZi movement nt

[kysrsoze]

5. Yes.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

6. Trump is too much a Nazi for even Hitler

[northremembers]

7. Can we just call them all conservative?

In the 20th century I would have insisted there was a difference between most conservatives and Nazis. That is not true in the 21st century. Conservatives in Russia, Israel, the Philippines, and the United States have demonstrated they are just as willing to embrace a Nazi or Fascist styled society. A few weeks ago an American special forces operative subjected himself to water boarding to demonstrate the validity of the technique in support of Trump's nominee for the CIA. This is conservative normal and it is global.

What we are seeing is conservatism without any sense of accountability. Just like in Europe in the 1930's and 40's or any place subjected to foreign colonial rule at any point in history. Trump, like the Nazis, or Colonial British, or the Aztecs, is doing what conservatives do when they have no accountability to the people they are responsible for. We don't have to equate conservatives with each other. They are already conservatives. We just need to emphasize the need for accountability of leadership with checks and balances.

I disagree that human nature is innately oppressive. All primate societies have traits of leadership by force and cooperation in equal measure. Both traits are a part of each of us and a part of any society of humans. Most tribal societies are democratic. Humans, in particular, are driven by cooperation.

A very significant part of our evolution was based around the development of speech. One of the key differences between homo sapiens and Neanderthals was that we had a wider vocal range when they had thicker bones, bigger muscles, and a larger brain case. We can express more sophisticated ideas and our ability to cooperate makes us more successful as a species. It is no accident Athens is the capital of Greece and not Sparta.

When liberals are in charge the society innovates and benefits from cooperative success. When conservatives are in charge the use their power to exploit and oppress. The more power they have the more they use that power to pursue their conservative inclinations regardless of the society they live in or the language they speak.

[mr_lebowski]

10. +1000 great post, welcome to DU ...

[lame54]

8. He's an apprentice nazi...

but he's climbing the ladder

[AlexSFCA]

9. thanks, I like hearing from experts

we have too many opinions and too few expert assessments.

[Meowmee]

11. Disagree

/ So is he a fascist? I don’t think so. Trump shows disdain for democratic institutions but he is an elected leader - by millinos. He seems frustrated by the rule of law and democratic process but he is far, thankfully, from rejecting democracy or advocating a one-party state.


He is definitely a fascist. I dont believe he was legally elected, he lost by 3 million, and the narrow margin electoral college was a fraud. Millions of fascists in this country did vote for him though. He is now responsible for kidnapping 2500 young children and has jailed them, those in charge are concealing as much as possible about what is going on. This is and nearly everything else he does is fascist behavior. Everything in his campaign was classic fascist technique. Nazi, yes I would call him that as well.

[Voltaire2]

12. He should read Tim Snyder's book.

The Road to Unfreedom.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/570367/the-road-to-unfreedom-by-timothy-snyder/9780525574460/

The ideological basis of the Putin era authoritarianism is fascism. They are fascists. They are not 1930 fascists they are 2018 fascists.

[hurple]

14. Actually...

Trump IS a card-carrying, dues-paying, appears in recruitment videos for... member of the American Nazi Party.

So, Nazi's DO still exist, and Trump IS one of them.

Words DO matter.

Trump IS a NAZI!

[standingtall]

15. Pretty sure Nazi's still exist they just don't have the power they use to have

Saying or suggesting Trump is not as bad a we think he is will not be a winning message. However bad we think Trump is he is probably worse.

[eleny]

16. "Donald Trump 'kept book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in his bedside cabinet' "

Here at Du we've seen this story before and it brings clarity to his behavior every time it's posted. So here it is again...

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/donald-trump-adolf-hitler-books-bedside-cabinet-ex-wife-ivana-trump-vanity-fair-1990-a7639041.html

"Donald Trump reportedly owned a copy of Adolf Hitler’s speeches and kept them in his bedside cabinet.

A 1990 Vanity Fair article about billionaire businessman stated that Mr Trump’s then wife Ivana, said her husband owned a copy of “My New Order” – a printed collection of the Nazi leader’s speeches.

Marie Brenner, the article’s author, wrote: “Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, 'My New Order', which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. "