Now that the KKK is out of mothballs.

[LAS14]

We need to move beyond the political correctness that prohibits our raising the specter of Nazism. I'm not yet ready to accuse anyone of planning mass murders in concentration camps, but remember that Hitler was voted into power, and that Trump is very specifically focussing on seducing the vulnerable segments of the population, both Democrats and Republicans. Please see both the YouTube video and the article that is below it.

this interchange of CNN. At the time, I thought it was unusual. The following story tells it well:
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
A Fiery Debate on K.K.K. in ’16. Who Figured?
By JAMES PONIEWOZIK
On Super Tuesday, two commentators on CNN argued about the Ku Klux Klan. On television. In America. In 2016.
It was a singular moment in cable news. This is partly because, until this week, the K.K.K.’s loathsomeness had seemed to be a settled issue. But also because — as intense and unsettling as the argument was — it was substantive and illuminating in a way time-killing cable shouting matches rarely are.
The exchange began when the conservative commentator S. E. Cupp criticized the Republican front-runner, Donald J. Trump, for the “dog whistle” racial implications of his comments and proposals. (He has, besides denigrating Mexican immigrants and calling for a ban on Muslims entering the country, said that he’s not sure whether he would have opposed internment camps for Japanese-Americans during World War II.)
snip

Here’s where things got real. Van Jones, a former Obama staffer (and an African-American), turned to Mr. Lord and argued that Mr. Trump was “playing funny with the Klan” by not deploring them with the same passion he directs at other terrorist organizations. (Or for that matter, I’d say, Megyn Kelly.) Mr. Lord responded that Mr. Trump had said enough, that Democrats were “dividing people by race” and besides, the Klan was a “leftist” terror group.
Again: This is 2016. And here was a white panelist suggesting that his African-American peer should really go back and learn his history before criticizing someone about the Klan. Mr. Jones, calmly but with clear emotion, dressed Mr. Lord down: “We’re not going to play that game,” he said. “When you talk about the Klan, ‘Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know’ — that’s wrong.”
It was five minutes or so of the most stunning TV of the year. Even the body language was fascinating: Mr. Jones rested a hand on Mr. Lord’s shoulder at times, seemingly less as a dominating gesture than to keep the situation from spiraling out of control. (“I know you,” Mr. Jones said at one point. “I trust you.”) It was as if he were simultaneously battling Mr. Lord and trying to defuse a highly unstable bomb.
Cable debates typically end up with two parties yelling over trivia. The Jones-Lord argument was arresting precisely the opposite way: Two men were arguing, furiously but in control, over something dead serious.
And while I’ve criticized cable networks plenty over the years for engaging in gasbag theater for ratings, CNN was absolutely right to let this fight play out. The 2016 election has dug up ghastly things in American politics that many of us thought were long buried. But once the Klan robe is out of mothballs, it needs to be confronted under bright lights.
There is something frightening, in general, about hate groups becoming fodder for the modern cable news argument machine. Does anyone want to see TV take a “both sides have their points to make” approach to the actual Ku Klux Klan? But here, anyway, amid the usual hyperbole and Times Square graphics of an election night, CNN delivered a scene of authentic passion over real concerns: the deep schisms among Republicans, the fear that vile hatreds are being resurrected, the anxiety that the vitriol of the campaign is bleeding into the larger culture. (Mr. Jones said that he’d stopped encouraging his 7-year-old son to watch the news.)

PLEASE CLICK LINK IN FIRST REPLY TO SEE THIS WHOLE ARTICLE

[LiberalArkie]

1. A Fiery Debate on the K.K.K. in 2016. Who Figured?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/03/arts/television/cnn-commentators-argue-over-trump-and-the-ku-klux-klan.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore&_r=0

[LAS14]

2. I wasn't allowed to post...

... this in GDP, so I'm kicking in hopes that it will get some discussion. I really do mean it as an item of discussion about the primaries. The possibility that Trump could be the Republican nominee.

[Fla Dem]

3. Jeff Lord is an idiot. nt

[NutmegYankee]

4. Hitler was appointed into power, not elected.

[LAS14]

5. I don't think that's the case...

... could you cite a reference?

[Aristus]

7. Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933

In the November, 1932 election, the Nazi Party actually lost votes, and therefor, seats in the Reichstag.

[LAS14]

8. OK. But this sounds like it followed parliamentary....

.... procedures. I'm not well versed in how parliamentary governments work. Is it fair to say that Hitler did not require some sort of coup to come to power?

[Aristus]

9. Yes, but that wasn't the issue.

The issue was 'Hitler-won-in-a-popular-election' vs. 'Hitler-was-appointed-in-order-to-form-a-governing-coalition-of-disparate-political-parties'.

[LAS14]

11. Well, my point in the original post was...

... that Hitler rose to power through an established process, not through a coup.

[Aristus]

12. Fair enough...

[NutmegYankee]

10. Here:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/adolf-hitler-is-named-chancellor-of-germany

Hindenburg, intimidated by Hitler’s growing popularity and the thuggish nature of his cadre of supporters, the SA (or Brownshirts), initially refused to make him chancellor. Instead, he appointed General Kurt von Schleicher, who attempted to steal Hitler’s thunder by negotiating with a dissident Nazi faction led by Gregor Strasser. At the next round of elections in November, the Nazis lost ground—but the Communists gained it, a paradoxical effect of Schleicher’s efforts that made right-wing forces in Germany even more determined to get Hitler into power. In a series of complicated negotiations, ex-Chancellor Franz von Papen, backed by prominent German businessmen and the conservative German National People’s Party (DNVP), convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as chancellor, with the understanding that von Papen as vice-chancellor and other non-Nazis in key government positions would contain and temper Hitler’s more brutal tendencies.

[LAS14]

6. Ya gotta see this video and read this article. nt