Heart of Darkness

[Augiedog]

Is anyone else sensing a parallel between Trumps campaign and an insane mad mans journey into a political darkness. Trump is dragging us all along on this mad voyage, where we will all end up with our heads on stakes outside one of his towers.
The sewer of dysfunction and dystopia that was the RNC convention was as if diseased and fouled by the stench of collective hate and ignorance slopping against the gunwales of of a boat worthy of the river Styx. The only thing missing from the event was a goats head hanging from the podium.

[C_U_L8R]

1. Especially seen through the eyes of Trumpbots

"Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you. He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say, "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas... "

[EX500rider]

8. Is that from "Apocalypse Now"?

[C_U_L8R]

9. Yup. Coppola's Heart of Darkness

[edhopper]

13. Trump is about as sane as Kurtz

[AngryAmish]

2. It is like they all got on a train with no brakes.

[pinboy3niner]

3. Trump loves the smell of sulphur in the morning

To use another movie allusion.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. The horror! The horror!

A Trump presidency. The horror!

[lapucelle]

5. I just read a book on the Weimar Republic,

and the last chapter concerned how extremism was mainstreamed and how it led to the end of the republic and the beginning of the Reich.

I had never heard the history of exactly how Nazis seized power: they used the political process. In the late 1920's to the early 1930's the Nazi party focused on winning seats in the legislature. They never had a majority or a real mandate, but they had enough seats to control the agenda and a brilliant political strategist, not named Hitler, but Goebbels. His plan was to use their voting bloc in the legislature to create absolute gridlock. Nothing could get done because everything was stonewalled. Sound familiar? It's what the Tea Party (and the more mainstream Republicans who are afraid of them) have done to President Obama for the last 6 years.

In Germany, it got to the point where the president (with the help of conservative party coalitions) finally relented and appointed the chancellor that the Nazis said they could work with: Adolph Hitler. The conservatives thought they could control him. The president (and many people) had the reaction, "OK, maybe this will work out. Things are really bad. How much worse could it get?'

I know that I'm in violation of Godwin's law, but I'm putting this out there anyway. What I found most chilling is the similarity between the gridlock strategy then and the Tea Party strategy now.

I've already broken Godwin's law, so I see no harm in ending with a cliched quote:
"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

[Mc Mike]

7. I had no idea about the nazi's use of legislative gridlock.

Thanks for the info, is it in Shirer's Rise and Fall?

[lapucelle]

10. I'm not sure.

The book I read was about ever day life, culture, art, etc during the Weimar years. In the last chapter , the author addressed the reasons why (and how) an extreme right wing movement could come into power in spite of the cultural, social, and political progressivism in Germany during that era.

https://www.amazon.com/Weimar-Germany-Eric-D-Weitz/dp/0691157960/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469844456&sr=8-1&keywords=weimar

[Mc Mike]

12. Thank you for the link info on Eric Weitz's book.

You're right about knowing history to avoid repeating mistakes, lapucelle.

[Hekate]

11. Thanks for this info. So many don't know the facts.

[fierywoman]

6. Madam, MadMan ...

Someone over at JuanitaJean's said we have the choice this November between voting for a Madam President or a MadMan President.