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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNew York Times Trolls Trump With Hitler Book Review
The New York Times wrote a book review about the rise of Hitler that was really all about Donald Trump
September 28, 2016 2016 Election, Media, Politics
The New York Times today published a review of a new biography on Adolf Hitler and the twitterverse is snickering over its many thinly-veiled allusions to Donald Trump. Heres an excerpt:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/hI2dLByHXH
Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich reminds readers, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a mask of moderation when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners, Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.
Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness, though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.
Hitlers repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences with repeated mantralike phrases consisting largely of accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future. But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing in Mein Kampf that propaganda must appeal to the emotions not the reasoning powers of the crowd. Its purely intellectual level, Hitler said, will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach. Because the understanding of the masses is feeble, he went on, effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.
http://www.joemygod.com/2016/09/28/new-york-times-trolls-trump-hitler-book-review/
BSdetect
(8,994 posts)Wonder if hitler would have used an atomic bomb first - even if he took that option "off the table" whilst keeping all his options "on the table" at the very same time?
Who knows, eh?
Best guess?
lame54
(35,259 posts)mcar
(42,278 posts)underpants
(182,585 posts)There are some Hitlers out there.
LuvNewcastle
(16,834 posts)to Hitler. I can't imagine any decent person being born with that name and not changing it. That's fucking sad.
mahatmakanejeeves
(57,283 posts)By Aaron Blake
September 28 at 11:18 AM
https://twitter.com/intent/aaronblake
In the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani reviewed a new book about Adolf Hitler, titled "Hitler: Ascent 1889-1939." ... To many observers, though, it read like a bit more than a book review. It read like a comparison between Hitler and Donald Trump.
It's true that the review didn't name Trump or even allude to the 2016 U.S. presidential race. But it came across to more than a few readers as an intentional, point-by-point comparison of Hitler's rise and Trump's.
And it's not hard to see why. From the headline "In Hitler, an Ascent From Dunderhead to Demagogue" to the conclusion 1,300 words later, nearly everything Kakutani says about Volker Ullrich's book reflects long-standing warnings by some about how Trump shouldn't be dismissed as some sideshow and that history shows where this can lead.
In response to an inquiry from The Fix, Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said, "The review speaks for itself."
Also, here's a link to the review in the New York Times that's not intended for mobile devices:
Books of The Times
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI SEPT. 27, 2016
How did Adolf Hitler described by one eminent magazine editor in 1930 as a half-insane rascal, a pathetic dunderhead, a nowhere fool, a big mouth rise to power in the land of Goethe and Beethoven? What persuaded millions of ordinary Germans to embrace him and his doctrine of hatred? How did this most unlikely pretender to high state office achieve absolute power in a once democratic country and set it on a course of monstrous horror?
....
Follow Michiko Kakutani on Twitter: @michikokakutani
https://twitter.com/michikokakutani
bluesbassman
(19,358 posts)"Last April, perhaps in a surge of Czech nationalism, 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 ... Hitler's speeches, from his earliest days up through the Phony War of 1939, reveal his extraordinary ability as a master propagandist," Marie Brenner wrote.
~snip~
When Brenner asked Trump about how he came to possess Hitler's speeches, "Trump hesitated" and then said, "Who told you that?"
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.businessinsider.com/donald-trumps-ex-wife-once-said-he-kept-a-book-of-hitlers-speeches-by-his-bed-2015-8
Based on how we saw him respond to the Alicia Machado incident, it's pretty clear that Ivana was telling the truth about Trump's interest in Hitler.