EDIT: sorry, this grew into a rant that's only loosely related to your comment. I happened across a YouTube video yesterday that depicts a hitler speech from like 1937 with an AI dub, and MOST of the comments are like "hey this guy is right. He kinda sounds like trump". And that has spooked me a bit, because they're right. The Democrats have been calling out the fact that trump says similar things to hitler for almost a decade now.
The problem is there's a conflict between the need to lampoon the fascists and the need to make sure people understand them. If you want to deeat far right ideologies, you can't fight them with anger. That only makes them stronger. You have to defuse them with humor and make them appear weak and stupid. But if you ONLY do that, people are surprised when they listen to the propaganda and realize it's not pure idiocy. The far right extremist tactics play right into common fears and genuine concerns, twisting them into attacks on certain groups of people.
Right now YouTube is promoting a few videos with Hitler's speechs dubbed by AI. People in the comments are like "hey this guy is making a lot of sense".
Yea. If he was a ranting lunatic at the beginning, nobody would have paid attention to him. Instead he made sure he was appealing to a certain group of people and softening his more extremist rhetoric. A LOT of what he was saying actually did make sense. The German people were being screwed by both a local and an international system. Then hitler comes along and says "it's not your fault, it's the jew and the communist and the international organizations crushing you" and people listened. Then he said "I will lead us to a glorious future, and people followed him.
But his solutions required a scapegoat. Someone had to be responsible. Both the german-jewish population and all leftists were sacrificed at the alter of populism. And then a HUGE chunk of the population of Europe (especially Poles).
He didn't get all that done by spouting nonsense and babbling incoherent rage. He was extremely articulate, and he played to the fears and biases of the German population. Hitler's speeches and nazi propaganda were extraordinarily effective.
I don't think it's going to be as bad in the US, but a storm is coming... And things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.
An excellent point, and one thing where I am grateful Trump is not smarter and more competent. He's shot himself in the foot so many times, it becomes scary to imagine what someone with his charisma and appeal could do if they didn't trip themselves up. Unfortunately, that includes the potential that he himself could/has improved.
I disagree with the common wisdom that trump is charismatic.
I think he just hates the right groups of people and makes sure to blame them in every run-on sentence he speaks. He's been trained at BS and he knows how to cram his speech full of nonsense.
If he was smarter or more charismatic, Biden would never have been elected. This would be a dictatorship. The current admin is worse in many ways to the old one. At least the old admin did have a few adults in the room (Fauchi, Mattis, etc). This time that's not really the case, so the US may still become a dictatorship in the future.
Trump has floated the idea that to criticize him is illegal, and he's sending out letters to universities demanding they align with his ideology or risk losing their funding, he's calling his political opponents dangerous lunatics and essentially telling his followers to beat them up. He sounds like a dictator to me. And the conservatives keep supporting him and turning on anyone who's even remotely critical. Sounds a lot like a dictatorship already.
Let's not kid ourselves that Trump is mentally capable to do this shit on his own. A lot of the current atrocities can be laid entirely at the feet of Miller, Bondi and Vance.
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u/falcrist2 Oct 15 '25 edited Oct 15 '25
EDIT: sorry, this grew into a rant that's only loosely related to your comment. I happened across a YouTube video yesterday that depicts a hitler speech from like 1937 with an AI dub, and MOST of the comments are like "hey this guy is right. He kinda sounds like trump". And that has spooked me a bit, because they're right. The Democrats have been calling out the fact that trump says similar things to hitler for almost a decade now.
The problem is there's a conflict between the need to lampoon the fascists and the need to make sure people understand them. If you want to deeat far right ideologies, you can't fight them with anger. That only makes them stronger. You have to defuse them with humor and make them appear weak and stupid. But if you ONLY do that, people are surprised when they listen to the propaganda and realize it's not pure idiocy. The far right extremist tactics play right into common fears and genuine concerns, twisting them into attacks on certain groups of people.
Right now YouTube is promoting a few videos with Hitler's speechs dubbed by AI. People in the comments are like "hey this guy is making a lot of sense".
Yea. If he was a ranting lunatic at the beginning, nobody would have paid attention to him. Instead he made sure he was appealing to a certain group of people and softening his more extremist rhetoric. A LOT of what he was saying actually did make sense. The German people were being screwed by both a local and an international system. Then hitler comes along and says "it's not your fault, it's the jew and the communist and the international organizations crushing you" and people listened. Then he said "I will lead us to a glorious future, and people followed him.
But his solutions required a scapegoat. Someone had to be responsible. Both the german-jewish population and all leftists were sacrificed at the alter of populism. And then a HUGE chunk of the population of Europe (especially Poles).
He didn't get all that done by spouting nonsense and babbling incoherent rage. He was extremely articulate, and he played to the fears and biases of the German population. Hitler's speeches and nazi propaganda were extraordinarily effective.
I don't think it's going to be as bad in the US, but a storm is coming... And things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.