Trump Rallies & Interviews Catch-All | Trump - “just stop talking about that”

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HeelingAg said:
This has always been an American stance. There were large political and social lobbies for non-intervention in WW2 and even full on support of Nazism. I mean, literal American Nazis filled Madison Square Garden, with heils, arm patches, and all. Americans aren’t any better than or above any ideology.
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Great points. I'll admit, that is something that shocked me a few years ago when I visited the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. I had NO CLUE up to that point that there was a very significant Nazi movement in the United States in the 1930's.
 
CFordUNC said:
I disagree. It is indeed very surprising to me that ANY American would be attracted to authoritarians, but *especially* the Americans for whom "THE MILITARY CONSTITUTION AMERICAN FLAG BALD EAGLE GO AMERICA GO RED WHITE AND BLUE GOD BLESS THE USA FUCK THE NAZIS AMERICA FUCK YEAH!" is their entire identity. You would think that the folks who "SUPPORT THE TROOPS GET BEHIND THEM OR GET IN FRONT OF THEM YOU AMERICA HATING TRAITOR" would not be attracted to the very type of fascist, authoritarian governments that the United States of America spilled countless drops of blood and treasure to defeat and destroy.
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I'm not sure why you think that supporting the troops is contrary to an affinity for authoritarianism; in fact, the two are very much compatible. Conservatives in all countries, including the US, have always been happy to see the military called in to squash whoever they think is an enemy, whether foreign or domestic. Modern conservatives are the ideological descendants of the folks who wanted to crush the French Revolution and put kings back on the throne. They tend to think democracy is too messy and prefer when one person can make decisions - of course, as long as that one person is "one of them." Hence the steady conservative trend towards consolidating and expanding executive power.

Conservatives have always aped the language of liberty and freedom, but as I've said before, the libertarian version of conservatism is always more of "rules for thee and not for me" than true liberty. "Freedom of religion" for conservatives means the freedom to impose Christian theology on everyone, not religious freedom for "other" religions. "Freedom of speech" means the right for them to be free of criticism, not the right of everyone to express their opinions truthfully and without fear of government suppression. That's how you end up with all these seeming contradictions - like, for example, Donald Trump accusing the Biden admin of withholding disaster aid from conservative citizens then in the next breath threatening to withhold aid from liberal parts of the country.

There are some people who consider themselves conservative who truly believe in a more libertarian version of conservatism - free speech, small government, etc. What those people have been finding out in the last few years is that they are a much smaller minority in the conservative movement than they thought.
 
rodoheel said:
I'm not sure why you think that supporting the troops is contrary to an affinity for authoritarianism; in fact, the two are very much compatible. Conservatives in all countries, including the US, have always been happy to see the military called in to squash whoever they think is an enemy, whether foreign or domestic. Modern conservatives are the ideological descendants of the folks who wanted to crush the French Revolution and put kings back on the throne. They tend to think democracy is too messy and prefer when one person can make decisions - of course, as long as that one person is "one of them." Hence the steady conservative trend towards consolidating and expanding executive power.

Conservatives have always aped the language of liberty and freedom, but as I've said before, the libertarian version of conservatism is always more of "rules for thee and not for me" than true liberty. "Freedom of religion" for conservatives means the freedom to impose Christian theology on everyone, not religious freedom for "other" religions. "Freedom of speech" means the right for them to be free of criticism, not the right of everyone to express their opinions truthfully and without fear of government suppression. That's how you end up with all these seeming contradictions - like, for example, Donald Trump accusing the Biden admin of withholding disaster aid from conservative citizens then in the next breath threatening to withhold aid from liberal parts of the country.

There are some people who consider themselves conservative who truly believe in a more libertarian version of conservatism - free speech, small government, etc. What those people have been finding out in the last few years is that they are a much smaller minority in the conservative movement than they thought.
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Hey, be easy on me, I'm a reformed conservative who is still learning!

(Fantastic points, all, and a great, thought-provoking post for me)
 
HeelingAg said:
This has always been an American stance. There were large political and social lobbies for non-intervention in WW2 and even full on support of Nazism. I mean, literal American Nazis filled Madison Square Garden, with heils, arm patches, and all. Americans aren’t any better than or above any ideology.
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In fairness, the Nazis of the 1930s didn’t have the same rep of the Nazis of today. It was more aligned with a strain of American political thought at the time.

Supporting Nazis today, in 2024, is a different thing.
 
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Paine said:
Just want to say I appreciate you and people like you who are willing to listen and learn rather than rejecting something that goes against what you were taught.

I think studying history changed the trajectory of my life. I can’t count how many times I learned something at Carolina about American history that flabbergasted me. There’s a reason the right doesn’t want Americans to learn about this stuff.
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Shoot, man, the gratitude is all mine for people like you and others in this community (and beyond) who are willing and patient "teachers"- I can sincerely say I have learned more in my years on this board than I probably ever learned in school.
 
CFordUNC said:
Yep. It's getting so much harder to give people the benefit of the doubt anymore, as there's just really any doubt left about who and what Trump and Trump is/are. I had a family member just this morning post on Facebook about how Trump was right about Hitler/the Nazis in that "they did a lot of bad things that they are remembered for but all Trump just meant that they did a lot of good things for the economy and for the German people and that even people who bad things can also do good things." Just completely and utterly an irredeemably awful point of view, and it is one that this person would have never, ever had if it had been literally any other politician or any other person saying it.
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Not only is it awful, it's completely and ridiculously false. There's a reason why Germany has outlawed the Nazi party ever since 1945, and it ain't only because of concerns about the Holocaust. Hitler destroyed Germany.
 
superrific said:
Not only is it awful, it's completely and ridiculously false. There's a reason why Germany has outlawed the Nazi party ever since 1945, and it ain't only because of concerns about the Holocaust. Hitler destroyed Germany.
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Totally. Needless to say, I was floored when I read it.
 
Calheel said:
[OP was edited. I won't republish the original]
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1. You should delete this before it's used against you.
2. It was never a defensible political position. Hitler and the Nazis were never, ever shy about who they were. If you want to say this about fascism more generally, maybe you'd be closer to the mark. I would still disagree, but maybe you're in the realm of plausibility. But not about the Nazis. There was never anything defensible about them.
 
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Calheel said:
In fairness, the Nazis of the 1930s didn’t have the same rep of the Nazis of today. It was more aligned with a strain of American political thought at the time.

Supporting Nazis today, in 2024, is a different thing. [replaced with edited version of OP]
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The Nazi rally in MSG took place in February 1939. Years after the Reichstag Fire, the Night of the Long Knives, and Hitler making himself dictator. Three months after Kristallnacht. Hard to make excuses for anyone supporting the Nazis in February 1939 (which, to be clear, were a small minority of Americans).
 
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rodoheel said:
The Nazi rally in MSG took place in February 1939. Years after the Reichstag Fire, the Night of the Long Knives, and Hitler making himself dictator. Three months after Kristallnacht. Hard to make excuses for anyone supporting the Nazis in February 1939 (which, to be clear, were a small minority of Americans).
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Yes, but there was A LOT of anti-semitism in America in the 1930s.

There was also a lot of anti-communism in the 1930s America, and the Nazis we’re also virulently anti-communist.

And most importantly, there had been no Nazi holocaust in the 1930s.

Obviously, American Nazism was a niche political movement in the 1930s, but it was not the outcast belief system then as it was after WWII.

My point still stands — even if that speaks poorly of 1930s America.
 
superrific said:
1. You should delete this before it's used against you.
2. It was never a defensible political position. Hitler and the Nazis were never, ever shy about who they were. If you want to say this about fascism more generally, maybe you'd be closer to the mark. I would still disagree, but maybe you're in the realm of plausibility. But not about the Nazis. There was never anything defensible about them.
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I’ll edit my word choice. As defensible is the wrong word. But my main point still stands that supporting Nazism today is different than supporting Nazisim in the 1930s.
 
And then another weirdo ending to a Trump event (in response to an audience softball about what voters should know before going to vote):



“… I think my father’s in heaven, I know my mother’s in heaven …”
 
rodoheel said:
I'm not sure why you think that supporting the troops is contrary to an affinity for authoritarianism; in fact, the two are very much compatible.
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I'd go one step further and say that "supporting the troops" has long been a primary trope for authoritarianism.
 
CallMeTyler said:
Enemies of the state. Imagine earnestly arguing that "generals that followed Hitler" is a good thing?
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To me the real story isn’t what the generals did or did not do. The real story is why Trump wants generals like them - because they took a personal oath to Hitler. Trump wants absolute loyalty. That’s the terrifying part.

Of course some tried to kill Hitler but that is another point.
 
Any thoughts on t he report that Trump is considering Cannon for attorney general?

If this is discussed somewhere then apologies. I couldn’t find it.
 
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