Current events vs history
The chaos fomented by Donald Trump among the trumpenproletariat that manifested in violent fashion on January 6 is still being promoted by Steven Bannon and others. It has evoked comparisons to Nazi Germany, the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the American Civil war. What does history actually say about these comparisons?
Hitler came to power in Germany at a time when the German people were united in their despair from having lost a major war and suffered a depression, punitive war reparations and hyperinflation. None of these apply in 21st century America. The Bolsheviks came to power to replace the Czar, whose authoritarian government led a largely agrarian society and whose military was bleeding lives and money in WWI. Poverty was rampant and the Russian people were unaccustomed to any government other than a monarchy. None of these apply in 21st century America. By 1860, America was riven by the slavery issue. Billions of dollars (in current value) in investments in humans as property were threatened by the loss of slavery. The South was still largely an agrarian economy unable to compete with the industrial North. The organizing principles of the treasonous Confederacy were the maintenance and expansion of slavery. These conditions don't apply in 21st century America. The US today is the wealthiest nation on the planet. The dollar is the world's reserve currency. While poverty still exists, wages and benefits are inadequate for the middle and working class, social mobility is decreasing and concentration of wealth in the 1% continues unabated, there is no historical antecedent I'm aware of for civil war under such bourgeois conditions. I recognize the fascist impulse in Trump and the GOP and we cannot build a great society in America until they are exiled from politics. This is a possibly hyperbolic link that nevertheless underscores the toxic effect of right-wing Republican politics. The nut graf: "Ultimately, Donald Trump, like other fascist and authoritarian leaders, is the symptom of a sick society. Trumpism is not actually the core disease. For America to counteract the deep underlying illness that has made Trumpism possible will require a long-term cultural and moral reckoning. Anything less, and the disease of American fascism will only go dormant until it is resurrected again — perhaps in a more dangerous and virulent form." https://www.salon.com/2021/10/12/black-flag-understanding-the-trumpists-latest-threatening-symbol/?fbclid=IwAR2rh2yzeK95dlcav8rFGdW4trYfDYLY3-GK8NHOzN0Sj8Z5xmo80rsL5JE
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