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Thursday, July 21, 2016

For Those Who Liked Trump's Speech Tonight, one You Might Like Even Better

Yes, it's Hitler's acceptance speech, 1933.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the German Reichstag! By agreement with the Reich Government, today the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and the German National People’s Party have presented to you for resolution a notice of motion concerning a “Law for Removing the Distress of Volk and Reich.” The reasons for this extraordinary measure are as follows: In November 1918, the Marxist organizations seized the executive power by means of a Revolution. The monarchs were dethroned, the authorities of Reich and Länder removed from office, and thus a breach of the Constitution was committed. The success of the revolution in a material sense protected these criminals from the grips of justice. They sought moral justification by asserting that Germany or its government bore the guilt for the outbreak of the War."

"This assertion was deliberately and objectively untrue. In consequence, however, these false accusations in the interest of our former enemies led to the severest oppression of the entire German Volk, and the violation of the assurances given to us in Wilson’s Fourteen Points then led to a time of boundless misfortune for Germany, that is to say the working German Volk."

"All the promises made by the men of November 1918 proved to be, if not acts of intentional deception, then no less damnable illusions. The “achievements of the Revolution” were, taken in their entirety, agreeable for only the smallest of fractions of our Volk, but for the overwhelming majority, at least insofar as these people were forced to earn their daily bread by honest work, they were infinitely sad. It is understandable that the survival instinct of those parties and men guilty of this development invents a thousand euphemisms and excuses. An objective comparison of the average outcome of the last fourteen years with the promises once proclaimed is a crushing indictment of the responsible architects of this crime unparalleled in German history."

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/Reports2013/hitlerenablingact.htm

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Hitler%20Speeches/Hitler%20Key%20Speeches%20Index.htm

Ok. I couldn't resist. But it is interesting to compare and contrast Hitler's speech-the last day of the Weimar Republic-and Trump's speech tonight. A lot of overlapping themes. Germany was being screwed in 1933. America in 2016.

Obviously it's not the same in every way but in enough ways. Trump's speech tonight was-dark. Chris Cillizza:

"Winner in this speech: Red meat Loser in this speech: Details"

https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/756322171962683392

"A deeply dystopian version of America being offered here."

https://twitter.com/TheFix/status/756320557646417920

Jamelle Bouie:

"people aren't surprised, they are frightened."

https://twitter.com/jbouie/status/756330103030906880

I actually am glad to hear people say they're afraid of Trump. Like Ezra Klein today.

http://www.vox.com/2016/7/21/12218136/donald-trump-nomination-afraid

What scares me is when someone like Jill Stein says 'Don't be scared.' The idea that you don't need to be afraid of a Trump Presidency is what's scary.

I talk about Hitler a lot because he was elected. He wasn't hatched somewhere. Why does anyone think it couldn't possibly happen here? And the GOP's assurances are a joke. To claim that Trump will show some restraint once he's in office; when he'll have such awesome power in his unsteady and bigoted hands.

You shouldn't be too sanguine about what happens if he does win.

Matt Murphy:

"It's up to the Obama Coalition to save America from a madman."

https://twitter.com/MattMurph24/status/756332262866628608

Jamal Smith:

"Trump's speech is over, at last. Register to vote, folks."

https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/756333696110694400

"I've never seen a politician deliver a more irresponsible speech. These are words that provoke more than anger and paranoia."

https://twitter.com/JamilSmith/status/756319113127956481

Chris Cillizza:

"The Republican nominee gave the crowd what it was looking for -- a command performance of the tough-talking, details-free approach that won him the nomination in the first place. He promised to wipe out crime as soon as he took office. He promised to defeat ISIS "fast." He promised a whole lot things. What he didn't do was provide any meaningful specifics about how he might do it."

"The crowd in the room was with him for the whole address -- cheering in the right moments, booing when it was required. Trump, too, seemed relatively dialed in -- staying, generally, on the TelePrompTer and hitting his applause lines well. The speech itself was well crafted -- if WAY too long. (It clocked in at almost 80 minutes.)"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/winners-and-losers-from-the-final-night-of-the-republican-national-convention/?postshare=3411469158465600&tid=ss_tw

Yes. Very long. I think he must have started to lose people after about the 40 minute mark.

Yes Bill Clinton gave a long speech in 1988, but at least he had actual policy details. Bill, of course, had a lot of that. Trump had none. To speak that long and say so little is impressive.

Trump and his convention are almost totally about nothing but affects. GOP conventions used to be about lots of bad policy ideas. The new Trump GOP has no policy ideas.

"What I don't know, to be honest, is how Trump's volume -- he yelled almost the entire thing -- and, more importantly, the deeply grim picture he painted of the state of the country will play beyond the convention hall. Trump's vision of America is deeply dystopian and dark. The America he painted in his speech is badly broken and he is the only one who knows how to fix it."

"That grim vision, when combined with the anger in Trump's voice, made for a decidedly unconventional acceptance speech -- no real surprise given who Trump is and how he won the GOP nomination."

"On the whole, the speech -- I think -- did Trump more good than harm, particularly at a convention in which his message had repeatedly been muddled by self-inflicted errors. But, is Trump's America a portrait that undecided voters recognize? And do they believe that he is the only one who can truly fix it?"

Hillary Clinton:

"We are better than this."

https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/756325432002244609
It's up to us to make this true.  

12 comments:

  1. Mike, I found Gary Kasparov's twitter feed, and he's got some good stuff in there (for not being a Hillary fan, he's still sane enough to realize the threat of Trump):

    https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/756234955336871939

    https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/756226846300200964

    https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/756101519150374913

    And my favorite so far:
    https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/756326709390086148

    I’ve heard this sort of speech a lot in the last 15 years and trust me, it doesn’t sound any better in Russian.

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  2. Mike, I found this review of Trump's speech to be pretty funny:
    http://www.redstate.com/leon_h_wolf/2016/07/22/trumps-relentlessly-angry-negative-speech-intrusive-government/

    Also I saw Elizabeth Warren on Colbert afterwards and I thought she missed a real opportunity to point out something I've seen multiple other people point out: that he made our country sound like "The Purge" or Gotham City: dark, depressing, dangerous, crime ridden... and **HE** is the ONLY man who can fix it!!... the classic dictator speech. It's all about us putting our faith in him and his wonderful Trump University... er... I mean presidency. She did mention dictator, she did mention it being a dark speech, and she did mention how it tried to whip up fear and turn us against each other (that's what she said)... but the scary part to me is how it's not any kind of policy, but the person of Donald J. Trump that we need to put our faith in: just believe him, and put our faith in him and turn it over to Donald, and he'll speak for us and protect us and do everything we need. Very creepy!! Elizabeth should have pointed out how creepy that was.

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    1. Also, John Stewart was also on, and he reprized his role as Daily Show host for a bit... it was really fun to see him do that! He sat behind the desk (Colbert disappeared while he did it)... and he REALLY skewered Sean Hannity (whom he called "Lumpy")... with clips of Sean over the years complaining about Obama for various grievances, and then seeing how he reacts to Trump when he's WAY guiltier of the same grievances... really funny! And John got pretty worked up at one point because of the frustrations he had trying to get that first responders bill re-upped... he knew people in that audience who gave him the cold shoulder on that, but pretended to be so pro-police during Trump's speech.

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  3. OK, Erickson's review looks like it's going to be funny too:
    http://theresurgent.com/cheeto-jesuss-sermon-in-crevice/

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    1. Everything is terrible, according to Cheeto jesus. There is too much crime, too many illegal aliens, too many muslims, too much everything. But the orange wonder intends to save us all. He will do so through expansive government programs championed by the party of small government.

      I’m sure in the original German the speech had some nuances that were commendable. But in its English translation it was amazing to watch the Republican base cheer on how awful everything is and how much a victim they all are.

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    2. The Republican Party is officially now the party of Trump. Instead of happy warriors, they are angry, bitter bigots who hate Muslims, hispanics, and consider Democrats the enemy instead of political opponents. That anger is not going to attract anyone, so they will bully and browbeat. “Convert or Die” is now the GOP’s message. Their messiah is an orange Mohammed promising virgins and paradise if the party will only blow itself up.

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    3. I'm actually a little surprised by this line from Erick:

      and consider Democrats the enemy instead of political opponents

      That actually makes me feel a bit more warmth for Erick than I normally do. I'd like to see some self policing like that more often.

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    4. It's possible even he's chastened by the rise of Trump.

      I do believe that Glenn Beck nation really is

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    5. I'm not sure about Beck. Beck is a fruitcake still. He's the Keynote speaker at the upcoming RedState gathering (which shocks me). But I noticed his twitter feed yesterday had all the hyperbolic stuff about liberalism in it the other day... most of it with the word "evil" in it. Not much about Trump!

      Beck is always talking like a paranoid raving lunatic about how Obama and Hitler are so similar... now when Trump comes along, he's #NeverTrump (I'll give him that, at least during the primary), but NOW when a REAL FUCKING HITLER in on our door step, why isn't he tweeting 24/7 about it??? He barely covered the back of his hero Cruz, after Cruz's "defiant" speech (vote your conscious is NOT such a defiant thing to say, except in the bizarre tPC world of Trump (the "t" stands for Trump... they have their own set of PC rules where the word "conscious" needs a trigger warning)).

      Yeah Mike, check out his twitter today:

      "Evil progressive donors"

      And

      "How Democrats breed black voters"

      https://twitter.com/glennbeck?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

      I have to say, I'm filled with disgust for Beck. He was REALLY noisy about how God picked Cruz and if we didn't nominate him then it was the beginning of the end times... but now that the surest sign yet of those end times approaching manifests itself during Trump's speech, Mr. "OMG, Nazis!!!!" is suddenly silent and talking about the evils of the Democratic party and progressivism.

      Beck strikes me as almost as much a charlatan as Coulter or Trump himself.

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    6. Beck seems unconcerned about a President Trump. Unlike Erickson, Rubin, or Leon Wolf

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    7. Jennifer Rubin is the real thing: she's not some kind of poser like Beck. RedState should disinvite Beck and replace him with Rubin as their keynote speaker.

      Did you see these? Just after reading the title of this one I wrote her and urged her to offer her services the Clinton campaign in this time of "national emergency":
      https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/07/21/trump-doubles-down-fear-justifies-a-strongman/

      Here's how she concludes:

      As we shift to Philadelphia the question now becomes whether Clinton can repudiate Trump’s vision in such a way as to remind us of our shared humanity and innate decency. God help us if she cannot.

      Now she has one out today about those who'd vote for Trump solely because of SCJs:

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/07/22/why-the-supreme-court-isnt-enough/

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    8. Regarding Beck again: yes, do you recall how he went fully nutzo Book of Revelations during the primary... all this fasting, and doom and gloom... but that was all to try to get his boy Cruz NOMINATED. Now that that's over, he's uninterested. What's that say? It's clear to me: it was all a huge drama queen act.

      At least Mark Levin (nasty as he is to anybody who disagrees with him) is still bashing Trump at least part of the time:

      https://twitter.com/marklevinshow?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor


      But that's still pretty weak tea for Levin. He seems unconcerned with the authoritarian tone of Trump's speech. (It probably gave him a boner actually... Mr. "Constitutional Conservative" is not in the same class as Rubin or some of the others).

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