Justin Gardner notes some recent insanity by a Republican Congressman.
As I’ve mentioned other places, while I think it’s pure stupidity and selfishness to call President-elect Obama a closet fascist and communist, I do wish more people would point out how astoundingly silly it is to say that Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. No such event ever happened. Whether you could call Weimar Germany a functioning democracy or not is debateable (I’d say it wasn’t), the more important fact is that Hitler usurped power. The German people never elected him to a damned thing; his party won just enough seats to win a minority government, then used assassination, brutality, and flagrant disregard of the law, locking out all but token opposition, seizing 100% power and handing it to one man to be dictator for life. Hitler wasn’t on any ballot that any member of the public got to see that entire time.
No one elected Hitler to that agenda–NO ONE.
Furthermore, for such a universally-beloved character, it’s amazing how opposition to Hitler in Germany never stopped until his death–this despite the continual Nazi program of assassination or imprisonment of anyone whose criticism they didn’t like.
It’s sad that people have so little respect for democracy that the claim that Hitler was elected democratically passes with no objection. This fascist usurper was NEVER elected democratically.
He also faced strong opposition among democratic (and non-democratic) forces in Germany, who he simply ruthlessly imprisoned, murdered in cold blood, or terrorized into silence. It’s a sick degradation of everything we call “democracy” to equate any democratic system of government, let alone one of our own democratically elected leaders, to this murderous tyrant.
It is also an example of unpatriotic anti-American garbage from the Right under the guise of thoughtful criticism. Not the first I’ve seen, and undoubtedly not the last, but deplorable before the new President has even been sworn in. Shame on you, Paul Broun.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 16 comments }
I agree that the comparison to Hitler is factually inaccurate and morally unjustified.  However, many of those who follow Obama do so with a blind devotion which seems cult-like. Barack Obama is the next President of the United States, not the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The cult following Barack Obama reminds me of the song Cult of Personality which mentions a range of political figures from Gandhi to Joseph Stalin. Is it wrong for me to be concerned that Obama might be more like Stalin than Gandhi?Â
The Rich Wasp’s last blog post..He’s Back
Well, I do think that’s a great song and it’s apt because it can be applied to an awful lot of people, good bad and in between. The only thing I want to keep hitting on is that yes indeed, Hitler did have a huge cult of personality (one he cultivated very very intelligently). And, while his party did indeed stand for elections in the (dysfunctional) Weimar Republic, he himself never stood for public office. His party won a minority government in the parliament. He was not a member of said parliament, and never stood for public office himself. But he then used backroom maneuvering to get himself installed (not elected) as Chancellor, then he and his party arranged to have all political opponents in their parliament locked out, imprisoned, or killed outright. Those that remained in the legislature then voted him (unConstitutionally) unlimited powers. To refer to any of this as being "Democratically elected" isn’t just factually wrong, it’s obscene.
The lesson of Hitler isn’t that evil men get elected in Democracies–they do, he just wasn’t one of them. Nor is it that a cult of personality is necessarily dangerous–they can be, but aren’t always.
If we were to reasonably compare President Obama to Hitler, here’s what would have to happen:
Democrats would have not allowed Obama to run for President. Instead, using violence and illegal tactics, they would have arranged for no President to be elected at all by intentional sabotage of the voting system. Then they would have installed him as President. Then, they would have found a way to take all but token Republican opponents in Congress and throw them in jail, outright kill them, and arrange it so those not dead or in jail could not get to the capitol for any votes. Then, they would have to vote without a quorum to give President Obama unlimited powers to do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted, so that anything he signed would immediately become law, including the ability to overrule them on anything he wanted any time he wanted.
If anyone sees any signs of Obama trying to pull that unlikely stunt, let me know. Otherwise the comparisons to Hitler just make me want to barf. And to call any of that “democracy” would be a sick joke.
Dean,
While you’re technically correct that hitler was never elected to any office, he was appointed chancellor on the strength of his party’s having won enough seats to be the largest party, and having maintained that position in a second election.
Saying that hitler was never elected to anything is accurate, but deceptive. It’s a bit like claiming that the supreme court justices are all usurpers, since they were never elected to their positions.
Now, comparisons of Obama to late-stage hitler are just silly, since if he could be parallel to anything having to do with hitler, it would be early-stage hitler. And that comparison is itself kind of absurd; hitler called on the german people to action, Obama calls on the american people to inaction (the gist of high taxes on the "rich" and generous government benefits is that most people should be as lazy as possible, and even the intent isn’t that far off; at least a great many Obama supports will speak much more warmly og benefits and vacation than of actually accomplishing things). Hitler incited, Obama lulls.
A few days a I was at a Decemberists concert where the band lead a call-and-response chant of "Yes we can/Yes we did", complete with fist pumping (the band leader had to request it). It wasn’t scary at all; it was a self-indulgent spectacle of people stroking their egos using symbols they didn’t even understand. Granted, much of the german people’s sins were that they stood by and watched while evil men did their work, they were still at least mildly active participants.
There are die-hards who will endure anything for any cause. There are people who will line up for hours in the cold to see a movie or get an iPhone. There are, no doubt, Obama loyalists who’d die for him. But if you’re talking about numbers of people who actually matter, Obama only inspires people in a comfortable way.
Obama will, no doubt unintentionally, try to creep our government closer toward a socialist quasi-dictatorship. FDR did a lot of work on that front during his 4 terms, but while it amounted to a much more socialist country, we’re no closer to dictatorship.
The trick in keeping your blood pressure normal is to realize that things never keep going on forever; all the works of man which have been done can be un-done: Carters was followed by Reagans. The glory of America isn’t that we never make mistakes, the blindest patriot reading over American history will admit that it’s full of mistakes. The glory of America is that we’re good at fixing our mistakes.
As the saying goes: this, too, shall pass.
Excellent points, Dean!
1. The Hitler analysis is spot-on. Simple point — Democratic elections can be usurped and hijacked by folks (like Hitler’s Nazi party) who brutalize opponents. This, I repeat, is not a knock on democracy, but a knock on certain phony practitioners of it.
2. The above point has nothing to do with Obama. He beat McCain fair and square.
Hank
p.s. Obviously, I am not unmindful of the Chicago Democratic Machine politics which spawned Obama. True, Chicago thrives on corruption and political domination by Dems. However, corruption at the local level, does not necessarily imply corruption at the federal level.  It would be unfair to saddle Obama with the sins of the Daley Machine, without giving him a fair shake to do his job.
CTL: To be honest, I find your objection confusing. You are correct that Supreme Court Justices are not elected. Neither was Hitler. John Roberts (our current Chief Justice) was never democratically elected, and it would be silly to say he was, no? If John Roberts arranged to have himself declared Chief Justice by destroying the Presidency and liquidating all opponents in Congress, then had the remaining survivors in Congress vote him absolute power, that would make him like Hitler–but it would STILL be insane to claim "John Roberts was Democratically elected."
By the way, I should take one thing back: Hitler did once stand for a major elected office. He ran for President. He lost to Hindenberg. Hindenberg then got strongarmed into appointing Hitler Chancellor based mostly on Hitler’s party’s plurality in the legislature. Hitler then arranged to have himself declared President, and everything went from there.
So continue with the goofy analyses, let’s now have Senator McCain having President Obama make him Chief Justice, and then Chief Justice McCain having Obama incapacitated, and then Chief Justice McCain killing or imprisoning all Democrats in the Congress, and having himself declared President by the Republicans in the House. Then, Chief Justice And President McCain would have the surviving 40% of the Congress vote him absolute power while letting him keep both titles of President and Chief Justice. While we’re at it, let’s have him kill all the other Supreme Court Justices and have his handpicked friends given their jobs instead, by being appointed and confirmed by the surviving 40% of the Senate. But hey, that would still mean he was elected, right? Because somebody somewhere along the line voted for some of that, after all.
Dude, this is just crazytalk. It’s not democracy.
I otherwise utterly agree with all your comments. I especially agree that there is no permanent state of affairs, and people getting overheated is silly. If what we have today isn’t working, sooner or later it’ll get fixed; that’s the genius of the system as it is. As ugly as it can be, it’s really just messy not evil.
Dean,
Hitler became the German chancellor (the position equivalent to prime minister) through the standard democratic process. You can call the negotiations of parliamentary processes strong-arming if you like, but hitler became the chancellor is a fairly legitimate way. All of the big illegal power grabbing came after that.
My point isn’t that John Roberts is a meglomaniacal dictator, or that anyone else is going to seize power. My point is that if John Roberts did start acquiring additional powers and became dictator, it would be very misleading to characterize him as having gotten to where he was entirely outside of the democratic process, merely because his position is appointed by an elected official on the basis of how the people have voted in the legislative body.
Which is what you’re doing with hitler. He became chancelor in a reasonable manner for the structure of the government at the time, based on the power distribution in the legislature that was created by more than one popular vote. I don’t think it’s reasonable to absolve the german people of hitler as much as you’re doing merely because the chancellor of the weimar republic was a position appointed by elected officials rather than directly elected by the people themselves.
Hitler did all sorts of illegal things to create the third reich, but he did rather well in the Weimar Republic, as well.
Dude. The position of Chancellor was NOT an elected office in Germany at that time. The President of Germany appointed Hitler. He could have appointed several other people. He chose Hitler. There was no rule or even tradition saying it should be Hitler; even if Hitler’s party had won overwhelmingly, and Hitler were actually an elected member of the parliament (Reichstag), Hindenberg STILL could have appointed someone else.
There were, of course, fundamental weaknesses that helped bring down the Weimar Republic; their Constitution was full of holes and that brought them down as much as anything. That doesn’t equate to “democratically elected” when you tear the whole thing apart by exploiting those holes.
Can you give me a definition of "democratically elected" that works for you, which would allow us to describe how Hitler took power and how Bill Clinton was elected that makes them both "democratically elected?" I really want to see you do that, because I’m completely lost.
John Roberts was not democratically elected Chief Justice. He just wasn’t. Neither was Hitler elected Chancellor, nor were the other powers he took on given to him democratically. How do you get to “democratically elected” from there? Because that’s what we keep hearing: Hitler was democratically elected, and all I keep screaming is, “BULLSHIT!!!!!”
“Got to one position of power through the standard democratic-style processes in place at the time in the Weimar Republic” isn’t the same thing as “democratically elected.”
The President of Germany appointed Hitler.
Was the President of Germany an elected official at the time?
Was that appointment within the President of Germany’s constitutionally-defined powers?
If yes to both questions then Hitler’s acension to power was just as democratic as the appointment of Senators in the United States prior to the 17th amendment.
A position is democratic even if voters do not directly elect people to it, as long as there are voters downstream. I agree that more than obe level away from teh people – example, if the voters elected a legslature, the legislature elected a President, and the President appointed a Chancellor – is diluting the acountability tremendously, but its still democracy because if the people dont like it they can punish the legislature the next cycle. In the US, the Electoral College appoints the President, so teh President is technically two levels away from democratic accountability, but the threat of that accountability is what keeps the Electors in line, voting for teh winner of their districts rather than their own judgement.
A system (like weimar germany) may be weak in that sense, but thats a flaw of the democratic system in place, not a flaw of democracy in general, nor evidence for democracy’s absence. There are and have been ZERO pure democracies (where every single official is elected) in world history. What we really have are Republics that are founded on Democratic principles.
Dean, to be fair, I think the confusion lies heavily on Obama’s thick German accent.
Aziz, the operative word in Dean’s quibble is "elected," not "democratically."
Of course there is not comparison between Obama and Hitler, it’s ridiculous to say so. Not that Obama doesn’t have it in his character (well, I really don’t think he does, but I don’t know; the man is a giant X-factor), but that the American people would never allow it.
Not to bash Germans and Europeans (I have German Ancestors), but Germans at that time (and still today) were bred to follow authority. Back then it produced Hitler. Americans, OTOH, respect authority to a point, at some point Americans will just get fed up and, oh I don’t know, vote the offending person/party out of power (sound familiar?). Take that ability away from us (which would allow a Hitler) and things will get messy.
D.E. is correct on the political mechanics. Hitler was one of many Chancellors during that turbulent time. Schleicher & Papen were others. All were appointed.
But this ‘devil in the details’ discussion misses the broader point: abuse of power via ‘other’ security forces than what the U.S. of A. has traditionally relied upon.
That’s the analogy to what some perceive as Obama’s ‘radical’ proposal. (insert Santayana quote here)
So, call upon Godwin to save us all, and rip Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) a new one, because Lord knows the Lefties have never compared Bush to Hitler.
“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force. I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.â€- Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) in an interview with the AP
Well. Broun seems to be clumsily attempting to draw a comparison between despotism and the creation of "National Police."
What is wrong with that? Seriously? What is wrong with drawing a negative comparison to an attempt to the create a National Police Force in the United States?
Broun may be an asshole for 100 other reasons, but it’s not Broun’s fault the comparison he makes has faces. It’s not Broun’s fault the faces belong to Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il… and, um, Barack Obama.
The only thing Obama shares with Hitler is they have a similar effect on crowds.
There is a much stronger argument Obama is Neo-Stalinist. Stalin cared nothing of doctrine; the point was to exploit or otherwise contrive whatever doctrine or idiocy that could be concocted that would perpetuate and increase control and power over populations to be ruled. Beria ensured it. Stalin was the most successful and the purest form of the Authoritarian Totalitarians who ruled in the 20th Century.
We find this same "doctrinal liquidity" dominates the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the political cultures of Detroit and Chicago. They use the same cliche’s and harangues ad infinitum, Â but their rules are always changing to deflect blame and responsibility. The recent Fannie Mae scandal is a case in point. Gross criminal negligence, wholesale breaches of fiduciary duty, obfeasance and malfeasance. And Congressional investigations in a Democrat Congress… only to protect the appointments of some those guilty parties to Obama’s cabinet.
The greatest threat to our nation resides in the depth of negligence, indolence and duplicity which have become normalized in our present political culture.
This is starkly captured in a "sleeper" lawsuit which has wound its way through the New Jersey court system and now sits before SCOTUS. From the link below, select “Supreme Court case” on the upper left of the page.
Hillary may yet be inaugurated president come January 2009.
http://www.blogtext.org/naturalborncitizen/topic/8700.html
Dean,
Technically, our president is elected by elected representatives, not by the people. Sometimes the electors elect someone who didn’t get even a plurality of the votes. Does that mean that our president isn’t democratically elected? Technically, of course, it does. Our democracy was surprisingly un-democratic in its founding, with the only part of our government directly elected being state legislatures and the house of representatives.
There’s no such thing as true democracy in major governments on this planet, so if we’re going to use the word at all, we have to be imprecise and generous. And John Roberts is much closer to an elected official than he is to a despot, the head of a military coup, a hereditary monarch, or any of the other distinctly un-democratic method of selecting people for office.
Here’s a criteria for democratically elected: if there were a person for whom 75% of the population eligible to vote want the person out of office and that super-majority has the legal right to make it happen (in a reasonable time-frame) through non-violent means, the official is democratically elected.
Just a quick thought to add on this matter as I am new to this log and don’t wanta haggle right off the bat,,,but Hilter was defeated by Von Hinnburg(I think his name was) who quickly appointed him to the second higest office, which got his foot really in the door.
 All Hilter wanted was complete Power from the very start.
 All the people of Germany wanted was complete change! It’s not hard to see how the comparison between the two ends right there. Hilter filled the wishes of the German people,(at first). All O’bama has done is the same,fill the wishes of the majority of the people.
 Oh well Life will go on Jan. 21st 2009. The sun will come up and Mother Earth will keep spinning, I Hope!
CTL: Oy, electors are elected for the one purpose of choosing a President, as a means of giving states somewhat more power than raw populace. You’re really straining here. Is John Roberts our "democratically elected" Chief Justice? Yes or no please.
Cppertop: Hindenberg reluctantly appointed Hitler Chancellor. He was not required to do so, but he did. So that made Hitler "elected" in roughly the same way that the U.S. Secretary of State is "elected." And then Hitler, using assassination and a bunch of other completely illegal means, destroyed Germany’s democracy and seized absolute power. It is ridiculous, in my view, to take all that and try to mangle it into "Hitler was democratically elected."
The German people did indeed want change, but, when faced with a choice, they did not choose Hitler. Hitler lost at the polls, and more than once. Indeed, for a while when he was first in power he even tried a plebescite or two to get his agenda through, and those lost as well. His ONLY way to get his agenda completely through was by killing or imprisoning his political opponents, destroying all democratic mechanisms that remained, and instituting an absolute reign of terror. It is simply historically and technically incorrect to suggest that any of this amounts to his being "democratically elected."
Comments on this entry are closed.