Some of my Facebook friends say that it is. Here are some of the events that took place in Germany in 1933.
The Reichstag Fire Decree is passed in response to the Reichstag fire, nullifying many German civil liberties.
Hundreds are arrested as the Nazis round up their political opponents
Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed (it opens 22 March)
The Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, making Adolf Hitler dictator of Germany
The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organise a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.
The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service is passed, forcing all “non-Aryans” to retire from the legal profession and civil service
The Gestapo is established in Germany
The Nazis stage massive public book burnings throughout Germany
All non-Nazi parties are forbidden in Germany
My challenge to all Trump-ophobics is this. Look at this list of events, and come up with something comparable that you expect to occur under President Trump. Make your prediction in the form of a $100 bet. I will take the other side and give you 50-1 odds. That is I pay $5000 if, for example, Congress passes something like the Enabling Act.
Note that Bryan Caplan and Scott Alexander have also expressed a willingness to bet against Trumpophobes.
Godwin’s corollary: Nazi comparison is in-group signaling and posturing based in a need to have extreme levels of moral coherence, and have little relationship to logic or reality.
I remember when people said 9/11 was a new Reichstag fire and the PATRIOT Act was like a new enabling act.
This is a hint that instead of walking these ludicrous claims back and dialing it down, anti-Trump folks will just shift the goalposts and claim that, of course, the Nazism will manifest itself this time in different and subtler ways that are nevertheless ‘equivalent’.
I’m not sure whether comparisons to Hitler are a high bar or a low bar, but when he’s deliberately cultivating a base neo-Nazi followers and they have been inspired by him to start attacking people all over the country, then it’s not inappropriate to talk about Nazis.
That said, as many, many, many people have pointed out, Berlusconi is the closer analogy.
So you’re taking Arnold’s bet then?
he’s deliberately cultivating a base neo-Nazi followers and they have been inspired by him to start attacking people all over the country
That is as divorced from reality as saying that Hillary Clinton was inspiring black people to kill police officers. (Yes, some right wing people said that. Do you really want to be in their company?)
Well, given that we are a People sovereign nation with a succinct, but written Constitution, and not a parliament sovereign nation, a Congress that passed such acts would publish its own illegitimacy, same with a President who signed the legislation and any court that upheld them.
So the question is, how many of the people would follow the government of the “United States” vs the American Constitution? How many would honor their oath to protect and defend the Constitution even against an enemy that is the current government?
“The recently elected Nazis under Julius Streicher organise a one-day boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany.”
I’m considering this. I could certainly conceive of a conservative organization organizing a one-day ban of all Muslim owned businesses or all businesses which employed illegal immigrants although that would require banning Trump’s business, so I’m not so sure. Certainly liberal groups have organized one-day bans of particular businesses for making non-PC statements in recent history. I’m wondering if I would put the odds high enough above 2% to make the bet worth it since I don’t think it’s a likely occurrence.
What we are hearing is the eco-chamber of the PC left declaring something is good when democrats do it and a sign of impending NAZIsm when republicans do it. If one views extreme statism focused on the support of chosen groups of supporters as a principal charactistic of NAZIsm, it is hard for me to understand why Sanders, Clinton, or Obama aren’t more troubling than Trump.
Indeed, it is Obama accused of using the IRS to harass opponents, and Clinton accused of indirectly taking actual bribes from foreign entities via foundation.
I think the Godwin’s corrollary argument is the one that carries the day.
And the democrats who have been slow to accept the apparently legit electiom results when all Trump said was he wouldn’t promise to be a fool ahead of time.
I have bet that he is not even going to build the wall (under certain definitions of wall). That is a remarkable bet to make.
Sounds a lot more like the situation in Turkey.
The situation in my Turkey is delish!
Arnold, I think there is a significant chance that after another 9/11 scale terrorist attack, Trump would try to ram through an emergency powers bill comparable to the Reichstag Fire Decree, i.e. abrogating or “suspending” significant parts of the First, Second, Fourth, and/or Fifth Amendments, and ignore Supreme Court judgments against it. I don’t think it’s likely, not least because such an attack might well not occur again during his presidency. But at 50-1 odds the bet starts seeming worthwhile as a sort of insurance policy, so yes, I would stake $100 against your $5000. In fact, if you’ll take the bet, I will happily commit to donate the $5000 to the ACLU if I “win”.
That isn’t how odds work.
If YOU think it is that unlikely you are undermining your own prediction.
I have bet he would not even build the wall. THe reason I would demand great odds is he had thousands of people chanting “build the wall” every day for months.
All sensible enough – but why are you sure that the exact same thing wouldn’t happen under Obama, Clinton, or Sanders?
In fact, who can name a credible candidate for President from either major party who we could ASSURE would never have a hand in such an abrogation of rights in response to some calamity?
[Recall that the UK suspended firearm rights after a mass shooting, and France has become ever more like a police state after violence there. Neither Trump nor Clinton nor NAZIs had any influence in either case….]
Which I suppose means that even if it is 1933 redux, that may have very little to do with Trump….
Yes I would like to bet $2000. As you probably know, the devil is in the specifics of what constitutes a match. But at a high level, it would take one terror attack on the scale of pulse, but at a Christian church instead of a gay nightclub, for Muslims to be herded into camps, removed from certain job categories and clearances, and in the ensuing public protest, abrogation of rights to assemble, speech, and habeas corpus, and limits on personal rights and house searches. Please contact me at the provided email to work out these details.
I can’t bet $2000, and I’m not handing out my e-mail, but I’ll bet you $100.
These prop bets are interesting. Why wasn’t Pulse enough to round up the Muslims alreeady? Oh yeah, because we hate the gays. Why wasn’t Sandy Hook enough to round up the Autistics?
We haven’t already had plenty of reason to round up Muslims if we were about that life?
If Obama can be a Kenyan muslim then Trump can be a Nazi sympathizer. Just tit for tat but making the mistakes that this appeals to the know nothing center rather than the know nothing extremes and can be as motivating on the left as the right.
2017? No. Granting a timeframe of sometime before 2019 or 2021 would be a gutsier bet.
Oh Brother!!!! Trump ran an ugly campaign and I should not be President. Most liberals don’t think it ain’t 1933 either. And you should be concerned with the increased closed borders and possible tariffs.
And some of the pushback is coming from liberals memory when the Tea Party swore Obama was the second coming of Castro in the US!
Granted, “comparable events” to the ones listed are highly unlikely, but a 2% probability (implied by 50:1 odds) of such an event occurring would be a big risk, considering the consequences. After all, emergence of Nazi-like conditions would be far more damaging to millions of lives than would be a lone-wolf terrorist attack from a Syrian refugee. (Even 9/11 claimed “only” a few thousand lives.) Yet, there are many people that favor preventing a Syrian refugee from entering the country even if the probability that such refugee is a terrorist is far less than 2%. From this perspective, we can understand why the same fear would cause some to say that a Trump-like person should be banned from becoming President.
I am defending neither the Trump-is-bringing-back-1933-Germany fear nor the Muslim-refugee-will-be-a-terrorist fear, just noting that the phenomena are the same: overestimating probability of low-probability, high-impact event just because it happens to be top of mind. The fear of Muslim refugees, though, seems to garner more legitimacy than the fear of Trump, even though the impact is, again, much less. Perhaps, non-minorities may not appreciate that at least some minorities may harbor a lingering fear, no matter how paranoid it may seem, that all of the civil rights gains over the last half century could one day be wiped out if there is not a deliberate, on-going vigilance to prevent it. Fear that a given Muslim could be a terrorist is perhaps the closest contemporary analogy. Trump could assuage these fears through consistent reassuring statements (like the one Pence gave in response to the Hamilton episode) and by refraining from appointing people like Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, but he doesn’t, save for an occasional throw-away line in a 60 Minutes interview.