The mainstream media has been making editorial noises about America’s descent into a Fascist state. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Sunday January 2 lead editorial spoke to this issue with the headline “American Fascism is Still Rising. What are You Going to do About It California?” Good question.
Regrettably the Democrats are fighting amongst themselves, the great mass of Americans don’t care while the Republicans andtheir fellow extremists are laying the ground work for a Trump resurrection.
Excerpted from The Nation 1.2.2022
If 1920s Germany could punish Hitler for leading a coup attempt, why can’t America go after Trump?
A year out from the January 6 insurrection, Donald Trump has yet to pay a serious political or personal price for leading the first known coup attempt in nearly 250 years of American history. Whereas Hitler at this point was in prison, with his Nazi Party in shambles, Trump is roaming the country giving speeches and raising vast amounts of money; his Republican Party is well positioned to gain a majority in Congress next year.
Pulling off a successful coup d’état in a dictatorship is a risky affair. It invariably involves the military, and failure usually results in long prison terms or executions.
But coup attempts in democratic countries, while much less common, are less perilous. They rarely involve the military, and it’s complicated to punish coup plotters who have a following and can represent themselves as protesters rather than traitors.
That is why an important point of comparison for America’s January 6 insurrection is the attempted coup led by Adolf Hitler in 1923, the so-called Beer Hall Putsch, and how it affected his march toward absolute power.
Adolph Hitler, once the demi-god of the reactionary extremists, was released on parole from imprisonment at Fortress Landsberg, Bavaria today and immediately left in an auto for Munich. He looked a much sadder and wiser man today than last Spring when he, with Ludendorff and other radical extremists, appeared before a Munich court charged with conspiracy to overthrow the Government.
His behavior during imprisonment convinced the authorities that, like his political organization, known as the Vőlkischer, was no longer to be feared. It is believed he will retire to private life and return to Austria, the country of his birth.
Conventional wisdom has it that the blossoming democratic German government of the early 1920s botched its efforts to rein in Hitler after his failed coup, and thereby helped propel him to greater popularity. In this view, the Biden administration understands the tragic German history, and is now avoiding legal action against Trump, letting the US House of Representatives investigate the coup plot and limit its punishment to some kind of public shaming.
Yet if you review the events following the failed Beer Hall Putsch, it becomes clear that German institutions successfully sidelined Hitler for nearly 10 years, and might have kept him out of the mainstream longer except for a worldwide economic depression that amplified popular disaffection.
Moreover, Trump has raced ahead of Hitler’s timetable for recovering from an attempted coup, bringing the United States much closer to a fascist takeover than most Americans likely realize.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-hitler-coup/
For those who think it can’t happen here watch this Academy Award nominated documantary “A Night at the Garden”.
Lee's Perspective 