"He should know better—he does know better—but as a typical product of the postmodern academy, Beschloss prioritizes ideology over history. And that poses a serious threat to 'our democracy.'"
Indeed.
It was the Nazi formation of a coalition with more respectable parties that smoothed the way for them, never having a majority. Hitler had watched what happened in Italy in 1922-24 and Russia in 1917-18, the utility of forming coalitions with unsuspecting and somewhat naive partners.
The Weimar Republic did have other friendly parties besides the Social Democrats, namely, the German People's Party and the Catholic Center party, ancestor of the Christian Democrats. The problem was that these parties did not clearly see the threat and thus did not unite to make saving the Republic their overriding priority. And it's absolutely true that the final pre-Hitler chancellors were already ruling by decree using the Weimar constitution's emergency powers. Apart from elections proper, democracy in the larger functioning sense was several years dead by early 1933.
There are certainly disturbing parallels, but inflation isn't one of them. The early Great Depression was a period of catastrophic deflationary collapse. In the US, it led to the election of FDR. Some of the traumatic hysteria of 2008 is traceable to the housing crisis and severe recession, and the willingness to fall for a narcissistic empty suit. The race monomania promoted in 2010 and later by the Times is traceable directly to the left's disappointment and dashed expectations after Obama's election -- the force that led to BLM and CRT.
The most obvious parallel to the Nazi period is the policy of Gleichschaltung ("co-ordination"), that destruction of independent institutions -- everything from boy and girl scouts, to the professional associations, to virtually all academic institutions at all levels (often with inside help, because all these institutions were part of the civil service) -- to the point where only the churches maintained even partial independence. They too were subject to strong pressure and attempts to discredit traditional civil society and family life in favor of otherwise unpopular Nazi social groups, like the Hitler Youth (which wasn't popular until youngsters were forced into it).
The parallels with "Woke" are very obvious and extend down to striking details, including the attempt by the "movement" to replace legal standards of long standing with its own notions. The left-wing writer Michael Lind has made much of this collapse of independent institutions under the pressure of social media mobs, and he's right.
Other parallels are better made with "banana republics" where our choice boils down to an inexperienced, often demagogic populism and a corrupt, dysfunctional, sometimes gerontocratic establishment -- that sounds familar!
"He should know better—he does know better—but as a typical product of the postmodern academy, Beschloss prioritizes ideology over history. And that poses a serious threat to 'our democracy.'"
Indeed.
It was the Nazi formation of a coalition with more respectable parties that smoothed the way for them, never having a majority. Hitler had watched what happened in Italy in 1922-24 and Russia in 1917-18, the utility of forming coalitions with unsuspecting and somewhat naive partners.
The Weimar Republic did have other friendly parties besides the Social Democrats, namely, the German People's Party and the Catholic Center party, ancestor of the Christian Democrats. The problem was that these parties did not clearly see the threat and thus did not unite to make saving the Republic their overriding priority. And it's absolutely true that the final pre-Hitler chancellors were already ruling by decree using the Weimar constitution's emergency powers. Apart from elections proper, democracy in the larger functioning sense was several years dead by early 1933.
There are certainly disturbing parallels, but inflation isn't one of them. The early Great Depression was a period of catastrophic deflationary collapse. In the US, it led to the election of FDR. Some of the traumatic hysteria of 2008 is traceable to the housing crisis and severe recession, and the willingness to fall for a narcissistic empty suit. The race monomania promoted in 2010 and later by the Times is traceable directly to the left's disappointment and dashed expectations after Obama's election -- the force that led to BLM and CRT.
The most obvious parallel to the Nazi period is the policy of Gleichschaltung ("co-ordination"), that destruction of independent institutions -- everything from boy and girl scouts, to the professional associations, to virtually all academic institutions at all levels (often with inside help, because all these institutions were part of the civil service) -- to the point where only the churches maintained even partial independence. They too were subject to strong pressure and attempts to discredit traditional civil society and family life in favor of otherwise unpopular Nazi social groups, like the Hitler Youth (which wasn't popular until youngsters were forced into it).
The parallels with "Woke" are very obvious and extend down to striking details, including the attempt by the "movement" to replace legal standards of long standing with its own notions. The left-wing writer Michael Lind has made much of this collapse of independent institutions under the pressure of social media mobs, and he's right.
Other parallels are better made with "banana republics" where our choice boils down to an inexperienced, often demagogic populism and a corrupt, dysfunctional, sometimes gerontocratic establishment -- that sounds familar!
That's a good point about Gleichschaltung—a variant of which is indeed practiced by Woke progressives.