How Trump is Following Hitler's Playbook | Robert Reich

25 comments

Short Summary
Discusses how Trump or someone like him could potentially turn America into a fascist state in five steps.
The first step involves using threats of violence to gain power, as seen with Trump's attempts to intimidate voters and election officials in 2020.
The second step is to consolidate power by turning every arm of government into a tool of the party, similar to Hitler's actions in purging non-Nazis from the civil service.
The third step is to establish a police state, with Trump planning to deploy troops for immigration raids and crackdowns on crime.
The fourth step is to jail the opposition, with Trump openly threatening to prosecute his opponents and remake the Justice Department for personal vendettas.
The final step is to undermine the free press, as a fascist regime needs to control the flow of information, which Trump has been attacking and threatening to punish news outlets.
The video emphasizes the importance of recognizing the threat of fascism and taking action to prevent it from taking hold.
- One thing that I've realized: Fascism is not strictly top down. It's also bottom up. It's the people on every rung (police, courts, whatever) that act on his behalf without being directly ordered.
  
  Yeah it's a weird concept called voluntary servitude, Étienne de La Boétie que about that in 1577.
  Somehow people seem fond of the idea of a big leader.
  I saw a lemmygrad post in which a college student was wondering if he should report a Chinese Co Ed that has said some things about xi to the Chinese government. It's wonderful
- so basically
  control everything
- I too, dropped it into summarize.tech to glean what it was saying haha
  Edit: for reference, a really excellent tool to figure out the content of a video is without watching is summarize.tech
  This is the AI summary
  https://www.summarize.tech/www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSxJRIiCNs8
  
  Nice!
  Next time post an interesting sentence from summary!

And what are we going to do about it? Besides vote, I mean. Like vote as hard as you want to, but if that isn't enough, then what?
- There's only so much that can be done politically if he manages to obtain and solidify power. At that point, it becomes about resistance, and trying to build communities that operate outside of politics and the system he controls. Engaging in mutual aid to build connections, and strengthening your local community will make it easier to organize effective resistance, in whatever form that takes.
  I think it wouldn't be a terrible idea to be prepared now for things going very south, but hopefully it never gets to that point.
  
  For sure! Do that shit yesterday, no matter who is president. If you're really worried about shit like this post, I hope you're learning to shoot, and maybe acquiring guns and ammo.
- Buy a gun and practice your aim
  
  We have millions of people that already do that, and they have done nothing so far.
  There won't be a day where someone announces "we're fascist now!". It'll be gradual. The people will do nothing.

This isn’t a straight political community so I'm gonna derail just a bit. But it's wild to me that Robert Reich is making this content, meanwhile his son is over here doing this, he also showed a naked picture of his father playing the flute in this episode.
The internet is wild yall.
- Oh it's THAT Robert Reich
- Ha I was wondering if it's that Robert Reich :'D

I’m old enough to have heard all of this exact same shit about GW Bush.
- Bush never incited a coup attempt, nor spoke about being a dictator, nor praised authoritarian dictators for their displays of power, nor was there a cult of personality around him that saw him as a sole source of truth.
  Not that I'm defending Bush as a good president, but Trump is absolutely different and significantly more dangerous, and the cultists who follow him are as well.
  
  Having witnessed and survived an actual coup attempt, I’d humbly ask you not to rob those words of all meaning.
  Bush started actual wars.

25 comments