From The Atlantic: Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’
Trump has frequently voiced his disdain for those who serve in the military and for their devotion to duty, honor, and sacrifice. Former generals who have worked for Trump say that the sole military virtue he prizes is obedience. As his presidency drew to a close, and in the years since, he has become more and more interested in the advantages of dictatorship, and the absolute control over the military that he believes it would deliver. “I need the kind of generals that Hitler had,” Trump said in a private conversation in the White House, according to two people who heard him say this. “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.”
Vice President Harris speaks on this issue from the Vice-Presidential residence.
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“Trump is Hitler” is currently trending on Twitter.Report
This is not new news Jay. What do you think the significance now, as opposed to the last time this came up? Or the time before that?Report
The Atlantic article came out yesterday. Harris spoke from her residence *TODAY*.
What do you think the significance now, as opposed to the last time this came up? Or the time before that?
We’ve got two weeks until the election.Report
Sounds like a good reason to remind people of this old story.Report
Where does Hillary go to get her apology?Report
Desperate times call for Godwin measures.Report
Is it really Godwin to quote someone who actually uses Hitler references?Report
Godwin himself said that it is perfectly fine to call Trump a you know what.Report
I hadn’t heard of self-Godwinning before.Report
https://www.nbcnews.com/video/harris-slams-trump-for-reported-praise-of-hitler-while-in-office-222488645711Report
I embedded that video above, Saul. In the CSPAN tweet.Report
Someone should tell him that the generals Hitler had lost the war and some of them were hanged.Report
And at least a few tried to kill him.Report
To repeat myself, what Trump learned from his previous term was he should only be appointing people who are personally loyal to him.
He learned this by attempting to overturn the election and failing because member of the GOP were more local to the process than they were to him.
The problem of course is “it’s not the crime it’s the coverup”. If a corrupt Pence had overturned the election and then Trump had stayed in power (various other people need to fold but whatever), Trump would then be forced to destroy various other aspects of democracy.
If he wins, the least damaging way for the country to go forward is to drop the 4+ trials/charges he’s subject to until after he’s out of office.Report
If he wins, the federal trials are toast and the state proceedings (sentencing in NY and the Georgia case) will be on hold anyway.Report
Not much incentive for him to leave office then.Report
Yes. This is one of the “dictator” traps.Report
This is literally what led to Caesar declaring himself dictator. Under Roman law a magistrate couldn’t be prosecuted while in office. this wasn’t much of a problem because most offices were 1-year terms. Caesar was in legal trouble and keeping himself in an office by resurrecting the old office of dictator like Sulla did before him was his way of staying out of legal trouble.
As you may recall, this didn’t end well for anyone (except Octavian).Report
“Give the criminal and treasonous bastard” what he wants.Report
On the one hand, Trump talks about the enemy within and unleashing the military and/or his goons on opponents and dissenters.
On the other hand, Harris talked like a politician and had some maybe canned responses to questions at the CNN Townhall.
Does anyone see a problem?
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-soft-bigotry-of-our-trump-expectationsReport
Yup, he gets to be lawless but she has to be flawless. It sucks but seems like the game the media billion-dollar question: do the voters agree?Report
Real Clear Polling’s Latest Polls.Report
I think the bottom line on the polls is one word: inflation. Incumbents are getting killed all over the developed world because it, along with maybe a sprinkling of failure to control immigration.
The Democrats are in good shape compared to most places. Cold comfort given that we could still lose.
I bring it up only because I don’t think Trump is killing it by any stretch. If the Republicans had nominated anyone else they’d probably be projected to win by 8 or 9 points instead of in a dead heat.Report
Weird how inflation seems to hit older, rural Christian white males the hardest.Report
CNBC reported that inflation hit the middle class the hardest.Report
We need to look beyond ethnic and sectarian prejudices and consider the facts. If Trump wins he will almost certainly have done so in no small part by exceeding historic GOP performance with working class hispanics, and maybe also working class black men.Report
Just men? Not women?
Why is that, I wonder.
NARRATOR VOICE: Chip, of course, did not wonder at all.Report
I agree and disagree.
1. 2021 to 2024 did make me understand why politicians are afraid of inflation
2. What Chip said. It is very mansplainy to think inflation matters above all and it was risible to have a money manager write an op-ed about why a bunch of Joe the Plumber types are voting Trump because of inflationReport
“Mansplainy”? Not sure what youre implying about women here but it doesnt sound very nice.
Anyway, consider that the incumbents got destroyed in the UK in July, the same looks likely to happen next year in Germany and in Canada. Macron’s party held on by a thread and the good fortune of the hard left deciding to play ball.
Would it be nice if in the US we were all banding together to identify Trump as such a uniquely bad actor to the point he’d lose by 40 points to a turnip? Of course. I certainly wish that was happening. But the fact remains that Trump is a bad candidate and a major unforced error by the GOP. Unfortunately the headwinds are what they are and he may get lucky again.Report
The last few runs of the National Weather Service’s supercomputer-based Global Forecast System have a named storm developing in the Caribbean late next week and hitting somewhere in Florida near Election Day. I have as much faith in that prediction as polls that assert Trump will win the national popular vote by millions. More, actually, since the NWS will show you the computer code and raw data they use.Report
Oh, I don’t know if the polls are accurate.
I just suspect that they do little more than provide a great way to do a post-mortem. “What did we do wrong? Where did we mess up?”
“Well, as it turns out, comparing Trump to Hitler helped his numbers in the most Arab portions of Michigan. So maybe we shouldn’t have done that.”
That sort of thing.Report
I actually still have decent to strong optimism that Harris is strong for November. Early voting appears to be pretty good so far (though it is not always indicative). Plus I think the pollsters are undercounting Harris’ likely supporters (young women) and too focused on things which are not likely to be true because “ooh shiny, paradigm shift!”
I also think the aggregators are less good at containing and minimizing right-wing flood the zone polls than they think they are and they are too addicted to being data nerds to remove them generally. Even then, TIPP Insights/American Greatness went from + 2 Trump on Sunday to + 3 Harris today and I automatically discount ActiVote (“we can’t be gamed because we say so”), Trafalgar (Murray is only up by 1.7 in Washington in 2022, she won by 15 points), InsiderAdvantage and some others.Report
Hey, I am fine with certain amount of hopium but I temper it with gloomium- I don’t think I can go into an election optimistically after ’16- it might kill me.Report
I place virtually no stock in the polling for a number of reasons that I’d be happy to explain, and as a result have a very similar belief about our chances as I would if I believed them.
It’s kinda weird.Report
That is deliciously circular- I love it!Report
For the record, if the optimistic takes turn out to be right, and Trump is defeated decisively, I will happily accept any and all ‘told ya so’s’ other posters feel I deserve.
I also don’t see those predictions as totally out of the question either. It’s entirely plausible Trump is running on fumes, Harris holds where she needs to in the midwest, and local conditions in NC, GA, and AZ turn in such a way that he is routed.Report
I agree! It’s entirely possible. That’s the quantum torture of our current polling. When the wave function collapses we could discover that the cat is alive, there’s a Trump route and it’d be -entirely- within the existing polling margin of error unless it’s a landslide loss for Trump.
And I would LOVE for there to be a landslide Harris victory- especially because seeing Nate Silver have to eat a but a la Wang would be funny as heck.Report
Yes, the problem is that the American conservative movement is fundamentally depraved, with a fascist mainstream and a center-right fringe, but everybody–from the New York Times on down to most of the OT commentariat–is committed to the politically correct proposition that there are very fine people on both sides.
Because InMD is probably right–a normal-ass Republican would likely be killing it right now. But the GOP didn’t nominate such a candidate because the GOP actively likes and wants Trump. He’s a dishonest bigot who muses wistfully about being a dictator, and thus is the perfect embodiment of the American Right.
Sure, knowing this isn’t helpful in trying to figure out how to beat Trump at the ballot box, but I’m not sure I see the point in dancing around that particular truth either.Report