by liberal japonicus
I am trying, unsuccessfully, to avoid overdosing on all the election post-mortems. The most recent was this New Yorker interview with Pete Buttigeig, which is where the title is from and made me laugh out loud in the gym. Here’s the exchange:
Pete Buttigeig: And the fact that he deep down knows better, the fact that he originally compared Donald Trump to Hitler before he got on board, doesn’t make all of this better. It makes all of this worse.
David Remnick: And you think he meant Hitler in a bad way.
Pete Buttigeig: I have to think [David laughs] he didn’t mean it in a good way.
Please add any links you think might be of interest.
In these times, someone will eventually write a think piece arguing for a fair and balanced view of H. Go figure.
That is not to say that there isn’t more to say about H. than that he was evil. Knausgaard made a valiant attempt to get into his head in “My Struggle Part 6” giving Ian Kershaw a pretty hard time for just crying “monster” and leaving it at that.
From a (primarily but not exclusively US) RW perspective Hitler was bad, because:
1) he lost
2) he was secular (despite initial attempts to pretend otherwise)
2a) he kept Kristian(TM) nutjobs out of positions of power (Himmler was a pagan nutjob)
3) he despised the old RW elites and only used them (up)
3) his populism was not 100% fake, his regime had far too much social mobility and invested heavily in infrastructure that also benefited commoners and even the poor
4) he was an upstart himself (petit bourgeois on the downward path)
5) he valued competence (well, at least in the military) over social standing and money
6) he was personally interested in the arts and not just as a means to make money or to show off with expensive objects.
7) being a vegan (although in moderation) by itself disqualifies him
…giving Ian Kershaw a pretty hard time for just crying “monster” and leaving it at that.
I’d say a biography consisting of two thick volumes is a bit more than just that.
The sad thing is that it was a not-insane question to ask.
Pete’s so good at this.
actual reporter asks Kushner: have you accomplished anything, anywhere?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkF04dedOQw
You left out what I suspect would be the primary disqualification for the RW crazier (at least those knowledgeable enough to be aware): he named his party the National Socialist German Workers Party. Bad enough to be a workers’ party. But a socialist one? Right out!
I am aware that this has been a constantly pushed meme for many years now.
But I see it the as more the other way around: Hitler has to be painted as a leftist because it has been impossible to ‘unstain’ him (despite strong efforts). Those who push the “The Nazis were left (and gay)” meme usually know exactly that it is BS. IMO the items on my list are the actual things stopping them from idolizing him while they actually could be used to improve Hitler’s public image. It’s the things that actual neonazis over here push into the foreground (“OK, he overdid the Jew thing a bit but look at what he achieved and how much better it would have been for us, if the decadent West had not joined forces with the Reds.”). Btw that was what Hitler himself thought.
That’s why I think the US Far Right resembles the Austrofascists much more than the Italian fascists (also too much investment in the public good despite being much better on the neofeudalism front) or Nazis.
They would love Hitler for all the evil he did, if those points on the list would not spoil it all. Not just a conjecture on my part, some pastors on the Far Right are quite open about it and even attribute Hitlers failure to his lack of religion (with a minority blaming him for being a Catholic).
Btw I still think that claims that His Orangeness read Hitler’s writings and speeches (and had both on his nightstand) are completely bogus. Even most Nazis don’t manage to get through “Mein Kampf” and prefer a ‘best of’ of the speeches on audio (which at least have actual entertainment value even for non-nazis as opposed to most speeches by other politicians). He was provided with some key words and phrases by those more knowledgeable and patient than himself and probably doesn’t know in most cases where the stuff came from.
RW speechwriters quote-mine Hitler&Goebbels speeches on a regular base but would prefer no one to notice. That’s one thing that still manages to shock me. I hear stuff from the mouth of US RWingers and instantly get a replay in my head of the German original.
Doughy Pantload produced his Magnum Derpus “Liberal Fascism”, which was an inadvertently accurate title.
Because, from the modern MAGA/GOP perspective, Fascism is to the left of where they are.
BTW, Genghis Khan was notably to the left of modern MAGA/GOPers.
BTW, Genghis Khan was notably to the left of modern MAGA/GOPers.
Religiously tolerant and allergic to religiously motivated violence.
Extremly opposed to and unforgiving of backstabbing, even if it was in his favor.
Established a firm meritocracy where competence was the only way to rise up. This was not limited to native Mongols.
Very open to new ideas from the cultures he conquered, provided they improved on the status quo.
Took extreme care in selecting highly intelligent, independent and competent daughters-in-law who managed to keep the empire together after his death (and even more so after his successor’s). Sons-in-law on the other hand were cannon-fodder.
Great lawgiver who made no major exceptions for himself.
OK, he had occasional genocidal tendencies but that is neither left or right by nature.
<i>I’d say a biography consisting of two thick volumes is a bit more than just that.</i>
Fair enough, and I didn’t read it apart from the bits Knausgaard quotes. But based on that, I think he is right to argue that Kershaw cannot escape judging H’s whole life based on hindsight; there is a certain teleological drive to all of this. Knausgaard rejects that and tries to imagine what it was like to be the young H, reaching the conclusion that he was quite similar to many disaffected young men of the time. I guess there is a bit of Arendt style demystification at play.
To Hartmut’s list of characteristics of Tenmüjin disqualifying him from MAGA membership, add that he was captured and enslaved by a rival tribe as a teenager for a period before he escaped and went on to bigger, if not better, things. No way in hell would MAGA be accepting of a former slave…