Another event that tends to occur with surprising regularity is the opening of a second front when it is perceived a military effort has bogged down, or is not yielding results fast enough. In an effort to break a deadlock, sometimes empires overextend themselves.

The 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
The 1941 German invasion of the USSR
1812 French invasion of Russia
415 BC Athenian invasion of Sicily

Substitute for a military defeat terror attacks that, given their effect on American authoritarians, have to be called successful. 9/11 was a psychological shock much like the loss of WWI, and the punitive Versailles Treaty, to the German people.

I seem to recall we did have a pretty serious economic downturn in 2007-8, and while the 1% has regained its economic fortunes, many Americans feel like they’re still in the middle of an economic slowdown.

There are many more similarities, but never exact matches, in this history I’m reading. A major source of discontent in Germany in the interwar period was the persistent belief that Germany had been betrayed from within, and shouldn’t have lost the war. It’s hard to miss the similarity to the claim that Barack Obama is a Socialist Muslim who’s betraying America to terrorists or some other threat du jour.

It takes decades and a host of malignant influences to create fascism. You have to take the long view, and treat it like a generational project the way that wealthy American rightwingers, like the Kochs, do. A lot of themes have to come together over a long period.

Only a robust and politically successful Progressive movement can save us now.

The modern reader–that is, a gawker at the train wreck that is American democracy–would agree with Mark Twain that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.

Trump today is tapping into a deep vein of American racism going back to reconstruction. The ground was prepared for Trump a long time ago.

Similarly, but not exactly, anti-semitism played the same role in Germany, and provided a similar scapegoat for the aspiring fascist dictator. Hitler mined the vein of bigotry in his countrymen just as Trump is mining his.

I’m sure I’ll be inspired to post more inspired by this book, The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans. First of three volumes. I like his deeper view of a history most of us know only shallowly.

No one is so dumb as to not know what was going on. The rhetoric was broadcast, the people were disappearing, and information was leaking.

It is a convenient fiction that they did not know of nor did they support Hitler’s anti-Semitic agenda. They did. Just as the supported the wars as long as they won. Most, not all but most, of them were guilty.

It’s true that after a while they had no choice in the matter, but when they did have a choice they supported the Nazi policies.

And there is always the possibility something horrible happens and we all end up with him as president.

The GOP deserves him, the sane people don’t…