Myths & Mischief

Welcome back to Myths & Mischief! This is your Lovable Lord of Lore, today’s mischievous myth is comparing the politics of the rise of the Nazi regime in the 1920s-1950s and the current politics in America.

As a warning, some of the subject matter and some of the pictures used in this article may be disturbing for some viewers, as they depict images of violence or racism and are graphic in nature and may provoke a visceral reaction.

When Confidence ebbs, liberties are spent liberally. Is History repeating itself, and have people learned from the mistakes of previous generations?

The backdrop of the Great Depression involved six key concepts. Reindustrialization, economic booms, banking practices, investments, overproduction, and food costs all paved the way for the economic collapse.

Where the lack of economic confidence was tied to the instability from the aftermath of World War 1, it seems that the Covid shutdown and the more recent tariff wars have had a similar effect.

Post WW1:

The lack of Confidence in the economy led to a call for change. Authoritarian leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler answered that call.

In America, the robberbarrons, and investors took advantage of people by building up confidence in the stock market to the point that people were taking out loans to purchase stocks. When the market crashed, these smaller investors lost everything. Have people learned? Are their people investing in cryptocurrency until confidence is lost along with their savings? Even the current president referred to crypto as a scam before he started making billions of dollars from it.

Present Day America:

The US tariffs created instability around the world. Even if the tariffs are successful at manufacturing returning to the United States, in order to profit in the long run, these facilities would be forced to overproduce their goods since the markets will also be limited to the United States.

Post WW1:

Hitler promised that any worker would be able to feed his family. He pandered to an economically weakened population with the restoration of Germany to it’s once great form, to make Germany great again. He targeted voiceless pockets of the population and blamed them, not the “hard-working” Germans for their plight. This effort got his party elected into control of their democracy. He held huge rallies and generated a lot of excitement for a brighter future.

Present Day America:

Immigrants and the LGBTQ community are being threatened and blamed for America’s problems. The American president used these attacks, and attacking his predecessors to get people excited and held rallies (albeit much smaller in scale).

Early Stages of Attempted Dictatorship:

Both the US president and Hitler initiated a failed coup. For Hitler, it was the Beer Hall Putsch, and in America it was the January 6th attack on the capital. Hitler was found guilty and served 5 years in prison. The US president had charges brought up, but his election interrupted the proceedings even though he was convicted of 34 felonies or fraud. Both men were convicted felons who were then put into power. Once in power, both men granted amnesty to people involved in the failed coup.

Post WW1:

In 1930, article 48 of the constitution allowed the government to pass laws without Reichstag consent, and started the article 48 decrees. These allowed censorship and book burning, ended civil liberties after a fire was set, other parties were banned or split up, leaving just the Nazis, while the communists were blamed for the fire.

Present Day America:

These are much like the US president’s executive orders, which is being used to remove personal liberties and threaten those without a voice. In Germany, these were the handicapped, gypsies, and Jews. In America, it seems to be women, transgender people and immigrants.

There is also the irony that Hitler was Austrian and not German, and the American first lady is an immigrant.

Post WW1:

In 1934, opponents were scattered and killed, as Hitler became the supreme leader of Nazi Germany. The genocide of Jews, handicapped and the Romani people through labor and death camps made for an efficient way of eliminating entire populations of people for a contrived grievance.

Present Day America:

The American president has financially threatened, and used the judicial system to attack lawyers who were involved with his criminal trials, scrapped deals and projects of previous leaders and is pursuing legal actions against them, and attacking the education system that promotes science that challenges his baseless accusations and objectives as well as attacking the judicial system because it is doing its job of checks and balances and limiting his power. He was limited in his first term because he had a cabinet that was competent, as opposed to people who will do whatever he says in the moment. He has attacked the press and limited access to information for Americans. In addition, insulting allied countries and calling into question America’s claim to power through righteousness. He has attempted to embarrass the leaders of countries based on false propaganda, or the manipulation of the Russian dictator. To a lesser degree of significance, he has criticized artists from Bruce Springsteen to Taylor Swift for having a different perspective than his and taken to pardoning anyone that will pledge their allegiance to him.

Post WW1:

1938 planned annexation of Sudetenland, then the Czecholslovak state is annexed. He eventually took over a majority of Europe until he followed in the footsteps of Napoleon and found out why one does not engage in a land war in Asia.

Present Day America:

The current US president has upset other countries by claiming that the US would take Canada, Greenland, and Panama. He has taken a strengthening global economy and created turmoil and hardships around the world while disregarding climate change and the impact of humans and fossil fuels on the environment. In addition he has ordered an act of war against Iran, by bombing their nuclear facilities.

Post WW1:

1939 declares World War on Jews, starts euthanasia program to systematically killing patients with mental and physical disabilities.

1941 annihilation of the Jews begins

Present Day America:

The current US president has declared a war on immigration, including using soldiers possibly against the citizens of the United States for a fake problem of immigration. If it were limited to criminals, that would be a different issue.

A noticeable difference is that the Catholic Church supported Hitler and his efforts while the modern Catholic Church is opposed to the current treatment of immigrants.

Both leaders were masters at propaganda which they used to distract the population from what was happening with the government.

Post WW1:

America wasn’t free to the rise of fascism in the 1920s, and adopted similar practices to those of the Nazis. In America, the decline of working class jobs made economic confidence drop, and populations in the United States were targeted. Once again, minorities were targeted. Unionizers were threatened and attacked and there was a renewal of white supremacy. Woodrow Wilson was quoted saying “The white men were roused by a mere instinct of self-preservation… until at last there had sprung into existence a great Ku Klux Klan, a veritable empire of the South, to protect the Southern country.” He then invited the Klan to march in front of the White House.

Present Day America:

The same ideologies have been courted by the American authorities. What was put in place was Jim Crow laws, which weren’t laws at all, but the system set up to oppress people and deny them of their rights. While the Civil Rights Movement reconciled some of these issues, those efforts are being dismantled as American history is being white-washed to only telling the history of rich white men.

Both men worked from within the government to adjust the rules and limitations of their position, and emphasized changing the government operated and removed limits of power.

Post WW1:

Hitler became Chancellor, introduces censorship, ends civil liberties, passes Enabling Act, making him dictator for 4 years. Then merges posts of chancellor and president to become dictator.

Present Day America:

Claiming that he would only be a dictator for a day, he then went on to disregard congress and the constitution and create policies that shook peoples’ faith in the economy and use the Supreme Court, where he had thrown off the balance so they would be an ally, and target those who opposed him.

Taking away rights, rounding up people to “get rid of them” were a mission of both men.

When most people think of a knock at the door in the middle of the night, and people being abducted and never seen again, we think of the gestapo, but doesn’t the image of ICE agents wearing masks without any identification or warrants provoke the same emotions?

America:

America has a history of using race and marginalized people in order to distract the masses of the separation of classes including the distribution of wealth and income which has a gap that exceeds that of the French Revolution when the ruling class was wiped out for their greed. Race, or in the current case, immigrants and transgender people have been targeted to distract the populous of the much bigger flaws in the American economic system. Instead of immigrants taking all the jobs, the bigger concern would be that only the tiniest fraction of the population is accumulating massive wealth, while others are losing their jobs, going out of business, struggling with inflation, and just in general struggling.

Distribution of Wealth in America

Top .1%	14%
Top 10% to the .1%	36.4%
50-90%	30.3%
Bottom 50%	2.5%

Distribution of Income (2023)

$200,000+	14%
$150,000-$200,000	9.5%
$100,000-$150,000	17%
$75,000-$100,000	12.1%
$50,000-$75,000	15.7%
$35,000-$50,000	10.3%
$25,000-$35,000	6.9%
$15,000-$25,000	6.7%
less than $15,000	7.4%

While this is misleading in the sense that the top category has its own separations (some make billions while others make hundreds of thousands), since it is very different making 200,000 and making 2,000,000,000, they are both in the same category. While the income gap is growing, and has been since at least the 70s, it is unclear how the tariffs and the war on the global economy will impact the distribution of income. So far small businesses and consumers seem to be taking on the cost of the tariff war. Also keep in mind that the poverty line for individuals is at $14,580 which does not include the attacks on Medicare, food stamps, or inflation since that time.

So is the game plan in both situations to exploit the masses with propaganda, consolidate power, repeal civil liberties and freedom of speech and target those without voices until the country is restored to some distorted notion of greatness, it didn’t work out well for Hitler and the Nazis. Who is going to stand up against America?

Of course the second question is what will this do to the American and World economies, are we looking at another great depression?

Present Day America:

An attempt at re-industrialization, economic uncertainty, failed banking practices, investments in scams, overproduction, and food costs may all pave the way for the next economic collapse and/or the soul of America. Is that Making America Great Again?

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