"Selling Hitler", notes pp. 66-78
I stopped publishing my notes from “Selling Hitler” mainly because the timeline in the book moved past “we’re on our way to Fascist domination” to “here we are, killing millions of people all around the world”, so not fully compatible (yet, or ever, hopefully) with the situation in these United States at the moment.
However, looking over this draft, it still seems apropos, especially considering that our modern fascists, former Republicans, took control of the House of Representatives thanks to gerrymandering and unfortunate authoritarian leanings of some voters (even as they fervently declare their allegiance to “freedom” and “US of A”).
So here are the notes - I think you’ll recognize today’s themes in descriptions of Germany in the 1930s.
Illusion of this magnitude can only be fostered on people who wish to believe.
p. 66
We, of course, have the Big Lie about election fraud in 2020. Then there’s QAnon, which reads like bad fiction. And there’s COVID anti-masking, microchips-in-vaccines and general anti-vaxxing sentiments. You must be a willing vessel to receive this level of bullshit.
The evidence for a false belief can always be found and a logic of causation manufactured.
p. 66
Now that Republican fascists are in control of investigative committees in Congress, we’re certain to see Hunter Biden investigations, despite the fact that Hunter Biden is not an official, elected or otherwise; has no impact on US policy or governance, and has no bearing on anything related to the US government. Whether Hunter Biden took advantage of sharing the same family name for business interests is of no importance - especially when considering the blatant, sanctioned, and open nepotism of the previous administration.
A lazy habit of non-interrogation can quite easily dissolve into the promiscuous acceptance of all statements emanating from the official state, no matter how non-sensical.
p. 66
The usual suspects. All the “red meat” the Republicans are throwing to their constituents would be revealed as wet cardboard with the barest of scrutiny, but of course there’s no such thing; the right-wing crowd eats the cardboard as though it were filet mignon.
The focus in Nazi media was also on leader imagery - for example, on airmen listening to a leader eagerly, all gathered around in a circle with an animated figure of command taking center stage.
p. 69
The cult of personality is evident in all Trump imagery. Keep an eye on DeSantis presentation, I bet you will see similarly “leader” focused imagery coming out.
War is a state of mind, battle a psychological condition, defeat arises only when we consent to it.
p. 70
How long has the so-called “war on Christmas” been going on? Decades? The manufactured outrage, or the cause-du-jour, whether it’s CRT, or LGBTQ+, or trans-teens in bathrooms, the new American Fascists have to maintain some war in the minds of their followers.
The sense of drama is addicting - it’s the adrenalin: what threat are these leftist commies using now to destroy America? You can’t even say “Merry Christmas” anymore (from 2005), and did you hear how they put litter boxes in schools for the furries?!
Though Goebbels’ defiant position was generally antagonistic to excess optimism, he too could fall prey to a public climate that graduated from hubris to denial.
p. 73
That’s basically any Trump speech nowadays. Denial of reality, denial of responsibility.
Hence the old internal struggle became the new external one.
p. 73
In the context of 1920s and 1930s Germany, internal focus on Jews started to transition to focusing on Jews and other enemies externally. Now that the internal threat was being neutralized, problems that still remained needed to be explained in terms of a greater global threat that could only be addressed through aggression. But only as a defense, naturally.
for the Nazis everything could be explained by the all-purpose anti-Semitic narrative, and this time it was the war with the USSR.
p. 73
Everything is Democrats’ fault. Right-wing terrorist breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s house in search of her and attacking her husband with a hammer, putting him in the hospital? Naturally, it’s Democrat’s fault. Global inflation? Democrats are responsible. High gas prices? Guess who! Everything is the Democrats’ fault - while at the same time nothing being credited to them. Convenient.
The use of the camera as narrative storyteller was a staple of the illustrated magazines, and for many Germans it was the camera which served as the interpreter of the war. The focus was always on action and excitement.
p. 74
None of that boring policy stuff. Rallies, boat parades, truck trains, or whatever. Action and excitement. Circus, in a word.
…a sharp aesthetic captures, arranges and condenses the war into a romantic ideal of violence that is visually arresting.
p. 75
Republican imagery, especially around the 2nd amendment, has always been focused around fear and violent response.
The Nazi media engaged in a kind of war tourism.
p. 75
Case in point: Fox News Reporter Gets Laughs for Wearing Bulletproof Vest at the Border (hiplatina.com)
In the early years the Nazi ‘case’ against the Jews was that they had undermined Germany after the First World War, and hence a Nazi David was standing up to the Jewish Goliath. Nor were Jews the original primary enemy.
p. 77
The victimhood story of the Republican party has been their main narrative for decades. Even after stonewalling the Obama administration, followed by Trump administration that (finally) stacked the Supreme Court and lead to the overturn of Roe v Wade, the constant drumbeat of imagined persecution keeps the Republican base riled up.
Hitler did not suggest genocide until 30 January 1939.
p. 77
We’re not quite there yet, but the point is that rhetoric does not remain mere rhetoric. Violence against LGBTQ+ has been on the rise - with the most recent occurring last night, 3 minutes before midnight, in Colorado Springs. And, of course, January 6th clearly demonstrates the willingness of the far-right fascist followers to use violence to overthrow democracy. As The Atlantic writes, January 6 was practice.
A new illusion that had to be created was the image of American perfidy following the US entry into the war, and fresh myths had to be generated to confront the challenge.
p. 78
When the USA joined World War 2 - fighting against the Nazis, Germany had to manufacture new reasons to explain this. Now think about the contortions the far right is going through to explain Trump’s theft of classified documents!
By the way, please take the time to listen to ULTRA, a Rachel Maddow podcast that will blow your mind about fascists and the US government in the 1930s and 1940s. If I were a fiction writer, there’d definitely be a story there somewhere about an evil that comes awake every 100 years or so and… anyway, seriously, check it out.
Nazi propaganda reverted to its tried-and-tested technique of attribution, where the Nazis’ own ambitions and crimes were projected onto those the Reich was fighting against.
p. 78