A Frightening Essay on Parallels with 1930s Germany

DEMAGOGERY: 1930 & 2008 A CAUTIONARY TALE

Wise commentators say that current events seem like Orwell’s “1984.” But, to me, an amateur student of military history, the pattern feels more like Germany must have felt in the early 1930’s. Alan Bullock writes of how the Great Depression provided the big “opportunity” (to use Rahm Emanuel’s phrase) for Hitler: “millions… saw the apparently solid framework of their existence cracking and crumbling. In such circumstances men are no longer amenable to the arguments of reason… men entertain fantastic fears, extravagant hatreds, and extravagant hopes… the extravagant demagogy of Hitler began to attract a mass following as it had never done…” Sound familiar?

Read the whole thing here.

Thanks to Atlas.