Continuing our coverage of what we have termed “The Trumpenkampfverbande”–the Nazi phenomenon that is the Presidential candidacy of Donald Trump.
A major element of analysis here concerns Trump’s skillful use of the rhetorical techniques used so successfully by Adolf Hitler.
Josh Marshall [of Talking Points Memo] noted: “ . . . This was as wild and as unbridled a speech as I’ve seen from Trump. Even if you couldn’t understand English, it would be stunning to watch the slashing hand gestures, the red face, the yelling. It’s hard to imagine any presidential candidate in living memory giving such a speech. And again, this is if you didn’t know what the words even meant.
As the speech was unfolding, I said something on Twitter that I’m sure many will find extreme or beyond the pale. But watching this speech, compared to the press conference today in Mexico City, what kept coming to my mind was the contrast between Hitler’s uniformed rally speeches from the hustings and the suited, statesman Hitler we see in the old news reels in Munich and at other iconic moments in the late 1930s. . . . the demagogic style, the frenzied invocation of familial blood sacrificed to barbaric outsiders – these are not unique to him [Hitler]. When we see this lurid, stab-in-the-back incitement, the wild hyperbole, the febrile railing against outsiders who will make us no longer a country – the similarities are real. More than anything, perhaps the most chilling part of this day is the contrast between the two men – a measured, calm statesman figure we saw this afternoon and this railing, angry demagogue figure who captured the emotional tenor of a Klan rally. . . .” (more...)
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