By Zeitgeist I mean the set of ideas that were captured on the cover, conservatism, ultra-nationalism, extreme right and authoritarianism. In my opinion, I don't think the world is heading towards a resurgence of feminism, at least not the radical and woke feminism but a
more conservative, romantic/idealist and mystical feminism like in the Georgian era. Here is what I think of
Jane Austen in The Economist cover.
Now, it is interesting to make a comparison between what Adolf Hitler thought of women in politics and the fate of Germany and what is nowadays identified as MAGA
● The essential dignity of a woman is to be a mother, not a politician.
● Women must be protected because they are housewives in suburbs
In both cases, the role of women is of utmost importance as the pillar of the family (not in politics) that will allow the nation to regain its greatness. There is a mission/destiny to be fulfilled.
For Hitler, 10 years were enough to recover what was lost and form a thousand-year Reich.
For Trump, it is the duty of every American to regain the status America lost under Globalism
Geoff Layton identified three dominant themes in Nazi propaganda:
1) The Führer cult. Hitler was portrayed as a
messiah-type figure, who could offer strong authoritarian leadership and a vision for Nazi Germany's future.
2) The Volksgemeinschaft (national community). To appeal to the people for the development of a
unifying idea, regardless of class.
3) German nationalism. To play on German nationalism and to exploit the discontent since the First World War.
To make Germany great again.
View attachment 104888
Hitler and Trump: Common Slogans?
More and more people are starting to call for keeping a
critical mind. Here is an example:
View attachment 104890
View attachment 104891
Lobaczeswki laid out the stages of ponerization, and I think it's interesting to think about your 'Trump is Hitler' comparison through that lens.
The first stage is that pathologicals gain positions of power. They use this power to manipulate others, and can be recognized by their victimhood narrative via schizoidal declarations. Usually there's an external enemy or internal enemy to be eradicated.
As the pathocrat elite gain more power and influence, normal social formations begin to break down. The elite aim to dismantle the traditional (AKA 'oppressive') system of values to gain support of a population that is struggling within it. Through spellbinding and sheer control, they begin to corrupt the culture by introducing the 'new' system based on normalized psychopathic values. Many people with a normal psychological worldview reject this, and there is a growing gap between the elites and normal people.
As elite power concentrates, and the corruption spreads, things get worse. The elite deviant values spread and become normalized. Social structures and institutions break down. Evil spreads. Society can polarizes into 'for' and 'against'. The pathocrats proceed to terrorize their dissenting domestic population, trying to force them into submission, while rewards those who are obedient. They like to use manufactured crises and false flags to gain more power (like the Reichstag fire, 9/11). This social polarization can lead to a civil war. The warmongers in the elite can also push for external war.
Eventually the pathocratic regime will either stabilize, like in the USSR, or disintegrate, like with Nazi Germany.
I could be wrong, but that doesn't sound like Trump or his team to me. I just don't see him aiming to lead America down the path of ponerization based on an overreaction to 'deviant' values. If anything, he's been the reasonable spokesperson for the stability of traditional values. His policies, while not perfect, are all intended to stabilize America.
I agree with you that US Imperialism doesn't bode well for Trump's term. But that's also what he's walked into - the position of leader of the US, which is an Empire, and which is already in the process of ponerization.
Luc makes a good case that the best way to understand a man in the public eye - Trump or Hitler - is to not settle on just one conclusion about them.
The rise of Nazism and how to study history
luctalks.substack.com
Most importantly, I never tire of repeating how our view of history depends on our own internal make-up, of our own development and experience. It is not a dry, abstract affair; history is deeply connected to our minds, and is intelligible only from the perspective of a human being who knows viscerally the patterns defining the human condition he can then discern. This works in the other direction, too: the more we learn about history, the better our mind becomes—a mind that can only be understood in history, as part of history, as history itself. R.G. Collingwood had figured this out, and I encourage you to read his work.
21
And so, the truth shall set us free, above all, perhaps, historical truth:
if we gain the maturity to have at it from multiple angles at once, while getting over ourselves.
So pointing to Trump's recent land-grab rhetoric - or insinuating that MAGA an authoritarian cult - as evidence for 'Trump is Hitler' is too reductionist for me, and more thinking can be applied. I agree that America going into fascist right-wing mode under Trump is a possibility, especially if Earth Changes really kick in and social chaos ensues. And this is part of what the PTB have used the Jews for historically - provocateurs against any given society, and scapegoats when there is pushback. Tho I think migrants would be the scapegoats in the USA, not Jews. That's another difference between Trump and Hitler - he's not outspoken about Jewish power in the USA.
I read MacDonald's work on Jewish group strategy throughout history. The book
Culture of Critique looks at Jewish involvement in destroying the West as a European Civilization, and I think it has some bearing on understanding the historical context Trump has walked into:
The best strategy for a collectivist group like the Jews for destroying Europeans therefore is to convince the Europeans of their own moral bankruptcy.
That's clearly happening.
A major theme of CofC is that this is exactly what Jewish intellectual movements have done. They have presented Judaism as morally superior to European civilization and European civilization as morally bankrupt and the proper target of altruistic punishment [AKA the punishment of freeloaders and I would add degenerates - MacDonald says this is a uniquely Western trait]. The consequence is that once Europeans are convinced of their own moral depravity, they will destroy their own people in a fit of altruistic punishment.
I don't think this is where Trump is at. He's calling for the prosecution of the law in a reasonable way. Not the creation of new laws of persecution. However, certain American conservatives are remembering Franco's anti-Left brutality with some appreciation. So it's a possibility.
The general dismantling of the culture of the West and eventually its demise as anything resembling an ethnic entity will occur as a result of a moral onslaught triggering a paroxysm of altruistic punishment.
In other words, as Toynbee wrote, civilizations die by suicide. Although I would add that it is a manipulated suicide due to induced insanity, driven by psychopathy.
There has been a trend to convince Americans of their moral bankruptcy. This process of ponerization ramped up in the cultural revolution of the 60's, in which the Left was encouraged to hate their parents, the Church, their race, their history, and basically all foundational institutions of the West. Many became disturbed degenerates. The Right was also encouraged into their own form of pathology through 9/11. The Left had another boost more recently with the Woke nonsense coming to be a major force in Western culture, in which the Left was further encouraged in its slide into pathology. Now it's time for the Right to get their own boost. MAGA is ripe for corruption to that end.
Many normal people, including Trump, saw the Woke BS and tried to take a stand against it. Not in the way Hitler did - by schizoidal declarations, internal terrorization of the population, and external warmongering. Trump took a stand, insofar as he could, by putting the brakes on the globalist plans for America. This is what Mike Benz has revealed so cogently - with Trump, the globalists realized that populism (aka the normal population) was a major threat to their plans.
Anyways, according to MacDonald, a right wing response is predictable, and is part and parcel of the plan to destroy the West - by provoking the right into reaction mode. We will see if Trump and his team has the ability to withstand that temptation, which is obviously being presented by the Right wing of already-ponerized US Deep State. Maybe they will just be carried along. His upcoming term will be a test of how Presidential power can be wielded in the name of normalcy against the forces of hyperdimensional evil in a dying Empire during the influx of The Wave.
That should be the framework for analysis, IMO - not the simplistic 'Trump is Hitler'.