4 ms·

Written by Dorothy Thompson, first journalist kicked out of Nazi Germany. She also said: "No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands

• sandworm101 11y ago
  >> No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. She obviously never imagined the state of American politics today. A good chunk of them now openly want a "strongman" in the high office. The degree to which they want to be bullied by those they elect boarders on socio-political masochism. So I disagree with Thompson. To say that people don't see the dictator coming is too easy. The people must be held to account for the leaders they create, else the cycle repeat.
  • danjayh 11y ago
    Totally agree. The current congress welcomes Obama's use of (likely illegal) executive orders to accomplish things, because it means they can avoid responsibility and accountability. They don't fight to retain their constitutionally granted powers, because all they really want it somebody else to do the dirty work -- end result is they allow unprecedented levels of executive control to go basically unchecked ... and whether or not you agree with what's being done with it now, it's a slippery slope, because each president is different, but they'll all have this precedent to point back to as justification.
    • deciplex 11y ago
      And, there is a cap on the maximum number of voters who could possibly give a damn at any given moment. Most of the people who would raise concerns about these executive orders will not be too concerned about overreach by the executive once the next Republican President is in office, nor is it likely they spoke up when the last one was in. And so it goes. That's the true danger in divisive politics - when seeing that 'your team' scores points while they can becomes more important than good policy and governance.
  • 32bitkid 11y ago
    I know it's fashionable to have a defeatist view of current american politics, but I honestly don't see how the current political climate in the United States is any more dysfunctional than the American political machinations of the early 1900's that led to the election of Teddy Roosevelt, a notorious "strongman" in high office, who after being "disappointed" by his chosen successor, and then friend, Taft decided to run for a third-term in high office. And to suggest Dorothy Thompson would be ignorant of, then recent, political history seems misguided.
    • Kalium 11y ago
      My personal touchstone for American political dysfunction is the election of 1860. No matter how this election ends, I don't think the result is likely to be a civil war.
  • tamana 11y ago
    To be a little less speculatively brazen, consider Putin, who got elected (well, if he didn't totally cheat) on a campaign of resorting the Soviet dictatorship.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      Elected? Technically I suppose so, but he was groomed as Yeltsin's successor.
• rrggrr 11y ago
  American probably not. The US Constitution has provisions that make a dictator unlikely, though not impossible, as compared to the Weimar Constitution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Constitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Constitution One hopes the primary convention delegates, elector college electors, Congress, Courts, State governments and free press would offset the election and reign of a dictatorially inclined President. At the same time Lincoln did successfully suspend habeas corpus, Roosevelt did intern Japanese Americans.
• walshemj 11y ago
  er no Hitlers position was that Germany needed a dictator and the NAZIs ran on that platform.
  • iofj 11y ago
    The exact program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The_25-point_Program_of_the_NSDAP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The... I imagine you're talking about point 25: "For the execution of all of this we demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich. Unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich and its organizations in general. The forming of state and profession chambers for the execution of the laws made by the Reich within the various states of the confederation. The leaders of the Party promise, if necessary by sacrificing their own lives, to support by the execution of the points set forth above without consideration." Given what happened in Germany's Weimar republic, decades-long destruction (mass firings) of workers and the resulting impact on the middle class as the direct result of foreign-imposed costs "for reparations for the war". Given all this it is easy to see why this program would have the success it did.