Anne Applebaum: Trump copy-pastes Hitler and Mussolini
“Vermin,”, “parasites,” “enemy from within,” at the end of the American campaign, the words of the Republican candidate are increasingly echoing those of totalitarian regimes, observes The Atlantic. Anything but a coincidence, in the eyes of the journalist Anne Applebaum, specialist in the Gulag and autocracies.
In ancient Greece, the words “democracy” and “tyranny” were debated. The expression "separation of powers” gained importance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a political term, the word “vermin” dates back to the 1930s and 1940s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, mud and animals.
The term has been brought up to date in an American presidential campaign, Donald Trump describing his opponents as “thugs of the radical left” who “live like vermin.” This language is not only hideous and repulsive, it belongs to a particular tradition.
Adolf Hitler often used terms like this. In 1938, he extolled the merits of his compatriots who had contributed to “purify Germany of all these parasites that were drinking at the well of despair of the motherland and the people.” In 1941, in occupied Warsaw, a poster depicted a louse with a caricatural Jew's face.
The slogan:
By contrast, the Germans were clean, pure, healthy, devoid of vermin. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and purity [of] blood” of his people.
Dehumanize to crush better
Stalin used the same language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and had no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to constant purification”, and he encouraged his communist comrades to use comparable rhetoric. In my archives, I keep the minutes of a meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, from 1955.
On this occasion, one of them had called to fight against the “activities of the vermin” (inevitably, there is a word in German for that: Schädlingstätigkeiten), in other words, the purge and the arrest of anyone who criticized the regime. At the same time, the Stasi had forcibly moved suspicious people from the border with West Germany, a project called “Operation Vermin”.
Speeches of this type, according to AppeVermin”, “parasites”, “enemy from within”: at the end of the American campaign, the words of the Republican candidate are increasingly echoing those of totalitarian regimes, observes "The Atlantic". Anything but a coincidence, in the eyes of the journalist Anne Applebaum, specialist in the gulag and autocracies.
Rhetoric has a history. In ancient Greece, the words “democracy” and “tyranny” were debated. The expression "separation of powers” gained importance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a political term, the word "vermin" dates back to the 1930s and 1940s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, mud and animals. The term has been brought up to date in an American presidential campaign, Donald Trump describing his opponents as "thugs of the radical left" who “live like vermin".
This language is not only hideous and repulsive, it belongs to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler often used terms like this. In 1938, he extolled the merits of his compatriots who had contributed to
In 1941, in occupied Warsaw, a poster depicted a louse with a caricatural Jew's face. The slogan:
By contrast, the Germans were clean, pure, healthy, devoid of vermin.
#Applebaum #Trump #Hitler #Mussolini
📱 American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸
“Vermin,”, “parasites,” “enemy from within,” at the end of the American campaign, the words of the Republican candidate are increasingly echoing those of totalitarian regimes, observes The Atlantic. Anything but a coincidence, in the eyes of the journalist Anne Applebaum, specialist in the Gulag and autocracies.
In ancient Greece, the words “democracy” and “tyranny” were debated. The expression "separation of powers” gained importance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a political term, the word “vermin” dates back to the 1930s and 1940s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, mud and animals.
The term has been brought up to date in an American presidential campaign, Donald Trump describing his opponents as “thugs of the radical left” who “live like vermin.” This language is not only hideous and repulsive, it belongs to a particular tradition.
Adolf Hitler often used terms like this. In 1938, he extolled the merits of his compatriots who had contributed to “purify Germany of all these parasites that were drinking at the well of despair of the motherland and the people.” In 1941, in occupied Warsaw, a poster depicted a louse with a caricatural Jew's face.
The slogan:
“Jews are lice, they cause typhus.”
By contrast, the Germans were clean, pure, healthy, devoid of vermin. Hitler once described the Nazi flag as “the victorious sign of freedom and purity [of] blood” of his people.
Dehumanize to crush better
Stalin used the same language at about the same time. He called his opponents the “enemies of the people,” implying that they were not citizens and had no rights. He portrayed them as vermin, pollution, filth that had to be “subjected to constant purification”, and he encouraged his communist comrades to use comparable rhetoric. In my archives, I keep the minutes of a meeting of the leaders of the Stasi, the East German secret police, from 1955.
On this occasion, one of them had called to fight against the “activities of the vermin” (inevitably, there is a word in German for that: Schädlingstätigkeiten), in other words, the purge and the arrest of anyone who criticized the regime. At the same time, the Stasi had forcibly moved suspicious people from the border with West Germany, a project called “Operation Vermin”.
Speeches of this type, according to AppeVermin”, “parasites”, “enemy from within”: at the end of the American campaign, the words of the Republican candidate are increasingly echoing those of totalitarian regimes, observes "The Atlantic". Anything but a coincidence, in the eyes of the journalist Anne Applebaum, specialist in the gulag and autocracies.
Rhetoric has a history. In ancient Greece, the words “democracy” and “tyranny” were debated. The expression "separation of powers” gained importance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. As a political term, the word "vermin" dates back to the 1930s and 1940s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, mud and animals. The term has been brought up to date in an American presidential campaign, Donald Trump describing his opponents as "thugs of the radical left" who “live like vermin".
This language is not only hideous and repulsive, it belongs to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler often used terms like this. In 1938, he extolled the merits of his compatriots who had contributed to
“purify Germany of all these parasites that were drinking at the well of despair of the motherland and the people.”
In 1941, in occupied Warsaw, a poster depicted a louse with a caricatural Jew's face. The slogan:
“Jews are lice, they cause typhus.”
By contrast, the Germans were clean, pure, healthy, devoid of vermin.
#Applebaum #Trump #Hitler #Mussolini
Please open Telegram to view this post
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
😱14⚡8🤝5✍5💯4👍1