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Various internet opportunities's avatar

Why Inside men and guard rails do not work

The Nazi party went from 18% in their first election to 37% in their second election - making them the largest party inside the parliament. Hitler demanded to be chancellor.

The German President decides to suspend parliament and rule by presidential decree - to block Hitler from becoming chancellor.

There is a new speaker of the house (Hermann Goring) and he ignores the current chancellors request to suspend parliament and instead calls a vote of no confidence. The vote is 512-42 against the current government.

By the end of 1932 Hitler was still not chancellor and his popularity was waining. The Nazi party is weakening. But in 1933 Hitler offers to make a coalition deal with a group close to the President. The President agrees to let Hitler become chancellor because his man (the vice chancellor) will control Hitler from the inside and the President had run out of other options.

By the end of 1933 Hitler finally becomes chancellor and no one on the inside, no guard rails, could control him or stop him.

We all know the rest.

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rlritt's avatar

What he did was declare all opposing political parties illegal. So the right wing parties with him as chancellor.

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SandyG's avatar

Well put why Hindenburg appointed him chancellor. But you left out two important events after he was appointed that made all the rest possible. First, the Reichstag fire, which the Nazis convinced everyone that the communists started it [never proved]; and the Enabling Act which followed, that gave him the authority to shut down the press, put communists in jail, and murder, through emissaries, anyone not loyal to him.

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Various internet opportunities's avatar

I did leave those out . yes. I had to stop myself from writing a 30 minute post.

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SandyG's avatar

Well, I thought it was important that the commenters understood what happened to damage the guardrails. I just wrote to my conservative friend who doesn't think Trump is a danger because the guardrails will hold: If the Rs win the White House and the Congress, there will be no guardrails.

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Various internet opportunities's avatar

humans control the 'guardrails' and anything 'human' is politically moveable.

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SandyG's avatar

Agree completely. The guardrails the Framers gave us are the checks and balances among the three branches to prevent one branch from taking control. It's sustained our democratic republic for 235 years.

What they didn't anticipate was that one faction would give up its branch's power to another branch, run by the same faction.

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tupper's avatar

One thing I've been considering lately is the fact that Hitler never came close to receiving 50% of the German vote, whereas Trump has.

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E2's avatar

Guess how much time elapsed between Hitler's appointment as chancellor, and the opening of Dachau (originally for his socialist, etc., political opponents).

Fifty-one days.

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rlritt's avatar

I just came back from a week in Munich. We did a tour of Dachau. It was beyond chilling. The sad thing was that this was the model for future concentration camps. The German people were proud of it.

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Karen Williams's avatar

Less than 2 months, scary indeed

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David Court's avatar

Last time I looked, that scenario works in a multi-party system, with votes of no-confidence to topple a government. I don't think that specific example applies here. I'll give you that the tactics of filling strategic positions with "party" members is somewhat analogous to the "court-stacking" at the appellate levels by Mitch and Co, but without the full impact of Project 2025 and their gutting the Administrative levels, even that falls far short, IMHO.

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Maggie M's avatar

History rhyming again. I’ve been studying WWI and WWII history for a couple of decades now and since 2015, I no longer wonder why the “good” German people turned to Hitler and the National Socialist Party (Nazis). Also, the NSDAP strategically placed their people in positions in the government over time to bring this about. Evil plays the long game, that’s why we study history and pay attention to the present, so maybe we can catch it before it gets to the boiling point. *sigh*

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Hortense's avatar

Evil plays the long game. The GOP has been playing the long game. The GOP is evil.

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