Here's the thing, how do you know who's going to be the next Hitler? You don't, which means you just ban someone on suspicion of harboring negative intent. Then, once that decision has been made, you ban supporters of those people. Then, you start banning people who sound like they might be supporters of those people. Then, you start banning people who other people have reported to be supporters of those kinds of people, based on no or little evidence.
Once the slope has slipped to this point, it's easy for a secret Fascist to get in control of the banning mechanism and start shutting down all descent. And suddenly, you have a Fascist shutting down everyone's free speech, and they rise unopposed to power. Then, once they've been in power for a while, they push the envelope farther, and eventually start killing their political rivals or people they label undesirable.
You can easily fabricate Hitler Parallels for literally every single world leader in history. There's really only one point that matters though. Do they have "Brown Shirts?" No potential Hitler reincarnate can come to power without Brown Shirts.
FYI: Brown Shirts are fanatical volunteer civilians who will finger-point out anyone who says anything even slightly against "the party" or "the ideology," report it, and likely even take voluntary action to vandalize the physical property or threaten the livelihood of common people who attempt to speak up in dissent.
So far as spotting who has brown shirts backing them, it's a simple 2 step process. Step 1. Identify whether or not there are active Brown Shirts in the community. To do this, look for whether or not people are afraid to voice their political opinions. Step 2. If you have identified the presence of Brown Shirts with step 1, then look for what political party is NOT afraid to voice their political opinions.
Brown shirts pave the way for systematic extermination and genocide. They are the archetects of death. They are the VITAL and indispensable piece that allows genocide to happen.
Sorry, there were more quotes I wanted to reply to, but this is already getting too large.
As someone from Germany who's interested in our history, reading the comparisons thrown around here is, bluntly, sickening.
I've been to a concentration camp memorial. It's not something you easily forget. And claiming that 'leftists' are somehow doing the same thing or leading up to it, let alone comparing "woke" (whatever that means) to fascism is absurd. It's extremely disrespectful to the victims.
The Holocaust was a horrible tragedy that happened because of specific circumstances. I'm not denying that other genocides happened, but you can't just lump them all together, because the circumstances, causes and events are different. (Also, small correction: the armenian genocide happened before the Holocaust, and the country that perpetrated it certainly wasn't politically left.)
Whatever you want to say about "brown shirts" (a term I haven't heard before), they were just one aspect of the regime. I'm not saying people like that didn't exist or didn't play a part. They're probably a staple of every authoritarian regime. But they certainly weren't the deciding factor in Hitler's rise.
Hitler came to power because there was no one better, basically, he came as the latest in a succession of several Reichskanzler in short order, and the NSDAP's coalition partner thought they could "handle" him. Then, the Nazi regime really started by passing a law restricting civil rights. Basically, they exploited the constitution of the Weimar Republic, using the Reichspräsident's power of passing decrees in an emergency, and intimidating members of parliament into signing those bills.
What I mean to say is, the rise of the Nazis was, among other factors, because of a long-lasting crisis situation and instability, and people messing with the constitution.
Comparing that to banning some people is ridiculous. Also, the slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. Just because you ban people saying certain things, doesn't mean you have to ban people saying other, less extreme things.
Also, today's Germany has some very strict laws about not displaying Nazi iconography and the like. I don't know how rules against hate speech compare, honestly. But does that mean we're in danger of getting another Hitler, because we're not taking the most literal interpretation of free speech? Absolutely not. (In fact, in the
democracy index, Germany seems to do better than, say, the US).
I can't comment on the immigration and asylum thing, except noting it sounds like the whole system badly needs to be reformed either way. Which, it seems, is unlikely to happen.
Edit: and from the way I heard it reported, Trump ended it more likely because of all the pushback it was getting, not after "the issue became obvious." It was already obvious.
www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org
