As a Canadian, your last sentence is comical. I know the US media pushes the Trump = Hitler meme, I really don't buy it though. Worst case, he might just be another GWB.
I really think the worst thing Trump may do for America is make everyone think George W Bush wasn't that bad. The guy is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. He and his administration did objectively terrible things. Trump so far has proposed a few awful ideas and has spoken in a way that is awful and at times terrifying but he hasn't actually done much, yet.
We really can't forget how awful the Bush administration was.
Trump seems to be the modern day Andrew Jackson, and seems to have only personal gain as a motivator in his life.
He chose (1).
The Iraq war was used to bolster voters for the next year's election - the US had been punching ghosts and getting nowhere in Afghanistan after 9/11, so they switched targets to one that looked similarly foreign and, more importantly, couldn't hide.
Then, of course, the US ignored them because "he's going to hide the evidence", invaded for its own reasons... and famously found nothing. Blix was painted as an incompetent by the US, but even after stomping Iraq into dust and having full control of the country, the US found nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Liberation_Act
And the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Iraq_(1998) ?
"The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 is a United States Congressional statement of policy stating that "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq..."[1][2] It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton, .... "
To talk big and not do anything emboldens the target.
You can't feed your family off intentions.
Does it really? Sometimes good intentions can end up with objectively terrible outcomes because nobody can see into the future. The proverb "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" comes to mind.
I think there's a lot of truth to that proverb because the vast majority of people don't think of themselves, or the reasons they do things, as "evil" or bad. In their internal logic most people act for "good reasons", but "good" can be a rather subjective thing, so the internal reasoning doesn't always translate properly to the outcomes in external reality.
To have heroes we also need villains. It is terribly unfair, but maybe that should act as a warning. If you hold the lives of thousands in the balance your own reputation will be linked to the fate of those people.
He's not Hitler--he's something new. But anyone who has studied history a bit recognizes similarities in rhetoric and tactics. Given that he is the commander and chief of the most powerful military in history, it seems natural to ask whether there might be also be similarities when it comes to political and societal goals. Given the stakes involved, I can't see how playing it down and hoping for the best is a wise approach.
[0] https://thinkprogress.org/9-terrifying-things-donald-trump-h... [1] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/78778261363320832...
Populist and (wannabe) demagogue I'll give you.
Now I am no Trump fan, and frankly think he's one of the worst president's we've ever had. But that doesn't make him Hitler; because as far as I am aware he's never said anything about wanting to commit genocide.
Of course, seeing as your username has an 88 in it, I really doubt your comment was sincere.
Passages from the book: http://emptylighthouse.com/camp-saints-most-hideous-passages...
Analysis: http://theweek.com/articles/611274/dystopian-antiimmigration...
On the one hand it was the age of Organisational Man, who worked for big companies, or states more centralised than any in history. Indeed, with colonialism still not dead, a realist thinker might imagine that iron-fisted empires were the way of the future.
On the other hand, racism was still acceptable, not just among right-wing thugs like Hitler, but also on the left from the progressive eugenics movement, genocidal communist fantasists like H.G. Wells and plain-old to American bigots like Woodrow Wilson.
In those days it was fashionable for intellectuals to think that liberal-democracy was a has-been that could not organise well enough to Do What Needs To Be Done (and what "needed" to be done, was of often genocide).
It was in this cultural milieu that the Nazis and Bolsheviks rose and did what they did. Conditions like that don't exist in the West any more. I can see trends that might lead back to similar conditions -- but it will take a good 50 years for them to mature.
If we're going to sit around waiting for the guy to commit genocide and start a world war before we take the threat seriously, it will be far too late to do anything about it. We need to look for leading indicators.
The tendency to treat Trump as inherently illegitimate and to ignore the voters behind him is just the kind of condition that might lead to future horrors. You might argue (though I wouldn't) that Trump's silliness is also such a leading indicator.
But so what? In a democracy both sides get their chance to push pull.
Case(s) in point: the FCC, FDA, minimum wage laws, Federal involvement in education.
None of those is Constitutional without some laughable legal gymnastics around inter-State commerce, and yet very few people have been complaining about their existence over the years.
As a non-American observer, the whole system seems reminiscent of ancient Rome at the point where it had become an Empire but was still pretending it was a Republic.
Take Obamacare as an example. Leaving aside the issue of whether socialised healthcare is a good idea, Obama had to circumvent the law by instructing the IRS to collect revenues via an executive order.
Is that really a precedent that should have been set? Even socialists should have been a little uneasy at the disregard for the Constitution there, but instead, the ends won out over the means, and it went ahead.
The thing is if Canada had nukes then the US would treat Canada a lot differently in any potential conflict. It'd make a first strike with nuclear weapons necessary instead of something that would be massively disproportionate.