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Comment by benj111 | Hacker News Reader

The 'final solution' hadn't been decided on, so no I don't think any Germans voted for that, were the Jews openly being vilified? Yes, but that's like equating ICE rounding up illegals, and Trump sending your neighbour to a death camp, because the imagined 'other' doesn't include your neighbour who technically is an other, but one of the good ones so will be fine.

For the rest, you're forgetting how humans work. Do you think the average MAGA voting is voting to destroy someone else? Or do you think they're voting to improve their lot? Voting for expansionism doesn't necessarily mean voting for world war. I'm British, it's very easy to compartmentalise invading a country, from developing a country, civilising, being a net good, etc, etc. What did the average USian think Afghanistan was going to be? Or Iraq? Do the USians who want Greenland imagine that's going to turn into WW3? Nuclear war?

The enemy are very rarely mustache twiddling baddies.

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I think that it is you who is ignoring all of the following: how humans work, historical record of Germany right before and after 1933 election and also actually what MAGA is saying they want now.

Just for some background, jews were trying to emigrate away from jermany already before fairly violent elections of 1933. It was already bad, dangerous and getting worst. It was not just a rhetoric.

> Trump sending your neighbour to a death camp

It already happened, didnt it? The oppression is smaller then 1933 ... but this particular thing happened.

> Do you think the average MAGA voting is voting to destroy someone else?

Yes. They openly talk about it. And they openly talked about it.

> Or do you think they're voting to improve their lot?

Not much. They are willing to sacrifice own lot for their ideological goals. Per their own words. Also, their voting patterns are NOT consistent with someone who vote to improvw own lot. Their pattern is consistent with someone who vote by values - and value dominating and punishing lesser people.

> Trump sending your neighbour to a death camp

What I'm trying to say is that illegal immigrants just like the Jews are the 'other' the actual group doesn't necessarily overlap with the boogyman. For example trump voters having their partners deported. Yes they wanted to get rid of the illegal immigrants, but that excluded their partners. They were different. The illegal immigrants they were thinking of are the drug smuggling dog eating pedos.

It's reasonable to want to get rid of the drug smuggling pedos, and that's what they think they're doing.

You're trying to inject too much rationality into this. This is the same species that collected beanie babies, that still argue whether the earth is flat, whether 9/11 is a cover-up, whatever meme is popular this week with the kids. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful thing.

> For example trump voters having their partners deported.

I think there were similar surprises for some people back then. Social reality is complex, as can be seen, for example, in the case of J.D. Vance's wife. Every ICE officer would surely like to drag her out of her Porsche Cayenne by her hair and press their knee into her neck. Here in Germany, the shift to the right is being driven by Alice Weidel, among others, who is in a same-sex partnership with a dark-skinned woman who was born in Sri Lanka.

For anti-Semitism in Germany before the Holocaust, I can recommend Robert Musil's novel “The Man Without Qualities.” For me, it was the most insightful look into the social background and conditions that led to the mindset of the time, which later erupted into genocide.

Incidentally, I realize that we are not yet seeing full-scale genocide in the US. But it already has the character of ethnic cleansing, doesn't it? The beginnings were similar here in Germany back then: armed troops harassing people on the streets or taking them away and imprisoning them. Desensitizing and intimidating the general public in this way creates the basis for further escalation.

To me, the psychology is the same. I'm not going to say history will repeat, but to me, as a voter, my main responsibility is to elect someone who respects the process. Trump, like Hitler, fundamentally doesn't, which means there's nothing to stop him.

I just don't think it's helpful to think of these people or their supporters as 'evil'. They are 3 dimensional people. It isn't the skinheads that are the issue, it's your neighbours, it's you.

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