Germany in the early 1930's:
OR, America 2008??
Interesting parallels in history. As usual.
- Politically inexperienced, naive, radical left wing politician espousing equal rights, peace, prosperity with a promise for hope and change.
- The "Messiah" complex; blindly devoted followers of the candidate who really don't understand the issues, nor care to.
- The use of policies of appeasement as political promises or to obtain political goals, in a world with predefined and real, national threats.
- Focus on the candidate's mixed racial heritage, and using it for political purposes.
- The use of adoring gullible and unwary youth to help seize power.
- Overabundance and over creation of staging, ceremonies, and comparisons to past glorious empires.
- Exhibitions of or tolerance of antisemitism.
- The use of pure appeal to emotions of the electorate.
- Support of the press to the point of avoiding serious evaluations of the candidate.
- Failure on the part of the candidate to properly display true feelings, beliefs, and promises.
- Supporters who are proud of their country only when people support their candidate's bid for power.
- Promises to clamp down on big businesses and the wealthy.
- Promises to the lower classes to end the class struggle.
- Government bail out of banks to help support an ailing economy.
- Falling value of the nation's currency.
- Increasing inflation.
- Loss of homes and businesses due to economic conditions.
- Post war recession.
- The use of promises to help the poor and downtrodden who have been crushed by industrialists and evil corporations.
- Accusations towards political opponents claiming that they wished to increase the wealth gap between rich and poor.
- Using idealism to gain control of the young, old and lower classes.
- Pervasive and constant advertising imagery of candidate.
- Perception of creating a youth dominated culture.
- Making different opponents appear to be of the same ilk; using said perceptions to destroy political opponents.
- Voter fraud and coercion.
- Under-handed political moves to destroy political opponents.
- Penchant for eliminating undesirables to the point of murder.
- Candidate who strongly advocates strict gun control and universal health care.
- Candidate who strongly extolls the virtues and advancement of increased government control.
- Supportive strong arm groups using coercion for political success.
- Friends and supporters with strong socialist and left leaning ties.
- Candidate who wrote two meaningless and irrelevant books and used them to propel his candidacy.
- Use of groups to illegally impact voting system.
- Use of government databases to destroy political opponents and others who might negatively impact the candidates rise to power.
- Unauthorized paramilitary type groups that interfere with political processes.
OR, America 2008??
Interesting parallels in history. As usual.
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