• Hacksaw@lemmy.ca
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      14 days ago

      It’s actually exactly like the SA, the Nazi paramilitary force before the SS. The SA was composed entirely of thugs empowered to beat up “the opposition”, secure rallies, and secure elections (intimidate). The SA was purged in “the night of long knives” as soon as Hitler got real political power because an extrajudicial group of armed thugs is a huge liability when you’re the one in power. The people who did the purging were mostly police and government officials who were loyal to Hitler, and they later became the SS.

      It’s a fascinating and terrifying history because Trump is a Hitler fanatic and he clearly plans to use his Maga thugs to gain power then purge them as soon as they’re a liability to him.

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      The SS was composed of a bunch of junior officers and German police already deeply embedded in the Hindenburg government.

      This headline makes it sound like Trump is going to deputize a bunch of terminally online cranks, which sounds like more of a SovCit tier grift than a serious policy. Far more disturbing would be Trump doing what we’ve already seen other state and municipal leaders allow during the BLM marches and the pro-Palestine college protests. Telling the cops, the state troopers, and the national guard to go wild, then blaming the civilians for all the damage that follows.

      I could very easily see Trump signing off on an EO that says you can’t prosecute the police for… anything, really. Then Red-State Republicans goading their officers to go ham on the blue cities, while the national press treats the general police brutality as some kind of War on Crime. Courts squelch any kind of civil liabilities for the police. Liberals get clubbed into submission. Centrists denounce “both sides” (but so as not to offend conservatives in any way). Conservatives go full sicko-mode because they can.

      Its less like The SS and more like Israeli Settler Movement. Some AM Talk Radio guy saying we need to “Squash the Bugs” and you end up with shit like what’s happening in The West Bank, as settlers club Palestinian locals in the street and the Israeli police fire on any Palestinian that resists.

      • whoisearth@lemmy.ca
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        14 days ago

        Its less like The SS and more like Israeli Settler Movement. Some AM Talk Radio guy saying we need to “Squash the Bugs” and you end up with shit like what’s happening in The West Bank, as settlers club Palestinian locals in the street and the Israeli police fire on any Palestinian that resists.

        History doesn’t repeat but it sure as shit rhymes