Trump Redux: The Death of Democracy, or Overblown Hyperbole?

[Buck_Mulligan]

Latest WaPo headline.

White House puts USAID officials on leave after they refused Musk allies access. Musk called the agency a 'criminal organization.'
The Trump administration has removed two top security officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development, the world's largest provider of food assistance, after they refused to let representatives of Elon Musk access restricted material. The move gives Musk and his allies control of the agency, which they have denigrated without evidence.

[degrassiknoll]

I think you're out ahead of your ski's with that last sentence.

I'm sorry, I thought we were in the hyperbole thread

[Lexi Darling]

We're working on the assumption that this is a Nazi regime. You can call them whatever you want to call them. Do you believe Trump is going to do the same thing here? Build/open new camps for the purpose of mass murder.

Also the election question.

Your original question asked about concentration camps. Those are distinct from death camps, and I assumed you meant what you typed. The nazis had both of those types of camps. Do I think the use of concentration and internment camps that is currently occurring will eventually escalate to death camps a la the Final Solution? I wouldn't rule it out, but if it does happen I think it's likely that, like in Nazi Germany, those camps' existence will not be publicly available knowledge.

I can't really comment on any predictions of the likelihood of stuff like this happening; a month ago I couldn't have fathomed the speed at which the administration is pushing policies to dismantle the government and persecute marginalized groups. I'll honestly just say, I don't want to think an American Auschwitz could happen, but at this point it feels like all bets are off re: what could happen in the next 4+ years.

[jimmy jazz]

OK, thanks for answering.

[SGR]

I think it's likely that, like in Nazi Germany, those camps' existence will not be publicly available knowledge.

I had to double check to be sure, but I believe if we're talking about the American public, newspapers at the time (before WW2 was over) reported on the extermination going on at camps. Of course, it wasn't until the war was over that people really learned about the scope. A couple sources.

Public Understanding of the Holocaust, From WWII to Today

In the summer of 1944, the New York Times ran reports on the mass killing of Jewish people under the Nazis. In November of that year, 76% of Americans in a Gallup poll said they believed the stories that Germans had murdered many people in concentration camps. When respondents were asked to estimate the number of people who had been killed in these camps, however, it was clear that the extent of the atrocity was not yet understood. While 33% refused to venture a guess, 36% thought the number killed was under 100,000, 8% between 100,000 and 1,000,000, and 24% thought a million or more. By May of 1945, more of the public had come to accept the truth of what had happened, though some still held doubts. Eighty-four percent of Americans in a Gallup poll said they believed reports that the Germans had killed many people in concentration camps or let them starve to death. In this poll, the median estimate of the number killed in the camps was 1 million, still far below the actual numbers as estimated by today's historians.

THE UNITED STATES AND THE HOLOCAUST, 1942–45

On November 25, 1942, many American newspapers published reports that 2 million Jews already had been murdered. The World Jewish Congress's representative in Switzerland, Gerhart Riegner, had tried to report this information to his organization's president, Rabbi Stephen Wise, in August 1942, sending a message through the US State Department. State Department officials at first tried to block Riegner's report from reaching Rabbi Wise. They claimed that the planned murder of European Jews was merely a "war rumor." Yet after investigating Riegner's report over the next three months, State Department officials verified the news of the Nazi regime's plan, and, according to Wise, authorized him to inform the American public. 

In response to this news, Jewish communities in many Allied nations held rallies and vigils, and declared Wednesday, December 2, 1942, to be an international day of mourning. The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and nine Allied governments released a "Declaration on Atrocities" on December 17, 1942.  This declaration condemned the "bloody cruelties" and "cold-blooded extermination" of Europe's Jews and vowed that the Allies would punish war criminals after the fighting stopped. It made no promise to initiate rescue efforts.

[jimmy jazz]

Wonder what the results would be if you polled people now and asked them that same question.

Reckon 'Believe True' would be down to around 60%.

[Lexi Darling]

@SGR It's true that people had some idea of what was going on, yes. My intention was to reference the German citizens rather than Americans, but good point. As far as I've read, the Nazis did certainly make an effort to conceal or disguise the exact details and scope of what was going on in the death camps, though as far as I am aware it's also somewhat of a point of contention to what extent the German citizens knew. I think it was probably more of an open secret by the times of the Final Solution and I could certainly imagine in the aftermath of the war that some Germans were less willing to own up to how much they knew. I've heard it posited both ways.

I think it's also probably important to note that they didn't have the internet in the 40s; it feels to me like it would be harder to really hide that kind of thing nowadays, though I still wouldn't rule it out. Realistically it would probably happen on a much smaller scale than in Nazi Germany, but I don't believe for a second that systematically killing trans people or disabled people or migrants would be a depth that a portion of MAGA wouldn't plunge. Even now they're already responsible for ordering or threatening less direct forms of violence like HRT bans and the cutting off of medical services for people with HIV.

[degrassiknoll]

I can't really comment on any predictions of the likelihood of stuff like this happening; a month ago I couldn't have fathomed the speed at which the administration is pushing policies to dismantle the government and persecute marginalized groups.

Quoting you because you said it but not as a personal attack or criticism or judgement or anything else other than illustrating the point at which I was like "oh, I have something to add here" and this preemptive explanation is not even for you because I know you get it but for everyone else that will want to say I am being such a bully:

I don't get this thing about being surprised by the swiftness and the multitudes of orders going out - I thought we were all on the same page a WHILE ago that the relentless fearmongering and divisiveness and 24-hr news cycle shit has always been about wearing us out and making us complacent and exhausted and disorganized because that's the most affective way to control a population?

Like isn't this textbook shit? I swear we were talking about this being an inevitability for years but now that it's here folks (NOT POINTED AT LEXI) are surprised to see it taking place? What am *I* missing? Is it just like, shock to see it in real time? Or hope that it wouldn't actually get to this point? (Genuinely asking and would be saying all of this same shit regardless of whether Lexi got me on this train of thought or someone else did.)

[Trollheart]

Can't speak for others*, but I think in my case it can be described this way:

Before inauguration day:
Person: This shit is going to happen
Me: Yeah, maybe but I really hope not
Person: No, it will. You wait and see.
Me: Yeah but it's not going to be like day one is it?
Person: I think it will
Me: Nah I can't see that.

-----
Day One
Person: See? I told you!
Me: Oh fuck! I just did not expect this so fast!

In other words, yes, somewhere deep down we all feared, perhaps even knew this was on the agenda, but we didn't WANT to believe it. Then it's only when you can't disregard the evidence of your own eyes that you HAVE to believe it.

It's just like anything else (not to trivialise it in any way, but to correlate the examples) that you think can't happen, and then it does. A factory shutting down, or even someone you love dying. You probably know it will happen, you hope it won't, and when reality shows you the truth you have to accept it but are still shocked.

Sometimes it's just hard to believe that your worst fears have come true, even if you knew deep down they were going to.

* Yes I'm aware of the irony of that statement, given what some people have said about me.

[SGR]

Wonder what the results would be if you polled people now and asked them that same question.

Reckon 'Believe True' would be down to around 60%.

Probably a little bit of an underestimate for Americans, but we're getting there. As this somewhat recent YouGov poll demonstrates, blame the zoomers - 20% of them believe the holocaust is a myth.



But as I often point to in discussions about politics or, more recently, music, I'd lay much of the blame on technology, our media ecosystem, and social media. Attention spans are diminishing and our collective understanding of history is slowly diminishing as well. One survey found that around half of Americans couldn't even name a single Nazi camp.

When asked to name concentration camps, killing centers (death camps), killing sites, transit camps or ghettos, nearly half (48%) of Americans could not name a single one of the more than 40,000 camps established during World War II. One-quarter of adults in the U.K., France and Romania, and 26% of all respondents, could not name a single camp or ghetto, while in Germany and Hungary it was 18%, in Austria 10%, and in Poland 7%. Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known camp or ghetto.

I'd imagine that if you can't even recall the name of a single Nazi concentration/death camp, it would become much easier to be persuaded to believe that the Holocaust was either exaggerated, or a myth completely.

[Lexi Darling]

Quoting you because you said it but not as a personal attack or criticism or judgement or anything else other than illustrating the point at which I was like "oh, I have something to add here" and this preemptive explanation is not even for you because I know you get it but for everyone else that will want to say I am being such a bully:

I don't get this thing about being surprised by the swiftness and the multitudes of orders going out - I thought we were all on the same page a WHILE ago that the relentless fearmongering and divisiveness and 24-hr news cycle shit has always been about wearing us out and making us complacent and exhausted and disorganized because that's the most affective way to control a population?

Like isn't this textbook shit? I swear we were talking about this being an inevitability for years but now that it's here folks (NOT POINTED AT LEXI) are surprised to see it taking place? What am *I* missing? Is it just like, shock to see it in real time? Or hope that it wouldn't actually get to this point? (Genuinely asking and would be saying all of this same shit regardless of whether Lexi got me on this train of thought or someone else did.)

For me I'd say probably the shock of seeing it happen in front of my eyes over the course of a few days and hundreds of executive orders, yeah.

It's not that I didn't consider the possibility that they would blitz it like this, I guess part of me was still just having an existential grapple with reality, a part of me that was still just kind of in disbelief that everything I knew about America was now in free fall. Seeing it happen so audaciously, brazenly and on a scale pretty indisputably worse than 2017, plus so many democrats, companies and media so quickly capitulating, it's been traumatizing.

[SGR]

If you want to win the next election after you've lost the last one you have to just suck it up and get to work. Complaining about the winners may make you feel good, but is a waste of time and energy. Fight back with better politics and policies.

Here's a blog post that was written long before the election, July 17, 2024. It outlines 19 areas where the Ds were losing out to the Rs in understanding the "vibe shift" in US politics. I don't agree with all but you can see that others easily might. It's a partial work order for the Ds.

In an NYT column Jan. 19, 2025 Ezra Klein referenced this blog post and acknowledged it as one of the most prescient.

Here's the original blog post, and the full NYT article.

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/07/the-changes-in-vibes-why-did-they-happen.html


https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/01/ezra-klein-on-the-vibe-shift.html

https://archive.ph/d8lp3

I should also note that Tyler Cowen is a Libertarian academic economist, very much of the "intellectual" class.
See point #7 in his post where he notes that people don't like being ruled by people like him.

I agree with the general sentiment of the post. Democrats need to rebound and regroup - the difficult part of that right now is that they don't even have a clear leader anymore (and even Obama doesn't have the influence or party fealty that he once had) - that, along with continued in-fighting between the more establishment neoliberal faction and the progressives, has a lot to do with why they lost. Here's a recent poll about who voters would support in the Dem primary, for example - Stephen A. Smith...really? (many conservatives have taken to mocking the high numbers Kamala gets, but that's just recency bias - it's nothing out of the ordinary and will change with time):

https://x.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1884772250873688325

Of course, this doesn't really apply to the people who post here, who are free to air their grievances and concerns about everything and anything - they're not in charge of the direction of the Democrat opposition or messaging after all, and some of them aren't even eligible to do so (not Americans).

But yes, more broadly, the Democrats as a party need to do some self-reflection about why they lost, specifically why so many demographics shifted in Trump's direction. Too many, some even here, have been content with simply blaming the voters - that won't teach you anything nor does it provide an obligation to change/improve and do better next time. It of course reminds me of the old Simpsons gag with Principal Skinner:

[jimmy jazz]

Probably a little bit of an underestimate for Americans, but we're getting there. As this somewhat recent YouGov poll demonstrates, blame the zoomers - 20% of them believe the holocaust is a myth.

Yep noticed this myself. There is a generation of people who are becoming very unsympathetic to Jewish people (putting it mildly) and it's just gone through the roof since October 7th 2023. Maybe TikTok is full of shit and they're getting it from there, regardless I see enough of it on Twitter.

[Marie Monday]

yep. it's really very grim

[DJChameleon]

What about concentration camps, do you think those are coming?

There are several states building detention centers currently.

The Texas General Land Office is offering President-elect Donald Trump a 1,400-acre Starr County ranch as a site to build detention centers for his promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a letter the office sent him Tuesday.

https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/19/texas-border-starr-county-ranch-trump-deportation/

The incoming Trump administration is considering locations and talking to private prison companies about drastically expanding immigrant detention centers that would hold immigrants before they are deported as part of President-elect Donald Trump's promised mass deportation plan, two sources familiar with the planning told NBC News.

The goal is to double the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention beds — 41,000 are now allocated by Congress — to hold vast numbers of migrants for short periods of time while they await deportation after their arrests inside the U.S., the sources said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/incoming-trump-admin-eyeing-new-immigrant-detention-centers-major-us-c-rcna179843