Are We Seeing a 1930s Weimar Era Deviousness in America’s Current Rightwing Political Drama? The Endgame Seems Similar: Authoritarian Dictatorship, Putsch and All

 The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old, beginning from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the shapes and directions of American politics and culture, with occasional comments on the potential impact of new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted. 

Prologue: Why does American politics under Trump since a year before his 2016 presidential election, and after he lost in 2020, continue to resemble ithe drama and craziness of Hitler's drunken-walk caryings-on through German politics of 1920-1933?. Trump's shouts  of 'foul-play' for losing the 2020 election, seem to mirror the drama of Germany in those times.

-----

After the unsuccessful Jan6, 2022 attempted putsch, which so far appears to be a thing of history, America’s democratic preference to let bygones be gone…, now has a breath of clean air in President Joseph Biden, who is an experienced Washington politician (Senator, 2-term Vice President, and family man). President Biden has steadied the American ship of State, though the media, right and left, quite readily have targeted his policy and even personal qualities.

Kurt von Schleicher was Hitler’s ‘fixer’ who orchestrated der Fuhrer’s decade-long rise to Chancellor (1933) after his 1924 imprisonment for sedition and attempted putsch of the Weimar Republic. Von Schleicher’s spider-webbed schemes on behalf of HItler are close to Machiavelli’s darkest political maneuverings. (But it wasn’t at all just about Hitler, the intention was to use Hitler to springboard a cabal of Germany’s industry-autocrat,..aristocrat-militarist elite into total authoritarian rule under a military head.) 

In this current era, it appears that von Scleicher has been resurrected in the Steve Bannon — William Barr duo who almost pulled off a 1933 style game play in the 2022 midterms except that the Democrat vote was even more the majority (8 million plurality) than in 2016 presidential election when Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by 3 million votes. Now, Bannon-Barr have been replaced by the Department of Justice’s new head, Merrick Garland, a methodical legalist whose style appears to be an unbiased adherence to Constitutional principles. Garland’s style at times appears frustratingly slow (America’s collective psyche prefers quick action), but in the end solid evidence and near-faultless case closures have consistently advanced his legal pursuit of justice for Trump-and-compny’s political injustices..

Garland is an important bright spot in America’s recovery after the Trump presidency and attempted putsch.

Garland uses Democracy to defend Democracy, instead of a Bannonist exploitation of Democratic principles, through clever wordplay, to promote authoritarian rule (Bannon and Barr Trumpism… and ‘others’ whose roles are yet to come into view…but their shadows are appearing in the distant fog).

Bannon is still, even under the threat of long-term incarceration, playing the role of Hitler’s ‘Kurt von Schleicher’, a 1930s German aristocrat (plutocrat) whose political ‘game’ attempted to use Hitler as an intermediary to replace constitutional government with an authoritarian miliary-dictatorship.

Of course, it can be seen that Trump, like his literary-historical mentor, Hitler, even facing possible incarceration or at least heavy political condemnation and possibly social exile, should not yet be counted out. Trump’s “Brown Shirt’ street thug supporters, the MAGA crowd, are still active, and the recent November midterm elections did not remove America’s government from being in danger by a rightwing takeover…as evidenced by the Supreme Court’s increasing open association with extreme right-wing industrial-political groups.

In coming acts of American political drama, there are reasons to expect that the current Trumpist supporters such as Bannon will be trampled under the wheels of Trump disfavor … Trump is a ‘Natural’ for the role of a Neo-Hitler…even to the point of promoting the unsuccessful Jan 6 ‘putsch’.

But, as for who or what group is pulling the strings for America’s right-wing players, the picture is yet incomplete… but shadows are now coming into focus. 

Elon Musk , the mega-entrepeneur, is one candidate to be added to that potential list of hopeful autocrats who would rule America like a gang-boss. (Although, Musk is a successful entrepreneur, his time at the political right-center stage is most likely a temporary red-Herring, the exploitation of a politically buffoonish savant.)

We will see what things take shape as this play goes forth.

PUTIN'S SPECIAL UKRAINE OPERATION: HE CONTINUES TO DIG DEEPER INTO A HELLISH PIT, AND WINTER IS HERE!

The Perched Eye blog is 12+ years old, beginning from 2009 with President Obama's election. Our focus has been eclectic ...  the shapes and directions of American politics and culture, with occasional comments on the potential impact of new technologies. Pericles21's observations sometimes attract a critical eye, but the 'pen' remains unblunted. 

Putin’s Ukraine debacle has turned into a more giant flop than it looked 2 weeks into his February 24, 2022 "Special Operation" (i.e., the invasion of Ukraine). 

And, Putin's big 'Fail', it seems, is because he did not see how fully he had already conquered his demons (the fearful anxiety from the days of the French-speaking Russian court that Russia was inadequate when compared to western civilization, i.e., that Russia wasn't really 'western' enough..just as Russia wasn't really Asian enough to play marbles with China.)

But despite the good position Russia was in domestically, internationally, and economically...and getting better with every barrel and liter of crude oil and gas that were flowing through the pipelines from Russia's Artic oil fields to Europe ... Putin still made an ill-conceived move that has substantially damaged Russia's global political and economic goodwill (and stability) built up since 1990. 

Putin set in motion a downhill rolling of a heretofore magically expanding, social-economic-political snowball full of riches. Things have steadily worsened since the Special Ukraine Operation began..

But Putin's latest move is perhaps more disastrous than the others that came before - his so-called "mobilization" of "300,000" patriotic fighters (read, 'untrained and physically doubtful') to go immediately to the Ukraine battlefront...often with just a few days of 'training', and badly equipped with WW2 (or even WW1) rifles...and virtually no winter clothing. (Conscripts have been 'asked' to shop for essential battlefield equipment themselves or funded by their families!)

I predicted the lack of training and support for these patriots in my September 21, 2022, post (UKRAINE: THE LAMENT OF NEW RUSSIAN CONSCRIPTS) ... which was a very truncated (arrogant even?) prediction of a disaster,... for the conscripts. But I was not prepared for the truth as it turned out. From that post: 

"The lament of a new Russian conscript headed for Ukraine — cotton shirt and pants (& winter’s coming), sneakers, a canteen of meth-laced weak tea, a WW2/1 rifle, and 30 bullets… you won’t last long enough to even use that. But, 'Rodina'."

But there is more. Putin's Problem is not just his current failures in Ukraine.

While Putin is virtually an absolute ruler, his absolute powers have led to a grandiosely myopic complacency that has prevented him and his generals from modernizing their leadership styles and especially updating Russia's political-military strategies and objectives. Russia has failed especially in keeping current with the tactical field operations of the Russian military itself. 

Combine these failures with the FACT that for the last 30 years or so, Russia’s generals and officer elite have been willing, if not initiating, factors in selling Russian technology and military equipment on the global black market. This has made the Russian army a paper mache' Tiger that in reality is a carnival ask made of gum wrappers and old rubber bands.

In terms of economics, Putin nearly had it all but threw it all away...the fox was in the hen house but greedily pounced too soon and for no good reason. 

Up until February 24, 2022, with his "Special Ukraine Operation," Putin had won Russia's 21st-century war - an economic, political-energy resource-intelligence dominance over the western world, including manipulating the political clockworks of America itself. 

Did Putin fail to recognize how fully he had conquered his demons? The answer has to be, "Yes". Western Europe was dependent on Russian fossil energy, the Russian people were pacified by the commercial detente that brought McDonald’s into their world at home, and perhaps the best of everything was that Russia’s satellites were happy, or at least not terribly unhappy, being commercial partners with what they thought was Putin’s modern leadership based on enlightened economic partnerships.  

In February 2022, Putin’s stupid invasion of Ukraine swiftly erased much, if not all goodwill (and apparent stability) built up since 1990. 

But Russia's loss of face and respect happened so swiftly that it raises QUESTIONS as to what exactly was happening underneath the Russian mask?  (we have a good idea that there was all along much less than we thought, or feared.). The big question now is, "will, or can Putin save his, and Russia's skin?"