Susan Silver
Sep 2, 2018 · 3 min read

A NEW FASCISM QUIZ

A brilliant but frightening book appeared in 2016. It’s called Hitler Ascent 1889–1939 by Volker Ullrich, German historian.

I started to read it, but had to stop. The obvious parallels to America today were too upsetting. And now, almost two years in, as the Administration has bombarded us with daily horrors, provoking others to see the comparison (that we’re not supposed to mention) I grabbed my massively underlined copy, and I present my argument to you herein. Read it and weep…but don’t tell me there is no comparison!

I write it in the form of a Quiz. “Who Said It, Or Was It Said About?”The “real Fuhrer,” Adolph Hitler, or the wanna-be dictator, Donald Trump?

The answers are below. Don’t cheat!

1.) How do we explain how someone with so few intellectual gifts and social attributes…could nevertheless have such an immense historical impact, could make the entire world hold its breath? He was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognise the difference between lies and truth.

2.) His father was a strict, short-tempered patriarch who demanded unquestioning respect and obedience from his children.

3.) Re architecture: The bold urban developer…cocooned himself in a bizarre, alternative world somewhere between dream and reality.

4.) He had a talent for putting his experiences into words — even if he had not quite overcome his poor spelling and punctuation.

5.) As long as the earth has existed, no people have ever been forced to declare themselves willing to sign such a shameful treaty.

6.) Who cares whether they laugh at us or insult us treating us as fools or criminals?…The point is that they talk about us and constantly think about us.

7.) He adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower- middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvanistic… listeners. Present day was ”only decline and decay.”

8.) If she were twenty years older and I was twenty years younger…

9.) You could see the confidence he’d gained from his public appearances in his eyes. Nonetheless, there was still something gauche about him, and you had the unpleasant feeling that he could sense you had noticed it and held that against you.

10.) He was now declared a “political messiah” ..he alone would save the country.

11.) He seems to have only paid a fraction of his taxes.

12.) There were “repeated opportunities to end his run of triumphs.” However, he “had announced exactly what he would do if he came to power.

BONUS QUESTION:
13.) His hands were nervous, delicate and almost feminine.

ANSWERS: I TRICKED YOU!
All of the above were about or said by Hitler…and yet..they all applyperfectly to #45ish…as I call him!

#8 is complicated as it was said about Goebbels’ daughter and Hitler’s feelings about her….and yet its almost exact as to what Trump said about….NOT Tiffany.

I give great thanks to Volker Ullrich for his extraordinary compendium inHitler Ascent. I wish I could complete it but I’m afraid to see how it turns out! (Actually, I do know some history, having worked with two Holocaust Organizations and never would trivialize the memory. I am just trying to shout out a warning as really knowledegable others are now doing more and more. #

Susan Silver, former TV writer of shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Newhart, Maude, does a weekly radio commentary for NPR affiliate, WHDD, Robinhoodradio, called “Susan Says” which deals with politics, media and things that piss her off. Like this.

Susan Silver

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A former TV writer for shows like Mary Tyler Moore,Bob Newhart, Partridge Family, I have published my memoir;Hot Pants in Hollywood: Sex, Secrets & Sitcoms.