Actually they weren’t. Even at the height of their popularity the Nazis ‘only’ got 39% of the vote. They never had a majority. The reason Hitler got to power was, shocker: the conservatives handed it to him by making him chancellor. They rather worked with fascists than socialists and communists. This is not to say that they liked Hitler, but they figured they could appease him and control him somehow. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? All these people who would ‘never support democrats’ and thereby gave the keys to the kingdom to Donald fucking Trump.
Well, anyway, they couldn’t control him. When Hitler became chancellor the first thing he did was dissolve the Reichstag and pass the Enabling Act, which gave him the power to pass laws by decree (in stead of needing to go through parliament).
Well that was the beginning of the end. In quick succession he removed freedom of the press; he used the Reichstag fire as a reason to suspend the constitution, with the Reichstag Fire Decree, thus taking away civil rights: No more habeas corpus, no more freedom of assembly, no more freedom of expression, no more legal limits on house searches, confiscations, etc. He made unions illegal, he stripped German Jews of their citizenships, he banned all political parties except his own, the list goes on and on.
All of this was done legally. He used to law to turn a relatively progressive republic into a genocidal regime. It can absolutely happen again and it can absolutely happen in the U.S. - we are seeing it happen in real time.
Actually they weren’t. Even at the height of their popularity the Nazis ‘only’ got 39% of the vote. They never had a majority. The reason Hitler got to power was, shocker: the conservatives handed it to him by making him chancellor. They rather worked with fascists than socialists and communists. This is not to say that they liked Hitler, but they figured they could appease him and control him somehow. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? All these people who would ‘never support democrats’ and thereby gave the keys to the kingdom to Donald fucking Trump.
Well, anyway, they couldn’t control him. When Hitler became chancellor the first thing he did was dissolve the Reichstag and pass the Enabling Act, which gave him the power to pass laws by decree (in stead of needing to go through parliament).
Well that was the beginning of the end. In quick succession he removed freedom of the press; he used the Reichstag fire as a reason to suspend the constitution, with the Reichstag Fire Decree, thus taking away civil rights: No more habeas corpus, no more freedom of assembly, no more freedom of expression, no more legal limits on house searches, confiscations, etc. He made unions illegal, he stripped German Jews of their citizenships, he banned all political parties except his own, the list goes on and on.
All of this was done legally. He used to law to turn a relatively progressive republic into a genocidal regime. It can absolutely happen again and it can absolutely happen in the U.S. - we are seeing it happen in real time.