Joy Ann Reid: ‘Like Trump, Hitler Was Also Viewed as a Clown, a Goon Who Could Be Kept in Line’

Reid: “And we begin tonight with fascism and how it takes root. Now, it isn’t usually a dramatic storm-the-palace coup like we saw on January 6th. It’s more often a deal, a bargain between the would-be dictator and the establishment, both political and media, who believe that wielding actual political power will take him — it’s usually what we often — will actually tame him, I should say. It’s actually what we often get wrong about fascism. In describing the connections between inter-war Europe and the present-day U.S., scholar John Ganz writes, ‘We have this image in our heads of the fascist rise to power that comes from fascist propaganda, but it is much more political than that.’ In review of the Ganz’s new book in The American Prospect, Rick Perlstein also notes the crucial role of ‘responsible conservatives’ who made their peace with the strongman, believing he could be controlled. Perlstein recalls Germany’s Vice Chancellor Papen, the architect of the 1933 coalition that made Adolph Hitler the chancellor. When the people around Papen voiced their concerns about putting Hitler in power, Papen said, ‘In two months, we’ll have pushed Hitler so far into the corner that he’ll squeal.’ There’s also the phenomenon of the elites who become supplicants of the fascist leader, forgetting they ever had any concerns at all. Remember what Lindsay Graham tweeted back in 2016, when Trump was still an outlier in the party? I do. Quote, ‘If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed. And we will deserve it.’ When Trump won the White House anyway, Graham got busy reducing himself to a MAGA footstool in the U.S. Senate. Proximity to power will do that. Like Trump, Hitler was also viewed as a clown, a goon who could be kept in line. And then there are the accommodations that the media makes with autocracy. In November 1922, New York Times gave its readers their first glimpse of Hitler, it was a profile of the fascist leader’s early rise in Bavaria in Germany. They got a key point very wrong, asserting that ‘Hitler’s anti-Semitism was not so violent or genuine as it sounded.’ Before he rose to power, Hitler staged a coup known as the Beer Hall Putsch. It was a coup that failed. Sound familiar? Hitler went to prison for it, but the failed coup set the stage for Nazi Germany. And when he was freed from prison, just over a year after the failed putsch, the Times offered this unfortunate and incorrect assessment, that Hitler had been tamed by prison. The next year, ‘Mein Kampf’ was published. So much of this sounds familiar. And believe me, I wish it didn’t. The same thing happened with a lot of other autocrats. The establishment thinks they can be controlled and poof, they’re stuck with them. The thought that these men could be tamed is what we’re seeing right now in the presidential election year, where politicians, journalists and voters speak of a dangerous person getting reigned in once back in power. And those who are legitimately afraid of this outcome are being quiet about it.”