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Most comments about Trump being literally Hitler aren't about Jan 6th. They're about things that he does that look or feel bad. Most/many/all of those things aren't anything even resembling a threat to democracy. Most/many/all of the things people don't like Trump are things that are absolutely legal, supported by about 50% of the population, but they just disagree with. Most are complete nothing burgers, and others are just Trump being a terrible person/politician/statesman/geopolitician. These things are being framed as things that are going to destroy democracy in America.
And I just don't see some losers in plastic Viking helmets running into the Capitol as being comparable to the Night of the Long Knives. And I don't think anybody really sees Hitler in Trump. Hitler was a big person, with grand plans. He was planning the invasion of Russia since 1925 when he published his book. And his book had some serious geopolitical insights. Trump's book is on how to make deals, and he seems to be pretty shit at that. Trump is a small man, with small plans. He's thinking about hotel deals, not Lebensraum.
I will grant that Jan 6th looks bad and makes people worry. I would not categorise almost any other facet of what Trump does as comparable to Hitler or America to Hitler's Germany. The panic that people are experiencing is not commensurate with the person they're worried about, or the reality on the ground. Trump is not going to be the president in a few years, America will continue, the NASDAQ will go up and to the right, and everybody will forget about the cringe tiktoks they were making in 2026.
The Night of the Long Knives happened after Hitler had already mostly consolidated the dictatorship - by that point the only limit to his power was that Hindenberg was still alive. The question is how Jan 6th compares to the stuff the SA were doing around 1930 - i.e. before Hitler seized power. My knowledge of Weimar history isn't detailed enough to give a straight answer. But "We aren't in 1934 Germany" isn't reassuring to someone who is worried about being in 1932 Germany.
More like 1923 Germany, if anything -- even there, at least there were some firefights.
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