Replies to post #514219 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[BOREALIS]

On Hitler’s Dismantling of Democracy in 53 Days

'Musk and Trump Are Causing the Dumbest Imperial Collapse in History'

Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives
Posted on February 12, 2025 by briansandberg

Ninety years ago a democratically elected leader dismantled a constitutional republic in record time.

This is a good reminder of how constitutional mechanisms can be used to undermine constitutional systems.

On 30 January 1933, “Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means.

What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time,” according to historian Timothy W. Ryback, who is director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague.



Hitler had long been working to subvert the democratic system of Germany’s Weimar Republic. Ryback examines evidence of Hitler’s political methods: “Hans Frank served as Hitler’s private attorney and chief legal strategist in the early years of the Nazi movement. While later awaiting execution at Nuremberg for his complicity in Nazi atrocities, Frank commented on his client’s uncanny capacity for sensing ‘the potential weakness inherent in every formal form of law’ and then ruthlessly exploiting that weakness. Following his failed Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, Hitler had renounced trying to overthrow the Weimar Republic by violent means but not his commitment to destroying the country’s democratic system, a determination he reiterated in a Legalitätseid—’legality oath’—before the Constitutional Court in September 1930. Invoking Article 1 of the Weimar constitution, which stated that the government was an expression of the will of the people, Hitler informed the court that once he had achieved power through legal means, he intended to mold the government as he saw fit. It was an astonishingly brazen statement. ‘So, through constitutional means?’ the presiding judge asked. ‘Jawohl!‘ Hitler replied.”

Ryback describes the gradual erosion of democratic norms in Weimar Germany: “By January 1933, the fallibilities of the Weimar Republic—whose 181-article constitution framed the structures and processes for its 18 federated states—were as obvious as they were abundant. Having spent a decade in opposition politics, Hitler knew firsthand how easily an ambitious political agenda could be scuttled. He had been co-opting or crushing right-wing competitors and paralyzing legislative processes for years, and for the previous eight months, he had played obstructionist politics, helping to bring down three chancellors and twice forcing the president to dissolve the Reichstag and call for new elections.”

“When he became chancellor himself, Hitler wanted to prevent others from doing unto him what he had done unto them. … Hitler had campaigned on the promise of draining the ‘parliamentarian swamp’—den parlamentarischen Sumpf—only to find himself now foundering in a quagmire of partisan politics and banging up against constitutional guardrails. He responded as he invariably did when confronted with dissenting opinions or inconvenient truths: He ignored them and doubled down.”

Hitler acted swiftly. “The next day, Hitler announced new Reichstag elections, to be held in early March, and issued a memorandum to his party leaders. ‘After a thirteen-year struggle the National Socialist movement has succeeded in breaking through into the government, but the struggle to win the German nation is only beginning,’ Hitler proclaimed, and then added venomously: ‘The National Socialist party knows that the new government is not a National Socialist government, even though it is conscious that it bears the name of its leader, Adolf Hitler.’ He was declaring war on his own government.”

As Germany prepared for another election, a massive fire destroyed the Reichstag building on 27 February 1933. Hitler’s government blamed the Communist arsonists for the fire and banned the Communist Party. The National Socialists declared a national emergency and President Paul von Hindenburg signed the emergency provisions into law.

The National Socialists won the election, but only with 44 percent of the vote. It was enough to allow Hitler to form a coalition government and prepare to pass an enabling law.

Hitler’s empowered government acted immediately to take over all state agencies. “The next day, the National Socialists stormed state-government offices across the country. Swastika banners were hung from public buildings. Opposition politicians fled for their lives. Otto Wels, the Social Democratic leader, departed for Switzerland. So did Heinrich Held, the minister-president of Bavaria. Tens of thousands of political opponents were taken into Schutzhaft (‘protective custody’), a form of detention in which an individual could be held without cause indefinitely. … Hindenburg remained silent.”

“On Thursday, March 23, the Reichstag delegates assembled in the Kroll Opera House, just opposite the charred ruins of the Reichstag. … Hitler, dressed now in a brown storm trooper uniform with a swastika armband, arrived to pitch his proposed enabling law, now formally titled the ‘Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Reich.'”

Many centrist and moderate delegates joined with the National Socialists and their allies to pass this enabling law, granting Hitler extraordinary dictatorial powers and effectively ending the Weimar Republic.

“Joseph Goebbels, who was present that day as a National Socialist Reichstag delegate, would later marvel that the National Socialists had succeeded in dismantling a federated constitutional republic entirely through constitutional means. … ‘The big joke on democracy,’ he observed, ‘is that it gives its mortal enemies the means to its own destruction.'”

Historian Timothy W. Ryback’s, “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days,” is published in The Atlantic. Ryback is historian and director of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation in The Hague.

https://brian-sandberg.com/2025/02/12/on-hitlers-dismantling-of-democracy-in-53-days/

[Zorax]

Could Cooper be going too far the other way? It's a pretty strong statement to say because of a small corrupt neo nazi group who stole an election and installed their puppet in a seat of power and are causing chaos and threats that now the entire US can't be trusted. He makes no mention about how the rest of the world is responding in reality. Almost every other power is looking and wondering WTF? And they are also not giving up on the core of America and are standing against this insane orange slug and his billionaire master. Most of the world except for russia, hungary and china, n. korea maybe dubai, do not want America to fall.

Everyone has something to lose should muskrat not be stopped. The world does not trust shittypants and he does not represent what the majority of people and workers of United States has come to represent. The rest of the world knows that the majority of America does not stand with a handful of fascists.

But can America now hope for help from the rest of the world?

[fuagf]

More pushback -- US evangelical groups urge Trump to spare HIV/Aids program from aid cuts

"Musk and Trump Are Causing the Dumbest Imperial Collapse in History
Empires have fallen before. But it’s never been this purely idiotic.
[...]But Trump and Musk are blowing America’s imperial foundations to kingdom come. Take USAID, which as the largest distributor of humanitarian aid in the world, has both done a tremendous amount of good work and also served as a carrot for America’s global predominance—until now. The agency has been all but dismantled, unleashing havoc all over the globe. HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis are now spreading unchecked in many countries reliant on USAID medication, both proving America cannot be trusted and threatening outbreaks of those diseases in the U.S. itself."

Christian organizations helped create Pepfar, credited with preventing 25m early deaths, particularly in Africa

Chris McGreal
Mon 17 Mar 2025 21.00 AEDT


A plaque inside a medical facility in Pretoria shows that it was funded by the United States President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar). Photograph: Phill Magakoe/AFP/Getty Images

Christian evangelical organizations instrumental in creating the US program that has saved millions of lives from HIV/Aids are pressing the Trump administration to rescue the scheme from crushing cuts to foreign assistance.

The state department has said that the two-decade-old President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), which is estimated to have prevented 25m early deaths, is exempt from the cancellation of most US overseas aid. But the program is heavily reliant on logistical support from the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which has seen most of its projects killed off.

Evangelical groups, many of which backed Trump’s election because of abortion policy, say delivery of anti-retroviral medicines (ARVs) funded by the US has all but ground to a halt in some countries, particularly in Africa. They warn that could lead to a resurgence of Aids in parts of the world where it has been brought under control, costing millions of lives.

US shutdown of HIV/Aids funding ‘could lead to 500,000 deaths in South Africa’
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/28/usaid-funding-health-development-hiv-aids-antiretroviral-mothers-lgbt-sex-workers-south-africa

But other evangelical organizations and churches have been accused of staying silent in defense of what has been described as one of the most successful foreign aid programs in US history for political reasons because so many of their members support Trump.

Emily Chambers Sharpe, health director at World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, said that healthcare centers and hospitals in different parts of Africa report that “the supply chain for HIV as a whole has been very badly damaged” by the aid cuts.

“When Pepfar was up for reauthorization we, as World Relief, have supported it every time. We see it as really overarchingly a pro-life program in that it promotes the life-saving need for HIV treatment, which many of us in the field have called The Lazarus Effect,” she said.

“When you get someone on antiretroviral therapy, you see them literally be able to come back to life. And now we know if you’re on antiretroviral therapy, you can even prevent the spread of the virus to others so it’s not just life-saving for you, it can be life-saving for loads of other people.”

Chambers Sharpe criticised what she called a “lack of transparency” within the state department about cuts to USAid and its impact on Pepfar.

Galen Carey, vice-president of government relations at the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which has backed some of Trump’s policies while also criticizing its harsh treatment of refugees as unChristian, called on the administration to save Pepfar before it is too late.

“We’re encouraging the administration to get the program back up to full speed as soon as possible,” he said.

Carey said “there’s quite a bit of concern in Congress because Pepfar has been a very popular bipartisan program” but he added that it has been caught up in the broader assault on foreign aid.

About 20 million people are reliant on medicines supplied by Pepfar mostly in Africa and parts of Asia. Some countries, such as Nigeria, depend on Pepfar for almost all their HIV funding. Others are less reliant but Pepfar still provides crucial health infrastructure because its clinics frequently employ medical staff who treat other conditions as part of the broader programme of combatting Aids.

Matthew Loftus, a doctor and evangelical Christian working at a mission hospital in Kenya, said the damage was already being done on the ground. He said that Pepfar “is being dismantled” and that “many people will die” as a result.

‘Disruptive, unfair and cruel’: jobs lost and treatment stopped as USAid freeze hits HIV care in Zimbabwe
Read more > https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/14/usaid-freeze-hits-hiv-aids-care-in-zimbabwe

“In some places they’re not getting the drugs or they’re being asked to pay cash for the drugs. Other places are completely closed and so patients are scrambling to find medications or they’re going without,” he said.

“There are going to be consequences. Once you stop taking ARVs, within days the virus can come back online and then start developing resistance. I’m really scared that there are going to be a bunch of people who haven’t been taking their drugs and then, when we try to start them back, we’re going to find that they’re resistant. They could turn everything back on tomorrow and I think there would be permanent damage. Once you fire people and close clinics, rebuilding trust is difficult, getting people to come back is difficult.”

Evangelical Christian groups were instrumental in persuading President George W Bush to launch Pepfar in 2004. Carey said churches saw it not only as a pro-life position but an opportunity to promote their values.

“When I first went to Africa in 1997, an HIV-positive diagnosis was basically a death sentence. It was devastating. Many pastors spent much of their time conducting funerals. Driving along main roads in Kenya you would see shop after shop selling coffins,” he said.

“Over time, it really turned around in a dramatic way. The stories that came out of caring for orphans and helping local churches and promoting Christian understanding of sexual morality and faithfulness in marriage was an important piece of the puzzle since a lot of the transmission was through sexual contact. It fitted in with our broader concerns, both pro-life and pro-family.”

A change of heart by the acerbic segregationist senator, Jesse Helms, brought on a lot of conservative support by shifting the US narrative around Aids away from sexual morality.

In 2003, the rock star Bono told Helms that Aids had created 10 million orphans in Africa and that the lives of newborn babies could be saved by a single dose of a medicine that limited the transmission of HIV from mother to child. Helms was persuaded that Aids relief was a pro-life position and opened the door to congressional support for Pepfar.

Loftus has seen the impact of the programme on the ground in Kenya.


A child sits as a nurse prepares to dispense antiretroviral drugs at the Nyumbani Children’s Home, in Nairobi, Kenya, which is supported by Pepfar. Photograph: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

“Most HIV-positive patients I see are patients whose viral load is completely suppressed and they are coming to the hospital for a different problem. When I do see someone who dies of HIV-related illness, it’s just another tragedy because now it’s completely preventable,” he said.

“I hear stories from older missionaries. They talk about wards full of people with Aids, dying all the time. That’s part of the fear looking ahead. If these programmes don’t survive, what are we going to go back to?”

The call to save Pepfar has been joined by a range of religious groups, including the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. But Loftus said that, as an evangelical, he was concerned that many churches are not speaking up in support of the initiative, even though they have in the past, because it would mean criticising Trump.

“People I talk to are aggrieved about this. It is challenging the way that churches follow political trends rather than the other way around,” he said.

“Some churches are not as eager to put their necks out and advocate for something that seems to be opposed by some of the people in power. I think churches and Christians who are politically active are not aware of what’s at stake, and many of them are probably consuming news in an environment that isn’t even bringing it up as an issue. But I think also that there is this conflict now between our convictions versus who’s in charge and who do we want to please?”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/hiv-aids-pepfar-christians-trump