2020, Hold My Beer

 

A German representative has reportedly compared the storming of the Capitol building two days ago to the Reichstag fire. 

The analogy seems eerily apt.

The historical suspicion, of course, is that the Reichstag fire was set by the Nazis themselves to give Hitler the excuse to seize absolute power. Which he did.

So, if you want to call the current rumors and claims that agents provocateurs were involved in the storming of the Capitol, and, for that matter, in the Black Lives Matter riots last summer, a conspiracy theory, you need to acknowledge that similar conspiracies have been real, and successful, in the past. And indeed there are videos of the crowd trying to restrain people breaking windows, and of the police seeming to deliberately open a barrier to let protestors in.

Whether or not they were complicit, voices on the left seem to be responding aggressively. We hear immediate demands for a more authoritarian regime. Trump has been thrown off Twitter and other social media. Many are calling the storming of Congress “treason,” and “an attempted coup.” Implying the death penalty for all involved. Others are demanding the arrest of Trump’s lawyers. Alexandria Ocasia-Cortez has demanded that any supporters of Trump be expelled from the House and Senate. Just as Hitler used the Reichstag fire to have the Communist deputies expelled to secure his majority.

China has already gone Fascist. The US seems to be close behind. 

China and the US are infinitely more significant military, economic, and cultural powers than Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. It begins to look as though the 1930s were just a dress rehearsal for the main event.