Day 143: America Chose This
I remember when, in one of my early poli-sci classes, we covered the rise of Hitlerian fascism in Germany. At the end of the lecture, the most common emotion was one of bewilderment. Why didn't the German people stop Hitler before he led them into the abyss? Why didn't they take Hitler's expressed ideas, as he recorded in detail in Mein Kampf, seriously and end his political career before it started? My professor's answer was brutal in its directness: because the German people wanted what he was selling. To be sure, some did oppose Hitler and even lost their lives due to their opposition, but the majority of the German people reveled in Hitler's vision for a Third Reich . They were on board for the madness, hence why there was never a popular uprising, even after the war turned against Germany. How does a once-rational nation fall into madness? The answer varies depending on the specific situation, of course, but one general principle, as espoused by Plato in Th...