Monday, April 19, 2021

Was Hitler An Asshole?


 Adolf the Asshole

Was Hitler an asshole say the way Trump is? Trump is just an asshole. Product of historical forces, Hegels's world historical figure, blah blah. Numerous post-mortems will be performed in which Mary Trump and others will provide analysis of his psyche, but asshole is just a better a more global word to describe him. Hitler similarly is and was the subject of all manner of analysis by the OSS (who produced psychohistories of their opponents). However, forget about whether he was a failed artist, or had a relationship with his half-niece Geil Raubal, who was l9 years his junior, that ended in her suicide. Trump’s hardline aid Stephen Miller is almost a computer printout of the kind of bloviating idiot whose talents are effectively deployed by autocrats. When and if Trump departs the earth Miller will surely find employment in Poland, Brazil or Hungry. Tyrants like Jair Bolsanaro are attracted to mechanized personalities who think nothing of the suffering they cause. Hannah Arendt coined the term “banality of evil” to describe Eichmann, but "asshole" is a short emotive term which is a better description of this type of murderous tyrant. Dickhead, doofus or dingbat are also excellent descriptions which are not really pejorative considering the target. In fact they're kind since there are worse things that can be said about Hitler or any of his pals. Great minds may think alike, but toxic mentalities all stink in their own ways. Hitler does, of course, occupy a particular subset due his Napoleonic height. He’s a short asshole. Short assholes happen to be particularly dangerous to the extent that they have a lifelong need to compensate for their size. Putin and Roy Cohn are both examples of short assholes. Both Hitler and Trump have signature hairdo's--Trump's, the blow dry used car salesman and Hitler, the pageboy. Would they have used the same hairdresser if they'd been contemporaries? Most people with moral values wouldn’t subscribe to the notion of ganging up on anyone, but imagine Trump, Stephen Miller, Jair Bolsanaro, Viktor Orban and Bashar al-Assad brought before something a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like the one's the South Africans created after Apartheid. In the meanwhile, pray that representative Jim Jordan and Senators Ron Johnson and Ted Cruz cab be sent to a rehab for jerks. Maybe if Trump goes to jail, someone will make him their bitch. It's hard to talk with something in your mouth. Oh yeah, let's not leave out that fat pig, Kim Jong-un who Trump once praised as "very talented."

Read Mark Snyder's review of Francis Levy's Seven Days in Rio in The Collagist


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