Trump and Putin = Hitler and Stalin, 1930s

I've been thinking more about my realization earlier this week (I'm sure many others have thought the same) that Trump and Putin are reminiscent of Hitler and Stalin, in the 1930s.   Let's flesh this out.

Putin is not a Communist by name, but he rules his Russia in much the same way as Stalin ruled Russia in the 1930s - by murder and intimidation.   He has the same attitude as did Stalin about Russia being taken advantage of by the world, and the consequent need to stand up to that by any and all means possible.   Part of that was an alliance with Hitler and the Nazis in the late 1930s.   During that alliance, Stalin and Hitler invaded Poland, and Stalin forcibly annexed or attacked the Baltic states, Finland, and Romania.   The similarities to Putin in Crimea and Georgia, unopposed by Trump, are undeniable.

Trump is not (yet) Hitler, but he shows many disturbing tendencies of going in that direction.  He has contempt for the press - he calls it "fake news," just as Hitler labeled the press Lügenpress or "the lying press" - and prefers communicating directly to his people via Twitter, without the intervention of the press, just as Hitler did with radio.   Trump is inhumane to minorities and immigrants, and preaches an American purity similar to Hitler's Aryan superiority.  He has contempt for the democratic process, as did Hitler, and embraces dictators such as Putin, and the autocratic leaders of China, North Korea, and Turkey, just as Hitler did with Mussolini and Tojo.

Obviously, neither Trump nor Putin have committed anything like the mass atrocities and genocides Hitler and Stalin would do in the 1940s.   But by then, the two allies of the 1930s - sometimes suspicious of one another, but more than willing to sign a non-aggression pact in 1939 - had broken and were engaged in a fierce, all-out war.

Trump says he wants peace with Putin and Russia, which is good.   But people who value freedom and democracy and its necessary bulwarks like the press must do all in our power to make sure the two don't eradicate democracy, as Hitler and Stalin did in their countries in the 1930s, and soon tried to do with the rest of the world.

Da Vinci's Demons 2.2: Renaissance Radio

Radio had enormous influence on the world politics of the 1930s and 1940s, when it first became a device in many households in America and Europe.   As I detail in The Soft Edge, a radio broadcast from Adolf Hitler after a bomb put him the hospital in 1944 confirmed his leadership and kept him in power for almost another year.   Radio was also used by FDR, Churchill, and Stalin to rally their publics against Hitler, and, in FDR's case, to establish a direct relationship with the American people during the Great Depression.

Radio, of course, did not exist in the time of Leonardo Da Vinci, not even in his sketches, many of which were prescient about the future.  But radio played a major role in last night's Da Vinci's Demons 2.2, and worked perfectly as an instance of the historical science fiction in which the series really excels.   Much like Hitler, Lorenzo Medici is badly wounded (Lorenzo actually worse than Hitler). Much like Hitler, Lorenzo's tenure as leader is in dire jeopardy, because the populace is not even sure he's alive.  In Hitler's case, his Minister of Propaganda and Popular Enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels, went to his hospital room with a microphone and a hook-up to Germany's radio system, via which Hitler was able to assure the German people that he was ok and still in charge.  In Lorenzo's case, the genius Leonardo creates a radio system on the fly, via his understanding of acoustics, and Lorenzo uses it to assure the people of Florence and ratify his power.

Just to be clear, Lorenzo in both history and in Da Vinci's Demons has nothing else in common with Adolf Hitler.  To the contrary, Lorenzo was a benevolent despot, a classical Renaissance prince who brought his city and people much prosperity.  He actually helped maintain a measure of peace among the contentious Italian city states, and his reign is considered the high point of the golden age of Florence.

If the series moves to New World as it's been promising to do, I'll miss Lorenzo and Florence.  On the other hand, in real history, the real Lorenzo died in April 1492, so there's not much more of his story for Da Vinci's Demons to tell, if it wants to remain true to history.   In any case, the first two episodes of the second season have been outstanding, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Da Vinci's Demon's 2.1: Science Fiction v Fantasy

And see also Da Vinci's Demons:  History, Science, and Science Fiction ... Da Vinci's Demons 1.7: Leonardo Under Water with a Twist ... Da Vinci's Demons Season 1 Finale: History, Science Fiction, Time Travel

 
Interested in a story with a passing reference to Leonardo?   Try The Plot to Save Socrates ...

Why the Rolling Stone cover with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is Helpful

I was briefly on WCBS-TV Channel 2 news this evening, talking about why I thought the Rolling Stone cover with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was helpful.   Actually, I was interviewed for about 10 minutes, but as often happens with television, only a few words made it into the newscast, which you can see below.   Here's the gist of the rest of what I had to say -

We live in a world, unfortunately, in which human monsters come in many forms.   I say unfortunately, because sometimes the person next door, who looks like us, may be a monster.   This means that we may be especially unlikely to see the monster coming - and to avoid the awful harm that ensues.

The Rolling Stone cover - in addition to its well-researched, thoughtful article - makes this point very well.   The MySpace photo of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev shows what looks for all the world like what a kid his age wants to look like - try to look cool, trying to impress girls.   Blowing up innocent people at the Boston Marathon looks like it would be the last thing on his mind.  But that's what he apparently did, and that's why it's so important to call attention to this seeming disconnect between attractive image and deadly deed.

It's not as if magazines never put photos of terrible people on their covers.   Adolf Hitler was Time magazine's "Man of the Year" in 1938, followed in 1939 by Joseph Stalin.   Time put them there not because they were good or remotely admirable.  Time put them there because of the bad impact they were already having on their countries and the world.

The notion that Rolling Stone was trying to glorify Tsarnaev is about as logical as Time magazine was trying to glorify Hitler.   Rather, in both cases, the magazines were doing their job: bringing details of monsters to us, so we could better understand them, so we could perhaps recognize what they are in the future, before they commit their atrocities.