Mormon Tabernacle Choir singer quits over Trump inaugural.

[Thinking]

I don't know if this is going to blow up bigger than it should, but flames are being fanned.

Choir Member Quits

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Jan Chamberlin posted her resignation letter to choir leaders on her Facebook page Thursday. In it, she writes that by performing at the Jan. 20 inaugural, the 360-member choir will appear to be "endorsing tyranny and facism." She says she feels betrayed by the choir's decision to take part.

The Church is supporting the Choir.

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"The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has a great tradition of performing at the inaugurals of U.S. presidents," said Ron Jarrett, president of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. "Singing the music of America is one of the things we do best. We are honored to be able to serve our country by providing music for the inauguration of our next president."

Does she also feel betrayed by the Church's decision to support the Choir?

[Jeanne]

I can't imagine a greater honor than to be praised by Sen.Harry Reid. 

[bluebell]

There's a pretty heated thread in the main forum on this subject. 

[juliann]

Oh, for heaven's sake. Hitler? Really? Has this lady ever watched concentration camp news reels? Or does she just think it is cute to compare that to what probably won't be more than a 4 year term of a future president? I am so sick of the trivialization of other people's misery to make oneself look hip and enlightened. I liked this from Common Consent, https://bycommonconsent.com/2016/12/30/my-new-years-resolution-no-more-cheap-outrage/

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During 2017, I will not participating in the culture of cheap outrage by forwarding onto my social media feeds any articles with the purpose of humiliating, embarrassing, or otherwise ridiculing people or perspectives that I do not agree with. If I am outraged, I will learn what I am talking about and try to write something actually capable of persuading others to my point of view.

The label "outrage porn" fits well here.

[Nevo]

5 hours ago, juliann said:

Oh, for heaven's sake. Hitler? Really?

The comparison is overblown, to be sure. I don't think anyone seriously expects Trump to imprison political opponents or instigate genocide. And Hitler was a reader and had a definite ideology. So there are significant differences.

But some of the parallels are hard to miss:

Quote

Mr. Ullrich, like other biographers, provides vivid insight into some factors that helped turn a “Munich rabble-rouser” — regarded by many as a self-obsessed “clown” with a strangely “scattershot, impulsive style” — into “the lord and master of the German Reich.”

• Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who “only loved himself” — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a “characteristic fondness for superlatives.” His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But Mr. Ullrich underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a “keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people” and an ability to “instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.”
   
• Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a “bottomless mendacity” that would later be magnified by a slick propaganda machine that used the latest technology (radio, gramophone records, film) to spread his message. A former finance minister wrote that Hitler “was so thoroughly untruthful that he could no longer recognize the difference between lies and truth” and editors of one edition of “Mein Kampf” described it as a “swamp of lies, distortions, innuendoes, half-truths and real facts.”
   
• Hitler was an effective orator and actor, Mr. Ullrich reminds readers, adept at assuming various masks and feeding off the energy of his audiences. Although he concealed his anti-Semitism beneath a “mask of moderation” when trying to win the support of the socially liberal middle classes, he specialized in big, theatrical rallies staged with spectacular elements borrowed from the circus. Here, “Hitler adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist and anti-Semitic listeners,” Mr. Ullrich writes. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order.
   
• Hitler increasingly presented himself in messianic terms, promising “to lead Germany to a new era of national greatness,” though he was typically vague about his actual plans. He often harked back to a golden age for the country, Mr. Ullrich says, the better “to paint the present day in hues that were all the darker. Everywhere you looked now, there was only decline and decay.”
   
• Hitler’s repertoire of topics, Mr. Ullrich notes, was limited, and reading his speeches in retrospect, “it seems amazing that he attracted larger and larger audiences” with “repeated mantralike phrases” consisting largely of “accusations, vows of revenge and promises for the future.” But Hitler virtually wrote the modern playbook on demagoguery, arguing in “Mein Kampf” that propaganda must appeal to the emotions — not the reasoning powers — of the crowd. Its “purely intellectual level,” Hitler said, “will have to be that of the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.” Because the understanding of the masses “is feeble,” he went on, effective propaganda needed to be boiled down to a few slogans that should be “persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
   
• Hitler’s rise was not inevitable, in Mr. Ullrich’s opinion. There were numerous points at which his ascent might have been derailed, he contends; even as late as January 1933, “it would have been eminently possible to prevent his nomination as Reich chancellor.” He benefited from a “constellation of crises that he was able to exploit cleverly and unscrupulously” — in addition to economic woes and unemployment, there was an “erosion of the political center” and a growing resentment of the elites. The unwillingness of Germany’s political parties to compromise had contributed to a perception of government dysfunction, Mr. Ullrich suggests, and the belief of Hitler supporters that the country needed “a man of iron” who could shake things up. “Why not give the National Socialists a chance?” a prominent banker said of the Nazis. “They seem pretty gutsy to me.”
   
• Hitler’s ascension was aided and abetted by the naïveté of domestic adversaries who failed to appreciate his ruthlessness and tenacity, and by foreign statesmen who believed they could control his aggression. Early on, revulsion at Hitler’s style and appearance, Mr. Ullrich writes, led some critics to underestimate the man and his popularity, while others dismissed him as a celebrity, a repellent but fascinating “evening’s entertainment.” Politicians, for their part, suffered from the delusion that the dominance of traditional conservatives in the cabinet would neutralize the threat of Nazi abuse of power and “fence Hitler in.” “As far as Hitler’s long-term wishes were concerned,” Mr. Ullrich observes, “his conservative coalition partners believed either that he was not serious or that they could exert a moderating influence on him. In any case, they were severely mistaken.”
   
• Hitler, it became obvious, could not be tamed — he needed only five months to consolidate absolute power after becoming chancellor. “Non-National Socialist German states” were brought into line, Mr. Ullrich writes, “with pressure from the party grass roots combining effectively with pseudo-legal measures ordered by the Reich government.” Many Germans jumped on the Nazi bandwagon not out of political conviction but in hopes of improving their career opportunities, he argues, while fear kept others from speaking out against the persecution of the Jews. The independent press was banned or suppressed and books deemed “un-German” were burned. By March 1933, Hitler had made it clear, Mr. Ullrich says, “that his government was going to do away with all norms of separation of powers and the rule of law.”
   
• Hitler had a dark, Darwinian view of the world. And he would not only become, in Mr. Ullrich’s words, “a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism” growing in right-wing circles in the Weimar Republic, but also the avatar of what Thomas Mann identified as a turning away from reason and the fundamental principles of a civil society — namely, “liberty, equality, education, optimism and belief in progress.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/28/books/hitler-ascent-volker-ullrich.html

Trump may well turn out to be (relatively) harmless, but his rise is a disturbing development in American politics. When you see a damaged, mendacious, thin-skinned narcissist and demagogue with no governing experience, against all odds elected leader of a liberal democracy, it's only natural to think back to the experience of Europe in the 1930s.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Nevo

[Bobbieaware]

8 hours ago, Nevo said:

The comparison is overblown, to be sure. I don't think anyone seriously expects Trump to imprison political opponents or instigate genocide. And Hitler was a reader and had a definite ideology. So there are significant differences.

But some of the parallels are hard to miss:

Trump may well turn out to be (relatively) harmless, but his rise is a disturbing development in American politics. When you see a damaged, mendacious, thin-skinned narcissist and demagogue with no governing experience, against all odds elected leader of a liberal democracy, it's only natural to think back to the experience of Europe in the 1930s.

In other words, you probably believe there's a possibility Trump will eventually end up being a mass murderer because he's just like Hitler in every other possible way. So since Trump is a virtual clone of Hitler in every way, except for not yet perpetrating mass murder,  It may be just a matter of time till he shows his true stripes. By the way, while reading the good Mr Ulrich I thought Hill and Bill pretty much fit the bill as well.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Bobbieaware

[thesometimesaint]

Trump is a narcissistic sociopath, not a good combination with the most powerful position on the planet.

[Calm]

He probably isn't the first president to have those qualities.  Not having been in politics before, but in arenas that such qualities were seen as a plus in many ways (they make for 'good entertainment' in maybe people's views as can be seen by the number of shows that have centered on such a person), he hasn't needed to disguise them, so it is more obvious with him.

[juliann]

13 hours ago, Nevo said:

The comparison is overblown, to be sure. I don't think anyone seriously expects Trump to imprison political opponents or instigate genocide. And Hitler was a reader and had a definite ideology. So there are significant differences.

But some of the parallels are hard to miss:

 

Once the Hitler stuff is removed, it is so unfortunately generic it could describe almost all politicians. It is the  "I belong to a religion and you belong to a cult" defense with Hitler as the Satan those stupid cultists follow. That is the point of having to add Hitler to the mix. It isn't a compelling weapon without him.

And that is why I continue to be astounded by any defense of politics as we now know it. I only see a corrupt system that is so blindingly partisan, it is ok to be "like Hitler" as long as your guy is in the approved political party that is no different in tactics than the wrong political party.