[marcinzm]

>It's amusing to think that people seriously believe there are huge swathes of people just ripe to become neo-nazis because someone gave a rousing speech or wrote some tweets - how do you manage not to succumb to these rhetorical titans?

Given that exactly this happened 90 years ago and caused the deaths of tens of millions, people are needless to say cautious.

[cbozeman]

You can't have Hitler without the Treaty of Versailles. He was just a catalyst to an incredibly punitive and emasculating treaty that scarred the psychology of the German people.

If it hadn't been Hitler, it would have eventually been someone else.

[macintux]

War, maybe. Genocide of the Jews? Seems less likely as an inevitability.

[brigandish]

I'm going to side with the interpretations of history that are a tad more complex than "he gave a rousing speech, hence, genocide", and there are plenty of them.

[l9k]

Yet you seem to side with the less complex interpretation of current event being "he gave a rousing speech"

[brigandish]

That's my opponent's position, not mine. When creating an opposing argument it's almost certain you will have to state their argument (in whole or in part) to produce a refutation.