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Can we try to understand the current reality without falling back on historical examples like Nazi Germany as though a direct equivalency can be made between our lived realities now and the recorded observations of past events handed down to us? Historical comparisons are useful, but they become deleterious when they're used as shortcuts and thought-terminating clichés. History more plainly just tells how we got to now rather than what now is. Historical analysis can reveal actionable insights that could be applicable to the present, but that's where this double-edged sword can turn from a useful tool to a dangerous error.

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@MURRUMUR ??? who is "they"?? I'm not making a specific point about anything in particular (did my untimely post happen to be after some nazi discourse I had the good fortune to not see?) I was just talking about a general tendency of people to over-rely on historical comparisions to understand current events (to add: or to predict future outcomes, e.g. when people were pointing to Bush Jr. and Trump 1 for what to expect in Trump 2), which can result in getting mired in looking back at the expense of a more prescient focus on current conditions in the present era. Everyone does this to some degree. The degree of error varies, but in the worst cases (like the above example in parentheses), it becomes a thought-terminating cliché when it's used as a shortcut for skipping deeper contempory analysis. Not to say I've seen anyone here do that recently, but it does happen.