Salesmen

(More thoughts inspired by Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism)

Hitler's German exceptionalism was similar to Jeremiah Wright's Afrocentrism, which Wright preached for twenty years to the listening and admiring ears of Barack and Michelle Obama. Racial preferences and affirmative action for Germans were ideas Hitler could really get behind. Marxism "both fascinated and repulsed" Hitler, who became "utterly convinced that Marx was the architect of a Jewish plot. World War I led to the enthronement of Lenin in Russia, Mussolini in Italy, and Hitler in Germany." Fighting honorably for a German victory, Hitler was really pissed when "German Reds" demanded peace with Soviet communism. Hitler was in the hospital, recovering from a bout with temporary blindness, "when news of the armistice was announced." Goldberg writes that it was a "transformative event for Hitler," increasing his hatred for the democratic government of Germany, which surrendered. He felt German honor had been betrayed, and he developed a pathological anti-Semitism. His political career was launched."

Hitler resented German elites and particularly Jews, and he came to realize that many others in Germany and central Europe ("particularly Czechoslavakia") thought as he did. What he admired about Mussolini was his "salesmanship." (We have just witnessed Barack Obama doing a masterful job of selling Barack Obama in the election of 2008). Hitler realized he had a chance to become "National socialism's greatest salesman."