Purging the ranks, step one in any fascist takeover. Next, political opponents will be jailed.

Isn’t that also where they defeat Flash by making him drink piss and Batman has wild sex in the street with Huntress after almost killing a goon?

In the context of Germany, “liberal” means being for capitalism unbridled by the state but still generally progressive policies culturally, with more rights for minorities and such. The corresponding party is FDP. So in some ways it’s the exact opposite of the US idea of “liberal”.

Someone considered “left” would be for more social policies and government control of capitalism (traditionally SPD), extreme left would be following tenants of communism, opposed to the US and friendly with Russia (The party The Left and the new Sarah Wagenknecht party)

Someone considered conservative or “right” would be against social policies and try to reduce control of capitalism (CDU) extreme right would be plain fascists (AfD), ironically also aligned with Russia now.

The Greens are a special case, since they were originally a single issue party concerned with environmentalism, but since the SPD has largely vacated their social policies since Schröder was chancellor, they have become more and more the new “social” party.

There are also a huge number of smaller parties that are unable to reach more than five percent, which is necessary to be included in the govenmental body of the Bundestag. Most of those are single issue parties (there is even a beer party). The FDP has become so unpopular that it might also share that fate soon.

To come back to your original point, there were no “liberals” when Hitler was elected. There were conservatives, socialists and communists. The conservatives aligned themselves with the fascists and the socialists and communists were outlawed and thrown into jail/executed.

The word “liberals” means something else in Germany than in the US. The closes analogy would be Democrats=SPD and Republicans=CDU, which are the two biggest parties. When Hitler took over, the CDU fell in line while the SPD resisted. The SPD then was also a lot more leftist than it is now. It’s pretty much centrist now and only slightly more to the left than the conservative CDU.

Über die Hälfte der Amis können nicht richtig lesen, 20 Prozent gar nicht.

Die spielen halt jetzt für mindestens die nächsten vier Jahre ein Idiocracy LARP gekreuzt mit einer Hillbilly Version von Handmaid’s Tale.

Angesichts der konstanten Propaganda gegen die Grünen finde ich 26 Prozent eigentlich überraschend wenig.

At this point, George W. Bush would be an improvement. Hell, I’d even take a President Sarah Palin.

Any autocracy really. It’s not as if there aren’t any around right now.

Also social media algorithms supercharging confirmation bias.

I don’t think he expected to witness Greg Stillson for real.

That’s why this time the plan is to get rid of a health ministery before the next pandemic hits.

Great news for the faltering iron lung industry!

For everyone else, not so much.

Elect a monster. Get a freakshow.

Define criminals? Oh, you mean poor and non-white people.

I learned about it in school in the 90s. But that was in Germany.

This from the movie “The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare” by Guy Ritchie. Basically British Inglourious Basterds.

Which is fitting, since he’s a violent asshole and raging alcoholic.

Die Grünen haben zurzeit Rekord-Zuläufe an Mitgliedern.

Exactly. It offers easy answers to complicated questions especially attractive to people who are to dumb and/or tired to bother trying to understand complex reality.

Looking for blame in a vague “other” is also easier than to face your personal shortcomings. (“I’m not out of a job because I’m lazy, it’s those damn immigrants!” “The fact that my children hate me is not due to my shitty parenting, it’s liberal transgender brainwashing!”)

I guess you could also call it “they did nazi that coming”.